It's so on now - 72g Reef build

[neilanh]

Status:

When i got up this morning the water was touching the bottom of the overflow box. I'm trying to figure out how deep to let it get before I put the rocks in, so I think I'm gonna just stop it when I get home tonight and mix in the salt and get the rocks in. In parallel I'll be making water into a bucket to mix to fillup the rest of the tank and the sump.

24 hours of mixing time is sufficient before putting the rock in?

 

[cooltop]

Well I dont how much space the rocks will take but I had to remove 5 gallons of water to take the place of the 80lbs of sand when I put it in.

 

[Ziggy953]

If your sump and fuge are empty right now you should be ok when you get home. I would let the salt mix over night before putting the rock in.

 

[SparKy697]

Imagine if all I had to do is wait around for your updates... Life would be pretty boring.

 

[neilanh]

Well, at least you're not waiting on Fedex to deliver your acrylic for your new project.

Oh, wait...

Doing lots of stuff tonight, details later...

 

[SparKy697]

Sigh.....

 

[neilanh]

Well, I had big plans for tonight, but my annual duties took longer than anticipated, so here's all you get.

Completed sump.

 

[SparKy697]

Looking good!

That is some of the finest acrylic work I have ever seen!

 

[Ziggy953]

Excellent!

 

[Tank2379]

Hey were is that WebCam!!!????

 

[neilanh]

That is some of the finest acrylic work I have ever seen!

Agreed.

Hey were is that WebCam!!!????

Good question, I've yet to stumble accross it.

 

[neilanh]

I hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas today! Our was really good. Kids, believe it or not, didn't get up until 7:30! I was sure we'd all be up at 5am opening presents. Had a great morning opening gifts, and playing with all the new toys and just hanging out. This afternoon afforded me some time to play with my stuff

3 rescapes on the rock - take it all out, put it all in, repeat x3. I'm finally somewhat almost satisfied with it - lol.

And here's a shot with no flash on the camera, only because I thought it was cool the 125 planted reflected in the glass so well.

After the rock redecorating party, I finished up the sump plumbing, and started filling 'er up. It's now online and going pretty well. 1 small issue that I'll need to take care of at some point, but not today. The fuge is yet to be plumbed in, mainly just because I didn't have enough water to fill it, I knew that, so I didn't even bother with it. That'll be one of tomorrow's projects.

Some pics from underneath.

The skimmer almost immediately went nuts. That's fun to see (for now, I'm sure that will change) as when it was running in the curing can it ran so long that everything had come out or settled so it wasn't doing anything in the last few weeks.

Tomorrows plans: plumb up the fuge and work on the wiring/lighting in the canopy.

Thoughts?

 

[neilanh]

Did my first suite of water tests. Man, I can't even remember the last time I used a test kit on one of my tanks was. lol

Everything seems reasonable to me. What's the "normal" unit for talking about Alk? Below is in ppm.


Temp 82
sg 1.024
pH 8.3
Ammo 0
NO2 0
NO3 10
Alk 175
Ca 440
PO4 0.5
KH 10°

 

[Jimbo7]

I could be wrong but i think any detectable po4 is bad news. You might consider getting a little media so soak that up before it transforms into a whole lot of algae.

 

[neilanh]

Agreed, but since I'm not running any lighting yet I don't think it'll be an issue. It may actually help the cycle proceed, some believe.

I have phosban on standby if it's needed

 

[Ziggy953]

Looks pretty good!!!

Jimbo is correct on the phosphate, though right now it isn't an issue. It will become a problem in short order though. Test your source water and see what you get.

 

[marchmaxima]

Belated Merry Christmas Neilanh. Glad the kids gave you a small sleep-in.

I'm digging the rock scape. Looking forward to seeing the lights.

 

[neilanh]

Thanks Sharon!

Not a lot of movement here, not going to get to the lights today, but I have free time tomorrow afternoon.

I did, however, get the fuge up and running finally.

And put some rubble in the tower

and I don't know what I was looking at when I took this shot, but here it is anyway

 

[ryshark]

Looking good! I just finished the plumbing on mine today and now that I have finished, it is fun to look at other peoples plumbing. Did you get those ball shut-off fittings from Lowes? They look the same as mine My plubming ended up being a big mixture of Home Deopot and Lowes and even an online pvc company.
I look forward to seeing your lights up and running tomorrow.

 

[neilanh]

You guessed it, Lowes. Mines a mix of Lowes and HD. Lowes is near my work, and I prefer their plumbing section, but HD is right accross the street, so it was used for those "Oh dangit, I forgot ________" moments. Which, I'm sorry to say, there were a lot of. haha