Magic Kiwi's Tank Journal Thread

[Magickiwi]

Wow! Sick as a dog again this weekend but for some reason I couldn’t just sit and stare at an empty tank during my misery. I managed to set up the entire tank on Friday night and almost the entire day Saturday in between vomiting and napping.
Friday night:
- Completed rockwork and placed it in the aquarium on white egg crate (matches the sand better than the black)
- Installed heater in display tank (There wasn’t enough room in my sump with my very large circulation pump and small reactor pump)
- Heater controller was installed in cabinet
- Installed UV sterilizer in cabinet
- Installed dual media reactor in cabinet
Saturday:
- Ran plumbing for main sump, return pump (Quiet 6000), UV sterilizer, media reactor (Ehiem Universal 600)
- Installed media in reactor chambers (.8 Carbon in chamber 1, Phosban in reactor 2)
- Purigen and Coppersorb in sump
- Installed protein skimmer (HOB style, not as pretty but couldn’t fit one in sump)
- Mixed water and pumped into tank
- Pressure tested all plumbing, fixed one small drip on return but touch wood it all seems to be tight
- Started circulation pumps
- Started protein skimmer
- Started heater (500w heater brought water to temp overnight)
Sunday:
- Half dead by this time
- Tested water in the AM and ammonia=0, nitrite=0, nitrate=0, phosphate= not measurable by test kit
- Went to Gold’s looking for live rock but they didn’t have any pieces that were interesting to me so I went to Pieces and bough 20lbs of very well shaped rock with at least some coralline and remnants of leather corals, sponges, etc with the hope that some may come back
- Placed rock in tank
- Installed HQI bulbs in fixture and holy hell they are bright as the sun


Once again everything was done as a sprint so naturally the setup process has NO pictures. OCD > Me... This morning I did find a nice blue sponge that is attached to the LR I bought. Hopefully it survives

[Dearth]

Sounds like you had a very productive weekend despite the fact you you were busy trying to see your insides


When your done dying how about posting some pictures so we can ohh and ahh

[Magickiwi]

Originally Posted by Dearth

Sounds like you had a very productive weekend despite the fact you you were busy trying to see your insides


When your done dying how about posting some pictures so we can ohh and ahh

I thought I was going to see my shoelaces if I kept it up...

Will post a picture as soon as I can figure out how to share from Google+. The first one was a fluke lol.

[Magickiwi]

As promised here is one crappy camera phone picture. You can't see my DSLR off to the right side on a tripod. Will be looking forward to working my macro lens

Yes I do know the rock work looks like crap but I was TRYING for a natural reef look while maintaining lots of ledges, cracks, tunnels etc. More reminiscent of my recent trip to PVR. The two pieces on the far right are actually for my daughter's tank and will be removed in a few weeks.

Oh yeah, and you can see one of my dog's bum in this picture. He's just shaking his booty for you.

[michika]

Congrats on your second photo linking fluke! It looks good. Whats in the back left? A little bit glow-y in the corner?

Tell your dog he? she? needs a cameo from the front end.

[Dearth]

It's looking good

[Magickiwi]

Originally Posted by michika

Congrats on your second photo linking fluke! It looks good. Whats in the back left? A little bit glow-y in the corner?

Tell your dog he? she? needs a cameo from the front end.

Thanks, the photo sharing went a bit better than I was expecting.

The pink glowing stuff is actually fluorescent whiteboard marker. With just the actinics going it really pops! So I wrote the starting tank parameters on the side.

Dog is a he, I have two male standard poodles that are my boys. I think we can arrange a photo-op with the two of them and my tank

[Magickiwi]

OK so last night I installed the ATO unit. So far it seems to be working well at trying to keep my sump at a constant level. Although the water level in reservoir seems to be dropping more rapidly than I expected. Still some fine tuning to do with the return pump as it seems to empty the sump faster than the overflow box can fill it.

Salinity is in line now. After I added the live rock from Pieces the salinity went through the roof. Temps are great, despite the basement being very cool.

The protein skimmer is still breaking in so there is a TON of micro-bubbles being released into the display tank. Fingers crossed that will calm down in a couple days.

[Magickiwi]

Measured most tank parameters last night:

Ammonia= undetectable
Nitrates= undetectable
Nitrites= undetectable
Phosphates= undetectable
pH= 8.1
Salinity= 52.8mS
Temp= 81deg
Calcium >400 (crappy test, will use my colorometer tonight to measure)
Alk test kit was a piece of junk, will use colorometer tonight to measure.

I'm starting to see a couple little purple corals, not sure what they are. There appears to be a couple orange sponges gaining mass. Near the output from my MP40 there's a few tiny things that look like hairs with tentacles extending from the very tip. Could be aptasia but I'm pretty sure they aren't. Just not sure what they are.

Going to add a zoa frag this weekend and see how it does. I know it's too early but I've been dosing with Seachem's stability and there just doesn't seem to be any waste material in the water column. The skimmer is producing foam but it's not dark, more of an ivory color.

With these params do you think I'm jumping the gun?

[reefwars]

if you want a free tester zoa frag to try out pm me and if you want to swing by this weekend you can come grab one to try out im in the se near 17th