28G Nano LED Interm: Let the Build Begin

[tlkng1]

What an adventure to date. I already have a 14 BC running but decided I couldn't stand only two fish and I wanted to play with more coral..sooooooooo I bought a 28G NC LED and then a couple of weeks later won a second one in a raffle. That is a raise of 42 galllons .

I've been building up live rock to "cook" for a few weeks and had about 70 pounds on hand already (including what is in the 14) but Live Aquaria had this sale of 25lbs of fully cured aquacultered Nano live rock. I ordered that figuring I can sell off or barter for credit at the LFS of any rock I don't use. The rock from LA is nice..the pieces are small but there are a lot of nice flat pieces which will make nice ledges and other smaller, rounder pieces that I am planning on gluing together to make some arches. The rock is covered in purple coralline.

I had to laugh at the packaging. When I ordered LA's regular Nano liverock, they packaged it in two plastic bags and had a single piece of wet , make that damp, newspaper tossed over the top. The box I got today had the rock covered in at least a half dozen wet, and I do mean dripping, brown craft paper sheets and inside a plastic bag. Then, that bag was put in another bag, and that one in another....there were SIX bags total.

The other half of this adventure was that I went to set up the other tank to help with the liverock load and found out the tank is leaking. Never a dull moment.

I plan on working some aquascaping this weekend, or as much as I can without the other tank to set and in between working on a graduate midterm...in finance. What finances????

I'll update this with a pic of the new stuff once the tank clears a little more..it got a little cloudy when I was putting in the new liverock. Nothing much to look at right now as stuff is just in a pile until I get time this weekend.

[tlkng1]

Pics of the new rock. The purple colored rock is the new stuff from Live Aquaria. The more brown rock is other rock I had picked up. One of those rocks has a good amount of polyps and another piece has a hairy mushroom

I got an idea for aquascaping from the clouds no less. I was in a very boring meeting and happened to glance out the window. It was overcast today but there was a formation that immediately made me think the "picture" would work in the tank. A "cave" in either corner with a short and wide pillar of sorts between them; the pillar having a flat top. Problem is it won't be large enough but it is a start

[tlkng1]

The replacement tank arrived from JBJ. It took me an hour to unwrap it, but then I was trying to save all of the wrapping, another thirty minutes to corale all the peanuts and still another hour to wrap the tank that was leaking and pack it to go back to JBL. Still, they got back all of their bubble wrap plus every single one of their styrofoam peanuts...well, except for the one my cat stole to use as a toy.

The two tanks that have the new liverock have both cycled so all I have to do is my set-up. I do have some Aiptasia to hunt in one tank so that will be first as I don't want to use any of the liverock from there until I am pretty confident I have hit all of the little devils. Going the easy route this time and using Aiptasia-X instead of the Kalk variety.

In the meantime, the Blenny is completely well again, no more bloated belly. I added carbon last night and all of the yellow tinge from the Maracyn-Two is completely gone. I will do a good water change now and then I think I am going to wait and put him and his clown companion directly into one of the bigger tanks rather than add them to the 14 BC first only to move them again later.