Startup

I think it's time for me to begin my tank journal. First, I have never had a salt water aquarium. I do remember being interested in it when I was young, as I did have a fresh water aquarium, with goldfish, neons, snails etc. and remember how neat I thought the salties were. Fast forward a few decades, and more recently, a few years ago I bought a book called, "The Marine Reef Aquarium" by Philip Hunt. This got me thinking more seriously about it and now I have committed, or will be committed, once my brain explodes from all the research I've been doing for the last few months LOL.

I didn't have a perfect plan when I started, but I had an idea of what I wanted. I live in a small townhouse and I wanted the tank in my living room. I wanted the biggest tank possible and I decided the biggest I could reasonably fit was a standard ~75ish gallon tank. I also knew i wanted a sump so all the stuff could be mostly hidden in the stand. I could see it in the corner of the room between 2 sofas. 

I installed an RO/DI system under my sink in the kitchen to get me started, the Aquarium II RO/DI system combo from Aquasafe Systems.



I knew I needed rock but I wasn't about to spend $11/pound at the LFS for live rock, so I ordered ~80 pounds of Pukani from Fijireefrock.

Then I realized I had a problem. The carpet was 8 years old and I knew if I was ever going to do the floor it had to be done before the tank went up. So my wife and I ordered a new floor.

The rock arrived and on May 1st, I put it in a 44 gallon bin in my garage with a heater and power head. More on the progress of the rock later.



I knew the rock could take a while to cure, and really I'm very patient with this because I also want to spread the spending out across many months. I came up with a rough estimate of 5K to get me decently set up.

I started looking for a setup. I visited many stores in Calgary shopping for a tank, stand and sump. At first I was going to buy a standard 75 gallon, reef ready tank, a proflex 4 sump, and a nice wooden stand. The more research I did, the more I realized this was not what I wanted. I was also researching how to set up the quietest system possible, and I discovered the "Bean Animal" overflow system. I knew I wanted it, and I knew I wasn't getting it from big retail LFS.

I discovered a business in Calgary called Concept Aquariums, and went on down to check out their shop. It was actually the day the floor was being installed, which went from this:



to this:



I was in there for an hour talking to Denny about all of this, and a couple weeks later I decided they were it. They currently have my order for a custom tank, sump, and stand, and they have been very friendly and helpful to this noob, and have answered all my dumb questions.

Tank:

Sump:

Metal Frame Stand, which I will panel myself.

I have purchased most of the pvc fittings i think I will need for the plumbing, valves, unions, elbows etc.

The pukani took about 6 weeks to cure and is now sitting at 0 ammonia. The phosphate level was pretty high, as I suspected it would be from research, so I've been treating it with Agent Green, a lanthanum chloride product I found at Big Al's. It's sitting at about .2 ppm at the moment. I still have a few weeks to treat it before the tank is ready. I'm probably going to hose it out and dry it off because I really want to spent some quality time dryscaping before installing it. There's also some dark brown stuff appearing on it.

 

I know I'll have to recycle it once it's in the tank. No worries. For now it is happy in the garage.



That's mostly the story thus far. There are still many decisions to be made.

(Originally written 22 June 14, and posted at Canreef