Here's a back view of the tank (sumpless at this time) and the tek light!
You'll notice that the tank came drilled, but with no overflows. Being quite Naive to plumbing issues (and as I mentioned earlier, I have a particularly hard head) I thought that installing a sump was going to be as simple as running a hose from the hole to a rubbermaid and pumping it back in. So, I ran out bought a pump and threw it all together... unfortunately I don't have a picture of that mickey mouse setup or my wifes face at the noises that that ungainly contraption made! The water would rise until it covered the bulkhead completely and then siphon right out with an awesome toilet flushing sound, then start all over again. It was a complete disaster and only now, almost a year later do I feel comfortable writing anonymously about it!
Here's a half decent shot of the finished front side of the tank and accompanying living room
At this point, my livestock waiting in the 10 gallon consisted of 2 false perc's, a toadstool, a frag of zoa's and a green star polyp frag. All sitting there with about 20lbs of LR. I had an additional 15 or so pounds curing in a rubbermaid. So, with the tank in the wall, a light hanging above it, it was time to start thinking about moving everything over.
The picture quality is terrible in this next one, it's not really the water or glass... it's the camera and photographer. But it gives an idea of how barren and empty the tank was when I started out. 35lbs of rock and I was down to 1 clown (had a jumper). When I put them in, they didn't quite know what to do with all the space!
The brown stuff all over the rocks was some wierd filimantous algae, never did find out what it was but it went away.
A few weeks went by and I got a little more rock and a better picture!
Had one heck of a bryopsis problem starting here, I should've nipped it in the butt right then and there but... didn't. Still no sump or skimmer at this point, but the idea was starting to gnaw on me... Christmas vacation, we left for a couple of weeks leaving the tank in hands even less capable than my own. Came back to green water and the clown I had bought to replace suicide pete was floating around on the top. Not a good way to end the holidays.
Next purchase for the tank was a tunze 9010 skimmer, looked at all sorts of skimmers at all sorts of prices and decided the tunze was the way to go. I'm still happy with that particular decision. The tank never looked as bad in person as it does in all these picks, or maybe I was less picky...