G&D's Foray Into a 90G Tank (Take One)

[gridley]

We have made a bit more progress in the last few days. All the leaks have been resolved and we have our 70lbs of dry rock in the tank.



The next step is to add water, live rock and begin the curing process. We have decided to follow Myka's guide for this which includes having the skimmer up and running from day one. ttp://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=44859

We purchased our skimmer (Reef Life Support System R8-u) a while back and last night pulled it out of the box to assemble it. We quickly discovered that one fitting has messed up threads and the fitting to hook up the pump to the skimmer is missing. This morning we contacted RLSS and new parts are coming by Fed Ex. The folks at RLSS were very easy to work with.



So, while we wait for the parts to arrive, I plan to begin to work on a side cabinet that will house an ATO tank, some of the electrical and some storage space. So its off to the workshop this evening or tomorrow AM to start on a cabinet. I am willing to take any and all suggestions and recommendations on the electircal part of this cabinet. - Thanks

[gridley]

Wow - it has been a month since I lasted posted on here. Because of waiting for replacement parts for the skimmer, a trip for a conference and a busy schedule we have just now made some progress.

Last week we were able to add salt water to the tank! On Friday we bought 32 lbs of live rock to add to our 70 lbs of dry rock. We ended up putting some of the live rock in the sump as we didn't like the very full look of having everything in the DT.

Question: In order to properly seed the dry rock, do we need all the live rock in the DT?









We got the skimmer working, but it isn't doing much - not that I expected much at this point. Part of it might be that we really don't know what we are doing!

The next steps are to complete a side cabinet for the ATO and electrical stuff, and then to build a new canopy that will fit the Radions we bought.

I'm also looking for any advice on cycling the tank - people talk about ghost feeding the tank - now that we are at that place, what advice do you have for us?

Thanks!

[gridley]

While waiting the the tank to cycle, I have been working on a side cabinet that will contain the ATO tank, a bit of storage and the electrical stuff.

We have purchased an ELOS dIGITAL SYSTEM and managed to test it today - and we had one problem. After the pump shut off, the water started to siphone from the ATO tank into the sump . How do we prevent that?

Here are two pictures of the first part of the cabinet. The tank is on a shelf on slides (thanks Jason for the idea!).

[gregzz4]

Great little cabinet

Live rock is OK in the sump, it will still seed the DT. You may speed things up a bit with coralline if you scrape some of it into the DT

Get the ATO issue fixed ? I saw your other thread

[gridley]

Thanks re: the cabinet. I'm finding that making the cabinets is the easy part of the whole SW expereince .

I appreciate the advice on the ATO - I'll be doing "take two" on that tomorrow.

And thanks for the comment re: live rock in the sump / DT. We did put about half the live rock in the DT and half in the sump. I guess that the next step is to wait for the ammonia levels to get to zero.

[gregzz4]

Originally Posted by gridley

... I guess that the next step is to wait for the ammonia levels to get to zero ...

And if you don't want any algae issues, do weekly water changes until the nitrates and phosphates go away too
A Guide - Live rock; Curing & Cooking, and Tank Cycling

[gridley]

Thanks for the link. In the meantime I'll be working on getting the electical looking presentable, finishing my mixing station and designing / building something to mount the lights in.