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#1
06-04-2009, 08:37 PM
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First forays...
So, I was in Prince Albert yesterday and picked up a few (extremely overpriced) items at Petland.
Who knew they sold live rock?  I spent a lot of money for what I got, but it's a start.I picked up a bucket of Instant Ocean. Cost me 100 bucks. Ouch. I should have saved my money and had the H2Ocean Pro that I originally wanted shipped (it would have cost the same), but I was there, it was there... ya know.  I wanted to get started anyhow.I paid $50 for a 20 lb bag of Seachem Tidal Aragonite. Nice looking sand, dead, but nice. I also bought around 2.7 kg of live rock (at $19.78 a kg). Not overly nice live rock, but decent shapes and they will make for a good base. There is some purple coralline growth on both of them (not on the side that I chose to show of course), and I ended up with a hitchhiker blue hermit of some kind. Tiny little guy, I noticed his shell in the leftover water from the rock. So I emptied the tetra tank (they moved into an old 15 gallon I had kicking about), cleaned it, and added distilled water, salt, a HOB filter (150 gph), and a Rio pump that's meant for a skimmer but helped mix the salt. I haven't added the substrate because I haven't decided if this tank is temporary or not. I may use this as my contest tank, and take more time to build the custom tank I've been planning for past couple months... I have issues with the design of that system. Anyhow, a pic now that the water has cleared... excuse the ghetto cover and the lack of decent lights. The Rio has been removed and replaced with a second HOB filter, for around 25x turnover (conservative estimate). 
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Calvin --- Planning a 29 gallon mixed reef... 
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#2
06-05-2009, 06:11 AM
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Ouch, those are some steep prices!!!
 Nice shaped rock though. Don't worry about buying "dead" sand, as the "live" stuff in the bag is essentially dead as well, just a well marketed scheme if you ask me.
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#5
06-05-2009, 04:36 PM
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Yeah the rock wasn't a bad price. Just everything else
 And there is no life on the rock either. Just rock, bacteria, and some purple coralline.I have added substrate and rescaped a little. It's a good thing I picked the pieces of rock that I got, when stacked you can't tell there is more than one piece... 
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Calvin --- Planning a 29 gallon mixed reef...
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#6
06-05-2009, 04:57 PM
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If you're wanting more rock I will have some for sale soon here if you're down in the Saskatoon area, and I will sell it to you for a lot less than $10/lb and most of it has lots of life and color.
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#8
06-05-2009, 06:44 PM
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Quote:
Quote:
 Now I need decent lights, twin T8s won't cut it at all.While doing this all I've been testing. Adding the substrate seemed to raise the pH to 8.4 from 8.2 yesterday. While I can't explain that, pH is back down to 8.2 today. Ammonia has been 0 throughout, 0 nitrite, yesterday nitrates were 5 ppm, today I have the same or slightly less. So I think the tank has had a sort of mini-cycle.
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Calvin --- Planning a 29 gallon mixed reef... Last edited by BlueAbyss; 06-05-2009 at 07:01 PM.
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#9
06-05-2009, 07:23 PM
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Quote:
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#10
06-06-2009, 01:40 AM
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looks good! i think the scape would look good with a branch/overhang coming off the right of the rock pile.
for example (these are just rough drawings to help express what im saying)  oor  Last edited by karazy; 06-06-2009 at 01:49 AM.
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