fishlette
Fish Addict
well after much research followed by hours of work, my tank is now full and nicely stacked with live rock 
ive posted a bunch of pics although the ones with LR are on the other computer so i will have to add those later. also i can try and get some pics of the hitchikers that came in my rock theres heaps lol
this is the tank before i filled it. i took it to an aquarium place and had the holes cut out of the big tank and one for the sump. i also had a divider added for a clean section for the return pump. i still need to add some extra filtration in there somewhere but the return is doing 4200lph plus i have another 3000lph hidden in the tank and so far its doing well
i decided on a do it yourself/add as you learn sump so i can actually learn how these things work properly by experience rather than just getting something cause it works but i have no idea how or why lol the guy made a huge mess cutting the holes and when i got home i had to re clean the tank and remove the shards of glass 
i was paranoid about leaving glass in there so i cleaned it for ages lol same as the sump. there was the liquid stuff they use when they are drilling holes dried up all over the tank so i had to scrub that too. took us all day but finally i had a light, a sump, some live (bloody expensive) sand, a return pump, some crushed coral, a phosphate test kit, a calcium test kit, a refractometer, salt water, a multi skimmer and heaters (its cold enough here that i actually need to heat the water instead of chill it atm). its set at 24 as it usually heats about a degree higher than its set to. and of course i had my home made sump, some connectors and some hose and was basically working on a wing and a prayer lol i still only vaguely knew what i was doing with the sump but i had a marine friends number close by in case lol
after we got all the connections and hoses etc on it was time to was the 80 odd kilos of substrate i used some 2mm white gravel that i cant remember the name of, live sand and crushed coral in the sump. i used the same in the tank at about 3" deep.
after hours of cleaning gravel that still sent the water cloudy, it was time to fill her up. i only had about 100L of natural sea water as i had no more containers to fill from work so i filled the sump, added the rest to the tank and set about the laborious task of mixing salt water and figuring out ratios and slowly going insane
once the water level reached the outlet and the sump started to fill up more, we turned the return pump on. only problem was that it was sucking water out of the sump quicker then it was filling it. so we turned the return off and then the sump rapidly started filling. so here we are 11.30 at night, bucketing water OUT of the tank we had spent hours getting ready and FILLING with the water lol anyhoo we finally figured out a good ratio and the sump started purring away
finally...full of water yay hehehe anyhoo i added my light. its an aqualina (australian brand) light with 4 tubes. 2 actinic, 1 blue and 1 10000K. it also has a moonlight option so you can watch your anemones and stuff eating at night. will be great...when i get some lol in the pic it is just sitting on the sides but yesterday we bought some legs for it so it sits up off the tank.
so finally, 9 hours after we got home and started setting up, we were done...for the night anyway lol after a quick prayer to the aquariums gods asking to ensure the sump didnt overfill, we went to bed
next morning the water was much clearer which made me happy this morning it was even clearer but no pics of that yet. but this morning you could see little tiny corals and stuff coming out. theres a tiny little urchin in one of the holes. dont know what kind it is. hope its not a stingy one. its black from what i could see. theres also tonnes of other teeny little critters running around. its quite amazing really. i got 25kilos of rock and i reckon half the weight is hitchikers lol
i have added the live rock since but as said earlier, i will add those when i get on the other computer (snuggled up in bed with my laptop cause its too cold for the other computer atm)
i also ended up bringing a few critters home with me (apart from the ones hiding in the LR). i wasnt intending on it but we know the people who run the shop we went to and they chucked them in as freebies cause we had spent so much there there are two small collector urchins. one is a sector urchin and the other is possibly a stained collector urchin. will post pics when i get some for definite ID but its kinda white with splotches of a deep purple sorta colour. theyre quite cool. i didnt expect them to suction themselves to my hand when i held them lol felt weird
there was also about 4 tiny hermit crabs, half a dozen snails (black and white spirally patterns) and an old looking large snail covered in barnacles or something
after adding the rock and critters yesterday morning, i left it all be and did a water test last night:
ammonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates 0
phosphate 0
calcium 560ppm
pH 8.3
i got this awesome refractometer for testing salinity. you put a few drops on the glass and look through the end like a kaleidoscope. theres a gauge in there that tells you your exact salinity. mine measured 1.022
