And Its In!

Last week was a great week.  I finally got the tank into the house, the aquascaping done, and the water in!

Here's how it went:

I ordered a 50lb box of rocks from Marcorock.com  as well as a 5lb cement kit from the same site.  (Fedex guy was upset when I told him it was actually a box of rocks he was carrying) Then came the planning of what I wanted to actually create.  I separated the tank into three sections and put a structure in each section.

Section 1 is the side with the overflow corner.  I wanted a big old cave on top of three pillars.  So I mixed up some cement with Kris, and we set out piece by piece putting rubble rock in a circle until we came up with a cave.

Section 2 is the middle of the tank.  I wanted a lot of open swimming area here.  So I kept my ideas low to mid level in the tank and decided I didn't really want a structure there after all.  So it ended up being a arch between the two larger structures.  (Which was added afterwards with a piece of live rock from the 55)

Section 3 was the right side of the tank.  I had absolutely no ideas for this side.  After my brilliant cave on pillars idea, I was fresh out.  I turned this side over to my girlfriend, Amber, and told her to just put something she liked there.

And without further ado:

Still have to put the doors on, secure the closed loop pump behind the stand, redo the light, put up the light arms, and fill this sucker!  I'm on day 5 of the cycle so far.  On day 1 while filling I did a 10 gallon water change upstairs in the 55, and poured that water right in here to give it a nice jump of bacteria.  Then a couple good sized pieces of live rock were stuck in to keep it going.  My nitrates are testing at 20ppm today and my ammonia is back down to .25.  Another week, and fish will move over into this guy.  

I see a couple places where diatoms have bloomed, but since I don't have a light, or any phosphates, they don't grow all that fast.

The light plan is pretty interesting.  Currently, I have a Coralife Aqualight Pro fixture.  That means there are 2, 250watt Metal Halide bulbs and 2, 36" power compact bulbs.  What I'm going to be doing is removing the power compacts, and replacing them with 4, 36" T5HO bulbs.  This gives me more choices of colors, and spectrums, and saves me some money and hassle finding the power compact bulbs vs the T5s.  Hopefully that will be done in the next two weeks, and I can get the light up on the tank.  I am hesitant to put the fish in there with no light, simply because I don't want to.

Stay tuned for more updates.