OK, I'm off to the races.
My tank has cycled in just about the same time it would have taken with a shrimp or nitrying bacteria, and I can giggle and tell everyone I am the creator when they come by.
I've been setting up the equipment room more since I was able to head over to the mainland and pick up some shelves, setup my water change tank along with some digital timers, all probes calibrated and I'm sitting at 3 nitrates, 0 ammonia, pH at 8.3. Mag 1320, Calcium 450, and Alk 11.
I attempted to do some aquascaping, spent a few nights going back at it after creating massive sand storms, eventually just settled on what the picture above gives. I've dove enough reefs to know that it's not perfect and I'm kinda sticking with that.
I had a business trip this week and ended up stateside but before I returned to the island I stopped by and picked up some frags from a canreefer, came back with 4 different zoa's, some pom pom xenia, some gsp, and a finger leather. All easy and hardy stuff on a very fresh tank. I'm holding off until September until I go deeper (!) down the hole as I want to make sure that the tank is stable..
The only thing that I am struggling with at this time is my skimmer. It's a Bubble Magus Curve 9 Plus and I've had it running for over a week and it still hasn't stopped overflowing. I 3d printed a couple mounts for it to get it at the 9.5" water level mark, still overflow city. I printed a different set to get it to 7 inches, no change. I may have to pull this thing out and make sure I've got it put together properly, but really, its a skimmer, they are pretty textbook.
I also met another Canreefer and picked up a mated pair of Ocellaris Clowns, a Green Chromis, and a Pajama Cardinal. The Cardinal is a monster, and they are doing quite well after being introduced to the tank late last night. Who can resist a trip to the mainland without stopping at JL and I picked up a cleanup crew focusing more so on snails as crabs can be little buggers, and also walked out with a lawnmower blenny and a Neon Goby. I had hoped to pick up 20 Chromis but they were out of stock.
My wife had never seen fish before like this, and stared at the tank this morning, and said are you going to get more? So I get her in the car and headed up to the LFS and picked up 2 Bangaii Cardinals that have been sitting there for 3 months, and a Royal Gramma. Everyone is sizing each other up, realizing there is lots of space and happily just moving about.
I need to find some people in my area with frags, or macroalgae.