so thats it for now will add the other stuff soon
ive posted a bunch of pics although the ones with LR are on the other computer so i will have to add those later. also i can try and get some pics of the hitchikers that came in my rock theres heaps lolthis is the tank before i filled it. i took it to an aquarium place and had the holes cut out of the big tank and one for the sump. i also had a divider added for a clean section for the return pump. i still need to add some extra filtration in there somewhere but the return is doing 4200lph plus i have another 3000lph hidden in the tank and so far its doing well
i decided on a do it yourself/add as you learn sump so i can actually learn how these things work properly by experience rather than just getting something cause it works but i have no idea how or why lol the guy made a huge mess cutting the holes and when i got home i had to re clean the tank and remove the shards of glass i was paranoid about leaving glass in there so i cleaned it for ages lol same as the sump. there was the liquid stuff they use when they are drilling holes dried up all over the tank so i had to scrub that too. took us all day but finally i had a light, a sump, some live (bloody expensive) sand, a return pump, some crushed coral, a phosphate test kit, a calcium test kit, a refractometer, salt water, a multi skimmer and heaters (its cold enough here that i actually need to heat the water instead of chill it atm). its set at 24 as it usually heats about a degree higher than its set to. and of course i had my home made sump, some connectors and some hose and was basically working on a wing and a prayer lol i still only vaguely knew what i was doing with the sump but i had a marine friends number close by in case lol
after we got all the connections and hoses etc on it was time to was the 80 odd kilos of substrate
i used some 2mm white gravel that i cant remember the name of, live sand and crushed coral in the sump. i used the same in the tank at about 3" deep. after hours of cleaning gravel that still sent the water cloudy, it was time to fill her up. i only had about 100L of natural sea water as i had no more containers to fill from work so i filled the sump, added the rest to the tank and set about the laborious task of mixing salt water and figuring out ratios and slowly going insane
once the water level reached the outlet and the sump started to fill up more, we turned the return pump on. only problem was that it was sucking water out of the sump quicker then it was filling it. so we turned the return off and then the sump rapidly started filling. so here we are 11.30 at night, bucketing water OUT of the tank we had spent hours getting ready and FILLING with the water lol anyhoo we finally figured out a good ratio and the sump started purring away
finally...full of water yay hehehe anyhoo i added my light. its an aqualina (australian brand) light with 4 tubes. 2 actinic, 1 blue and 1 10000K. it also has a moonlight option so you can watch your anemones and stuff eating at night. will be great...when i get some lol in the pic it is just sitting on the sides but yesterday we bought some legs for it so it sits up off the tank.
so finally, 9 hours after we got home and started setting up, we were done...for the night anyway lol after a quick prayer to the aquariums gods asking to ensure the sump didnt overfill, we went to bed
next morning the water was much clearer which made me happy
this morning it was even clearer but no pics of that yet. but this morning you could see little tiny corals and stuff coming out. theres a tiny little urchin in one of the holes. dont know what kind it is. hope its not a stingy one. its black from what i could see. theres also tonnes of other teeny little critters running around. its quite amazing really. i got 25kilos of rock and i reckon half the weight is hitchikers lol
i have added the live rock since but as said earlier, i will add those when i get on the other computer (snuggled up in bed with my laptop cause its too cold for the other computer atm
)i also ended up bringing a few critters home with me (apart from the ones hiding in the LR). i wasnt intending on it but we know the people who run the shop we went to and they chucked them in as freebies cause we had spent so much there
there are two small collector urchins. one is a sector urchin and the other is possibly a stained collector urchin. will post pics when i get some for definite ID but its kinda white with splotches of a deep purple sorta colour. theyre quite cool. i didnt expect them to suction themselves to my hand when i held them lol felt weirdthere was also about 4 tiny hermit crabs, half a dozen snails (black and white spirally patterns) and an old looking large snail covered in barnacles or something
after adding the rock and critters yesterday morning, i left it all be and did a water test last night:
ammonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates 0
phosphate 0
calcium 560ppm
pH 8.3
i got this awesome refractometer for testing salinity. you put a few drops on the glass and look through the end like a kaleidoscope. theres a gauge in there that tells you your exact salinity. mine measured 1.022
so thats it for now
will add the other stuff soon 
But I guess it gets really hot too.
