Tank cycle

Well I have added some more bits and pieces to the tank.

It now has about 20Kg of live rock in it.

My phone doesn't do a bad job of taking pictures!

It is cycling nicely.  i have Nitrates & Phosphates at 0ppm, calcium is at 400ppm and carbonate hardness is at 161ppm.  I am not testing for anything else at the moment (as I don't have the test kits!)

I have added a Bubble-Magnus mini 70 filter/ reactor into the sump, running a mix of activated carbon and phosphate remover.

I have also started to move my Aquabeam 600 LED lights over.  I have a total of 4 running off an aquaray lighting controller (The black box in the picture above).  I have also just purchased a factory refurbished Vortech MP10 wavemaker (power head and controller)  As an added bonus, even though it was factory sealed and marked as a MP10es it actually turned out to be the MP10Wes (the wireless version) which means i saved £90 on the price of new one.  It still comes with 12 months warranty, so i class that as a win!

I have just introduced the first of my CUC, 2 Turbo snails and a Blue legged Hermit.
I have a couple more Turbos and 3 more hermits to add soon, plus a cleaner shrimp and 2 peppermint shrimps.
I will then leave it a week or so, and as long as they all survive, i will move my clowns over!

Aquareef 195 a bit more info

I have a rough idea of what I would like the tank to look like once i have finished it.  I also need a few more items for it

I have just purchased new filters and a membrane for my RO unit.  I also purchased an inline TDS meter.

The Ro filter is designed to remove chemicals and metals etc from your tap water, and make it safe for use in the aquarium.  It consists of a prefilter, a carbon filter and a membrane.  The water passes through all 3 of these and you end up with 2 products, waste water and RO water.  The ratio of waste water to RO water is quite high, and can always be used to water your garden ;)

The TDS meter shows the Total Dissolved Solids in the water before filtering and after.  I live in an area with soft water, so the pre filter reading is around 70.  Ideally you want the filtered water to read 0.  I actually got it down to 1, so not far off!

I use 25 litre and 10 litre water containers to store the Ro water in until needed.  I have it plumbed in to the cold water feed for our kitchen sink!  For some reason my wife wont let me plumb it in in the bathroom (which would be a lot easier!)

I still need to purchase a phosphate / carbon reactor to fit in the sump (if I can find any space!)  This will help keep the water quality high in the tank, and hopefully help prevent unwanted algae growth.

I will post some more pictures as I go along.

Aquareef 195 further set up.

I filled the tank with RO water, mixed with H2 Ocean+ pro formula salt at the correct ratio and basically let it sort itself out for a couple of days!

The lighting is standard T5s at the moment, but once i decommission my old tank i will move my Aquaray LED lights and controller over.  They should give a much nicer spread in the tank, and also should be help any corals when i stock up.

After a couple of days, I went out and bought a few pieces of live rock, I got 2 for the main tank, and several smaller pieces for the sump.

The price of live rock is high, and I will add more over the next couple of weeks, as and when I can afford it!  The rock in the tank and sump in these pictures cost me around £100, and i am going to want 3 or 4 times this amount!  The rocks in the tank are 2 large, flattish pieces, that will become the base for my aquascape.  They have nice coralline algae cover, but I dont think I have gained any hitch hikers! 

I have added one power head to the tank to help circulate water through the rock, and will add another one once i finish with my old tank.

You can also see in the picture above that the skimmer is doing its job!

I am hoping to keep fish, invertebrates and soft corals in the tank, and these will have to be added slowly over a period of time once the tank has cycled for a few weeks!

Aquareef 195 set up

Over the past year or so I have pretty much ignored my 90 litre marine tank.  It has got to the point where I just decided, sod it, lets get another one!
So after doing quite a bit of research I decided on an Aquareef 195 tank with all its trimmings.  It comes with a ready made base and sump, the tank is predrilled with all the pipe work in the box.  It also comes with a protein skimmer and return pump for the sump.  My LFS was very generous and allowed me to upgrade the skimmer and return pump whilst taking the originals back at retail price!

The Aquareef 195 seems to be a solidly built tank.  After humping it up 2 flights of stairs I can also confirm it is heavy!

Every thing comes in the box and is easy to initially set up.

This is the tank before fitting anything in the sump, or filling the tank!

Here I have fitted the down pipe from the tank to the sump and installed the skimmer.  The black balls  in the middle section will soon vanish!

In this picture I have fitted the sump return pipe and pump, and removed the BioBalls from the middle section of the sump.  I will replace these with some small pieces of live rock to help with filtration.

I use RO water from my LFS (I have now got my own RO unit, more on that later!)  I have installed a sand bed to help with water stabilisation.

In my next post I will have a few more pictures of the tank setup and also my RO unit.