and 9 months later my baby was born...

[lost_at_sea]

My story starts about nine months ago, like many with the same title, i was unemployed, homeless, moved out of the ex's place and had recently been punched in the face by a random drunk guy at an ottawa house party... things could only go up

Upon my return to Toronto (love the jobs hate the city) I landed a great job, bought a new condo and decided to pursue a dream i'd always had of running a reef tank in my own place.

So begins the 9 months of research that finally came to fruition last night at 3am (after receiving 2 noise complaints from the condo unit below me) and hauling 90lbs of the best live rock i've seen in  along time.

Many thanks to a lot of you on here Ray in particular who helped me plan and shared a lot of knowledge with me (big thumbs up on the reefkeeper lite) and to the guy in Oakville who sold me his amazing rock that was so well established that i'm pretty sure it eliminated my entire cycle. 40 minute trip home with 3 containers full of corals and rocks... my back is super sore.

On to the pictures.. with more to come.

The inital fill of the 90g tank with RODI water... this was last week


In goes the saltwater and on goes the skimmer and pumps... no leaks thank god and all my used equipment purchased is working well!


better picture of the 30g sump area... 3 chambers |skimmer | Refug to be populated | return.
6 in baffels the tape marks the water levels at different operating depths etc.  I ended up building a 2 in riser for my skimmer out of egg crate so I could utilize more tank volume.


The whole thing... sans rock and substrate... kinda boring.. getting antzy... lot of money spent with little to show yet... patience grasshopper... patience


1.5in return through a durso overflow... sounds like little creek flowing... you can also see on of hte RKE Moonlight pods there attached with ductape.. is there anything it can't do?  haven't figured out where/how to mount that yet.


If I was in a better mode last night at 3am I wouuld have / should have taken pictures of how gross my place was and the effort of moving 90lbs of rock sans help at 3am up 7 floors in 3 huge rubbermaid bins... but in the end here' sthe end product... still a work in progress with teh aquascaping and probably add a bit more rock but there are some amazing caves in those rocks i'll have to take better pics later tonight:


amazing within 5 minutes of getting the rock in the water the starfish started to come out and play already that's one attached tot eh front pane... also some of the corals I got with the rock:


More corals.. you can sorta see some purple xenia, there are 3 colonies in the tank already and tons of sponges... seems like they survived the move pretty well.

The only guy i'm worried about... the acro is on an incredible piece of rock that's sorta shaped like a tripod pyramid but he took a beating during transpo... fingers crossed:



Well that's it for now enjoy.... next up is picking up some clean up crews asap.... any suggestions? it's a 90g with about 15 gallon effective sump... tested for ammonia this morning and nothing after the move last night...

[OttawaReefer]

Nice! 

We just got our 90G up and running too.  I bought a Tek light fixture from Ray, as well as the reefkeeper light, moonlights, and the skimmer.  All of it works very well.

Really nice job on the sump!!

[Cheebs]

Awesome! Everything looks great, believe me all the money youa re spending will pay off, the hard part is done. I see you got some sweet stuff with your rocks, I assume youa re going to be cycling the tank before adding more livestock?

[OttawaReefer]

should have mentioned as well: nice job with the aquascaping. 

If those are the moonlights for the reefkeeper you are going to be very impressed.  They drill right down to the bottom of the 90G without any problems.  As the month goes by you will see them cycle with the lunar phases....going from bright to off and back again as the moon does.

[lost_at_sea]

I see you got some sweet stuff with your rocks, I assume youa re going to be cycling the tank before adding more livestock?

Actually params today look completely normal, 0ammonia 0nitrate and 5ppm nitrate... scheduling some new water cause the calcium level was really low around 120 ish... but other then that i don't think there was a cycle at all.  This rock has been in 2 systems now some for the past 11 years.. it's incredible rock.

As for Fish... i think i'm gonna try and bring the calcium up then a CUC add 2 black/white clowns and an anenome first...

If those are the moonlights for the reefkeeper you are going to be very impressed.  They drill right down to the bottom of the 90G without any problems.  As the month goes by you will see them cycle with the lunar phases....going from bright to off and back again as the moon does.

You're totally right, they're really impressive, one of hte pods didn't work when I first installed just waiting to send it back to Ray to get replaced but I thoroughly agree they're amazing.

some new pics:
First a full tank shot after some new aquascaping... gonna add some rock later but I've always been a fan of less is more. thoughts?


Say Hello to my lil' friend... having a naming contest for my free hermits that were hiding out in the rock...




Xenia getting down with the flow.. 3 colonies total in the tank.. just love this stuff.


The Fish Cave...


The other side.. more of a tower of rock with flavia growing on teh top part... last night the hermits had a game of king of the castle..

[sdivell]

if it was my tank i'd get more rock to get the centre 'island' higher up and maybe add a few more shelves to allow placement of future corals.

you look to be off to a great start though, just keep an eye on the ammonia and nitrite over the next week or so, just to be sure but with 11 yearold rock if it wasn't out of water for very long it should have pretty minimal die off.

[lost_at_sea]

if it was my tank i'd get more rock to get the centre 'island' higher up and maybe add a few more shelves to allow placement of future corals.

you look to be off to a great start though, just keep an eye on the ammonia and nitrite over the next week or so, just to be sure but with 11 yearold rock if it wasn't out of water for very long it should have pretty minimal die off.

Thanks ya I like the idea of raising that center pillar... I'm going back to get the rest of this guys rock this weekend... looks like sunday night will be another long night.  If I could raise it enough to cover the overflow box it'd  be great.. thanks for the suggestion.  I have an idea i'm going to be installing a shelf on teh left side for a birdsnest frag i have my eyes on...

[Cheebs]

Looks awesome! Definitely keep an eye on your levels, especially if you are considering adding an anemone this early.. So far so good!

[OttawaReefer]

Looks awesome! Definitely keep an eye on your levels, especially if you are considering adding an anemone this early.. So far so good!

What levels do you have to watch for an anemone?

[sdivell]

What levels do you have to watch for an anemone?

They are sensitive to parameter swings.  Specifically Temp and Ph.  Also, they are sensitive to ammonia and nitrite.

[Cheebs]

Aye, not recommended for a young tank, but if you keep on top of things it should be fine. I'm still worried about the cycle... The rock may be fine, inf act it looks great, but your water still needs to cycle, as far as I know.. Keep an eye on things!

[lost_at_sea]

well i'm off to get the rest of this guys rock on sunday, this stuff is incredible... The tank definitely went into warp speed as their are tons of starfish out and new snails appearing every day.

I have the RKL which helps tremendously with staying on top of temp swings and ph etc...

Levels are still good 0:0:5-10ppm I have't had a chance to up the calcium but that's on my weekend to do list.

thanks for the suggestions keep 'em coming.

[Vincenzo.]

90g ...id have like 150lbs of live rock total in tank and sump.

[lost_at_sea]

The rock may be fine, inf act it looks great, but your water still needs to cycle, as far as I know.. Keep an eye on things!

Curious on this one? what do you mean by the water needs to cycle?