Finally got my tank started up

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Ratrik13

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Feb 2, 2009
Messages
71
Location
Alaska
I finally got my 65 (36x18x24) up and running. Everything seems to be going well... never been so excited to see brown algae spots growing in a tank. Most of the rock is from Marcorocks with about 2lbs of rubble the LFS had to get my cycle kick started until they could put in an order for my actual liverock. Anyway, here's a pic of my temp scape, may change drastically in a week or two if my LR gets here.

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Oh, the large pieces on the left and right both have shallow caves under them and a few of the pieces have really cool holes in them. I can't wait to see what moves into them when i get it stocked.
 
Funny thing is that the top part of the arch is actually a single piece. When i got it, it was a really nice triangular piece that was instantly my fave. I was going to use for a peak in one of the corners until i dropped it while playing with a dry fit of the scape in my living room. Was one of those slow motion moments of horror as i watched it fall off the table and hit the floor with a sickening crunch. Luckily, when i picked it up, it had only taken a chunk out of the bottom of one side forming it into a really nice looking arching shape.
 
Update

Finally got my live rock and live sand in so I figured I would post a pic of my new aquascape. I may tweak it a bit more, but I think I'm pretty happy for now. Is it just me or has Fiji LR really gone down hill in quality? Only other rock I might add is some more small branch rubble if I can find it.

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Wow. I really really like your tank and aquascaping. It looks so awesome.
 
Yeah please!! I want to see alot of pictures from this tank!! It totally has great potential.
 
Week 4

Not much has changed. I took the strainers off my powerheads cause I wasn't really happy with the flow. woke up the next morning to find a lovely crater in the middle of my tank where the streams intersected and apparently plunged straight down. It actually made me laugh so hard my wife wanted to know what was wrong... I just had to look at her and say "I crossed the streams!" Thankfully she got the Ghostbusters ref and joined me in laughing at my crater. I adjusted the powerheads and tried to back fill the crater, but didn't do that great of a job so now i have a dune in the middle of my tank. Other than that, the only other change has been to remove the surface skimmer box from my protien skimmer because i think my pump is to powerful for it since that side of the skimmer wouldn't skim at all. I'll probably put it back mounted a lot lower or try to mod it to increase the amount of spill over since it actually did help get all the gunk off the surface of the water.
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I've been doing my testing on Sundays and Wednesdays since it works best with my work schedule.
Current Readings as of the 26th were:
pH 8.4 (pH and Alk have been very stable)
Alk approx 2.00 milli equaivants per liter (not exactly sure how to interpret this, but the kit says natural seawater is about 2.5)
Ammonia 0.25ppm
Nitrite 0.05ppm
Nitrate (I don't test for nitrate yet as i've heard that nitrites can mess up the readings)
Salinity 1.024
Will try to update this later today when I do my Wednesday test followed by my LFS double check.
 
It really does, i want to have something like that except like a larger version since i have a 55G. But honestly, i love that aquascaping. Extremely nice. You did a wonderful job. I really cant wait to see this tank progress.
 
like everyone else has said. looks really unique. and as someone else mentioned, the arch looks amazing. cant wait to see what it looks like as a finished product
 
Just got back from the LFS, had them double check my readings:
pH both said about 8.4-8.5
Alk still around 2.00 milli equiv per liter, LFS couldn't test as theirs had expired since it's not a normal test they run.
Ammonia - both tests said less than 0.25, closer to the zero color than to the 0.25 but we decided to err on the side of caution.
Nitrite mine said it was about 0.05, theirs said 0
Nitrate their kit said 0, I still haven't tested for this because I was lazy and didn't wanna clean the test tubes twice. Figure my cheato ;-) and the other algae might be chewing it up as fast as it's made though.
Salinity my refractometer said 1.024, theirs said 1.025... but i just added top off water so i should probably go check that again in a bit...

Funny part is now the main saltwater guy and the owner are almost as excited as I am cause we can finally start ordering fish for me. Keep in mind, I live in Alaska so their current stock is pretty limited (oddly it tends to be flashy questionably-hardy fish like moorish idols and such) and they only do orders every two to four weeks. So it will probably be another month or so before i get my first fish... and even then, i plan to QT it for a month.

Also went by the hardware store. :twisted: Got some pieces i needed for the fuge I'm making. I hope it works, i'm making it out of one of thouse old cheapo plastic 5gal desktop tanks you find for sale at like walmart. I plan to drill the back and instal a pair of 3/4ths inch bulkheads for the input and output. It will be fed from the main display by a minijet 606 and then gravity feed back into the display since I just happen to have a really nice cabinet next to my aquarium thats about 6 inchs or so taller than my tank and it should hold the weight of a little fiver easy. To light it, I got a Model: 1147TR - Sun Light Desk Lamp. I also picked up some 20gal brute trash cans and their coasters for use in mixing extra saltwater.
 
8/4/09

Time for the weekly picture update. Not much has changed other than me playing around with my powerheads a bit. I got tired of dealing with the shifting sand dune and I noticed it was serving as a make shift ramp for the current to blow sand up and onto some of the higher rock shelves. I was considering getting an Ocean Pulse Wavemaker, but as I played around I pointed both powerheads at each other which caused some really weird/cool surging flows that are also interacting with the output from the skimmer.

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Oh, and an angled view so you can see the cave that's under the arch.

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Oh, and I haven't added any coral, I just plundered the frag tank at my LFS for skeletons of corals they had that didn't make it. Tomorrow I'm going to pick up the tube worm they've been holding for me as a kind of test animal.

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Seriously, i love your tank. What kind of live rock do you have in there. I may have asked this question already but oh well. Is it tonga?
 
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