Ward's Island Reef

[Slyguy00]

Looks like it's gonna be a sweet build

[Fesso]

here's some pics of the stand.







That is my waterline coming out of the wall. My RODI will be in the stand. It will be a manual operation, I am not plumbing it directly into the sump. I have 2 x16G Tall aquariums, one for mixing saltwater and the other for ATO. The ATO tank will double as the quarantine tank when needed and be replaced with a 5 Gallon bucket for those times. The idea is to have everything from making and mixing water and waterchanges to happen in the stand. I even have a drain line in the wall that goes under then out the side of the house into the bush.

[Fesso]

Here you can see the tank on the stand in the middle of chaos!

My ATO tank and my saltwater mixing tank are currently housing the livestock from my last tank... most of it is surviving.... for now...

I got my lights hung last night, I still need to tune up the rigging a bit.


Customary kid in the tank photo before filling:

[Fesso]

So after several plumbing setbacks the tank is wet, the sump and skimmer are online and the salinity and temp are stable. I have'nt checked other parameters.

This is not the final aquascape, the right side is pretty much done though.

[Fesso]

Alright, here we are, all caught up. I actually have put my livestock in a couple of days ago. Things are looking good. I haven't done the FINAL aquascape or permanently placed any corals yet as I want to look at it a while before I make those decisions and move things around until I am satisfied. I am loving it though and am really happy with the way it's coming together.
I took some measurements and I have a few questions. This is copied from a separate thread that I started, if you are following along and have any suggestions or answers please answer here.

My Parameters are all kinda low for NSW.
Calcium - 330
Alk - 7.7
Mag - 900

Not sure what's going on with those numbers. The salt was mixed in the tank(empty) 10 days ago and I added the rock a week ago.... corals a couple days ago.
Could it be that the Reef Crystals was a "bad" batch? I did have a fair amount of sediment after mixing the salt. I assume calcium precipitation, but it wasn't too drastic...

I have a GEO 612 Calcium Reactor, I still need to clean it and get the tank filled. Should I be in a rush?

Anyway here's my question. How fast should I get the calcium reactor online. Do I need to bring my levels up a little before bringing it online like I would before using kalk? First time calcium reactor user... long time wanter.... Any tips?

Thanks

[Skimmerking]

looking good bro

[monza]

Looking good far, nice ferry trip with a tank, that's amazing! Ward Island looks like a pretty interesting place to live, your post is the first I've heard of it.

[Fesso]

Ward's Island is the Eastern part of Toronto Island which is located a 10 minute Ferry ride from downtown Toronto.

There are about 300 houses left on the island, the community fought really hard to keep their homes during the 1980's and succeeded in saving the community. Strict legislation was set up along with a Land Trust to ensure that the community remains economically diverse. The houses are not sold on the open market but to a purchasers list and the houses are sold at their assessed value not market value. We bought the house and we have a 99 year lease for the land the house sits on. If we were to sell we have to sell it back to the Land Trust and then it would go too the purchasers list for sale. The list is chronologically ranked. There is no way to sell your spot or buy your way up the list which keeps things fair. It took my wife being on the list for 20 years to buy this house. We live on the waterfront, on a beach, downtown Toronto which we would never ever be able to afford.... we are pretty lucky!
Here's the view from our from gate:

Here's the wiki for Toronto Island if your interested, it's pretty damn cool!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_Islands

[Fesso]

The tank is doing great, I still need to fix up the rockwork on the left side and place corals. Things are slowly finding homes and being glued down.







I brought the GFO reactor online yesterday. I still need to hook up my calcium reactor.