.Marshall's Saltwater Experience (75g Display + 37g Frag) (1 Viewer)

[.Marshall]

Well the day has come, finally made some water worthy progress, and I couldn't be happier! :jester: Last night I brought my stand over to my new house and started getting things in place, this is where the stand will rest for now.

I also drilled the brute bucket and affixed the float valve, started making water, and figured I should take a picture.. I felt very accomplished getting to this point :agree: I added a picture of my RO/DI setup just for reference.

Setup my TEK T5 Lighting as well and plugged them in, SOO BRIGHT! lit up the entire room! I hope once there is water in the tank the Light pollution in the room wont be so extreme! But it looks awesome..

Thats it for today, expect more tomorrow. I teflon taped all the bulkhead threads, cemented some pvc, and got everything ready for tonights plumbing activites. Should have a good start on that by the time I call er' quits tonight, I do have so much more I SHOULD be doing on my new house like painting the living room and kitchen but this is so much more important to me lol.

 

[.Marshall]

I Had drill all weekend, missed the swap.. not happy about it but I did finish the plumbing, first plumbing task ever and it showed a little but I think it went pretty well!

Next up was aquascaping mock up and then acid washing the rock I decided on using. I plan on going for a very minimalistic aquascape and will eventually fill up with corals. Here is what I came up with, what do you think?

Now the Acid wash, I was VERY surprised how much brown scum came off the BRS Dry reef saver/pukani rock, extremely glad I acid washed it!

Girlfriend decided I need a picture.. Homemade shorts! Where's Bakes he would appreciate this photo!

Drying out the rock while I stain the Mini Stand, I am only using the rock up on the top cardboard, the other stuff (mostly pukani) will be used saved and used somewhere down the road, lets be honest, most likely on another build lol.

I didn't use much pukani, I REALLY like the reef-saver rock, Soooooo easy to work with and looks a lot nicer in my opinion

Stand for my Apex Lite + components, will also house my ATO reservoir.

And yes it will have a door!

 

[deneed4spd]

U might want to stack rocks higher. Sand will eat up some rock work.

 

[.Marshall]

I was contemplating that, what kind of glue can I use? Superglue?

 

[deneed4spd]

You dont really need glue, just restack the rocks higher. Glue really doesnt hold rocks that well. You need to get plumbers putty at HD. Or order some aquastix stuff from BRS or Dr Foster. They did give out $20 GCs to DF at the swap which you didnt attend. :frown:

Go to David's write up on aqua scaping at the top of our site. It shows you what you can use. If you end up with a goby also, they sometimes like to pile sand up high in one place eating up more rock. I have a goby that has taken my 2 inch sand bed and reallocated half of it to its den where its good 6 inches high.

 

[Samped]

ics:

 

[BashfulBacterium]

LOVING the tank so far! Personally I like the rockwork as is but then again.....look at my scapes lol

I have a shrimp/goby pair with a 4in sandbed? maybe? and they made these rolling hills through my tank. it's kind of cool though cause it almost looks like sand dunes and is like a natural aquascape.

Keep up the good work and hope to see more progress soon!:dance:

 

[.Marshall]

Going to B E D! Scape is complete and DT is about 2/3 full of water. The apex programming is complete (OMFG) trying to figure out that programming was the equivalent of smashing my head into a wall, kind of like this.. :brick:

Pictures tomorrow! GOODNIGHT

 

[.Marshall]

Had a rough morning so far, work up early to take the ro/di water that was made overnight, mixed the salt in, and started filling up the DT, sounds un-eventful right? WRONG! By this time when I was filling up the DT it was getting pretty close to the loc-line return and the overflow teeth, when I came back with a bucket of water to dump in the DT I heard water wooshing.. I almost died I thought the plumbing was leaking down the back of the aquarium, I put my hand back there and to my surprise nothing was wet but then I noticed an extremely noobish mistake I made in the plumbing.. the check valve was upside down! :swear:

I then proceeded to cut the check valve out, with no extra unions I had to run down to the hardware store in my pajamas and get a couple couplings to reverse the check valve. Problem fixed! But boy was I mad!! lol

Anyways the DT is filled up to the overflow teeth, I didn't want to fill it enough to let it overflow into the overflow box while I was away at work so i'm making another batch of ro/di as we speak and tonight water shall flow to the sump!

Here are some pictures of the final scape, first batch of water in, and the finished electrical/ATO box.

Sorry for the crappy cell phone pictures! once I get everything cleaned up around the tank I will start getting actual camera pictures!! Its a maze of tools and equipment scattered around the base of the tank right now!

 

[noeldokken]

I've made plenty of mistakes in the plumbing arena! Looking good so far !!!


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[.Marshall]

FINALLY, THE DAY HAS COME! FINALLY, THE DAY HAS COME! FINALLY, THE DAY HAS COME!

Needless to say I am pretty pumped about it, everything is up and running and very smoothly at that. I finally got the apex to work flawlessly on my wireless network, which took entirely too long.

But anyway enough talk, on to the pictures!!

I feel like a Canon DLR is in my future, the ol' point and shoot just wont cut it for fish/coral pictures I feel.

Start off with my first FTS! ..quite boring just hanging some raw shrimp to start my cycle.

Left side scape, on the right side of the rock there is a SWEET cave that goes a solid 3 inches vertical into the rock, whoever makes that cave his/her home will be the king of the castle.

Right Side scape, this is where most of the rock is, has a lot of nooks and crannies and a couple potential cool caves

And I will leave you with this.. Finished product, I think it turned out great! Exactly how I had envisioned!

THANK YOU ALL!! For helping me through everything, I am very excited to continue this build thread but except updating with coral and fish

 

[Reefer Sutherland]

You need something in the left 1/3, in the middle of the wall.

Maybe consider checking out marcorocks primecuts, or just if you have some extra liverock, cut it flat, and silicone it to the back wall, as a frag, fish perch. But looks awesome

 

[.Marshall]

You need something in the left 1/3, in the middle of the wall.

Maybe consider checking out marcorocks primecuts, or just if you have some extra liverock, cut it flat, and silicone it to the back wall, as a frag, fish perch. But looks awesome

Hmm you're kinda right.. I may take it out and mount some more dry rock on there, or else I could probably mount my tunze back there but I dont think it could point down the tank like I want it to. Decisions Decisions!

 

[irish02bk]

nice work, hope the shrimp help speed up the cycle

 

[Alunai]

Loving it! Totally agree about the rock for the back wall though! :agree:

 

[.Marshall]

Loving it! Totally agree about the rock for the back wall though! :agree:

Thank you!

 

[.Marshall]

Just tested the water again today, still no Ammonia, I can see some hairy carpet looking stuff growing on the non flow side of a rock and the raw shrimp is still intact.

Temp: 78.8
pH: 8.24
Salinity: 1.028
Phosphates: 0.10 ppm
Ammonia: 0.00 ppm
Nitrites: 0.00 ppm
Nitrates: 0.00 ppm

 

[.Marshall]

Cycling update, this thread is a nice little journal that will document, yet update my progress

Temp: 78.8
pH: 8.12
Salinity: 1.028
Phosphates: 0.08 ppm
Ammonia: 0.75 ppm
Nitrites: 0.00 ppm
Nitrates: 0.00 ppm

We have ammonia! :beerchug:

 

[ArstenA]

Your doing a great job on this build. Looks awesome without and live stock. Can't wait to see it with live stock!!

 

[BashfulBacterium]

Looking good so far, hurry up and cycle tank :greenguy: