a ball of established chaeto. Cheap.

I was gonna do that to the sump, but I need to seed the display. They wont make it from the chaseto ball to the display, and if they did, it'd take forever. I plan to have the chaeto in the 1st chamber of my sump where my drain with the ball valve is. I wanted that since the flow there is pretty strong, and I can tumble the chaeto.

I honestly would just put the ball in the display for a week or two. I don't know of any of the available pods other than something from IPSF would survive in the tank.

I might. I'm just concerned about getting a bunch of tiny pieces of chaeto in the display. If they do, so be it, the unicorn tang I'm putting in there will eat it

On another note, I get my hanna checkers in. I got the Alkalinity, Calcium, and phophate one. I wish they would hurry up and release the nitrate checker. Thatd be awesome.

I've been happy with my phosphate egg meter. We compared it to Alan's expensive one and it was spot on. I've heard some conflicting stuff on the CA and Alk ones but I would love to hear your experiences.

I'm color blind so it's very difficult for me to discern the color shift of a titration kit. I have to rely on others to notify me of the "shift" - and then I'm relying on someone's outside opinion.

long story short, I hope they work so I can get one (at least the alk one)

The only problem I had heard of was with the old alk tests. They were using a powder reagent, and it was messing things up. Now they use a liquid one, and everyone seems to be happy. I know a while back there was a problem with the phosphate reagent batch 006, and it was giving false low readings. That has been taken care of as well. I can't wait to get corals and test all this out! Hanna needs to come out with their Marine nitrate checker.

Everything is looking really good my friend. I have been using all 3 of the hanna checkers now for awhile and I get really consistent reading with them. You have to have ro/di for the calcium test but once you do it a couple times its very easy. You just have to be precise with the amount of tank water you use. I wish they would come out with a liquid reagent for the phos test but other than that they are awesome.

On another note... I suck at taking pictures but am great at cutting frags... Wanna work out a deal seeing your getting really close to coral time? haha I would love some hi-def pics that I just cannot seem to achieve with my crappy camera.

Thanks! Ive heard about the precision of reagent and RO/DI you have to use, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Ya, we can work something out for pictures! It's been a while since I've done tank pics. Heck, who knows, maybe I could win that POTW again haha! I'll send ya a PM

Finally made my mesh top.

All I need is my heatsink to finish my lights up, then the tank is ready to sit for a while and cycle. I am already getting that black gunk in the sand. I hope I got a pretty good dose of ammonia building up in the tank.

added some chaeto

Interestingethod putting the light right on the side. I have always dangled the "shop light" over the top.

On another note how is the cycling coming along?

I had the light on top, but this way I wont have to worry about salt splashing on the bulb and clouding it up. Plus, on the side the light is closer to the Chaeto.

This is the light I'm using. That is a good spectrum for growing algae, and I thought hey, why not give it a shot.


The cycle is coming along slowly. I figured it would. Good thing is, I have 5 months until I get back home, and still have to build my lights before I add livestock. Looks like itll cycle really well by then!

Well, I'm back from Curaçao. I haven't checked my tank params yet, but I'm pretty sure 5 months has established some beneficial bacteria in the dead rock I threw in there. I don't have pics of the tank yet, but here is a video of one of the dives I did while I was there. My buddy filmed it, I'm the only other person in the video. It is of the wrecked cargo ship Superior Producer. I have another one that I'll post later of our dive at the same wreck, but that time there was a Goliath Grouper.

Sweet dive video!

fridaynightswings wrote:Awesome. Thanks for sharing.
What are the plans for the tank now?