New 30gal setup

Well we did it. Today I went shopping, armed with knowledge and notes from here, and came home with a new toy. Needless to say we ended up spending twice what we though we would, but we did upgrade some things and bought more rock than we originally thought we would to start.

Here is what followed us home. (Don't you have to keep it if it follows you home?)

1 - 30gal long tank. Great size with 36" of horizontal swimming room.
1 - basic oak stand (really needs something done to it to dress it up)
1 - 36" Coralife Lunar Aqualight 192W (10,000k/actinic/blue LED)
1 - Stealth Submersible Heater (100W)
1 - Penguin powerhead 1550 (300gph) Wanted a Koralia but nobody has one
1 - ESU Digital Thermometer
1 - CaribSea Arag-Alive (20lb live sand)
1 - CaribSea Aragamax Sand (30 lb)
20lb of base rock (Beautiful stuff that I hope is even better when it starts to live)
31lb of Fiji Live Rock (Lots of purple and color)

You will notice that there is no salt mix on the above list. We found a store that will sell premix water for $.75 a gallon. That is cheaper than I can make it without having my own RO filter. Their base rock and fiji rock was a lot cheaper than anywhere else as well.

When we got home we set up the stand and tank and started the process of aquascaping. First I put the base rock in (on a very thin layer of sand) and surrounded it with the dead sand. Now comes the water. Gee, you just haven't lived till you try to fill a tank with a 6gal container of water. I ended up pouring water from the large container into a pitcher and slowly pouring that into a bowl I sat in the sand. After I had added the first 6 gallons of water, I cut open the bag of live sand and spread it around over the base sand. It has lots of bits of shell and stuff in it and at first it surprised me, but the overall effect looks good.

TIme for more water. After adding another 6 gallons of water, I started placing my live rock. Hard to do since I now had a aquatic dust storm going on in the tank. I did the best I could by feeling around and made sure the rocks were stable. I even bumped the cabinet a couple times to make sure they didn't move. SOLID!

FInally I added the last of the water and put the heater and powerhead in the tank.

Next came the lights. What a fun fixture I ended up with. I was also surprised after plugging it in how bright it was. So much for watching movies in the dark. LOL I love the lunar lights.

For now I have a cloudy tank with some beautiful rock and some impressive lights. The water has already started clearing. Now I just have to sit and be patient. I'm sure I'll play with the aquascaping some and try to find the best place for the powerhead.

Here are a couple pics of what I have so far. Sorry for the long post, but I'm really excited about this. I can't think of a better 40th birthday present right now. (few weeks early for a gift, but I just couldn't wait)

I got up this morning and turned on the lights for more pics. Lots of clearing going on and I'm liking most of the rock work I did in the cloudy mess yesterday. I'm going to rework the left side a bit though to show off the rock better. We also did some tests. The ammonia is already showing up. It tested at .50. Is that normal in such a short time?

Anyway, here are some pics for you. I LOVE the piece of rock on the right with the natural cave. Most of the rock you see is live rock except for the large piece in the lower right and the large piece on the left under the plate rock.

Full Tank Shot. Much better than last night.



Right side rockwork. The large piece in the corner is dead rock, the rest of what you see if live rock. There are also a couple small pieces of dead rock under the cool piece with the cave.



Left side rock. The large piece on the left is dead rock, but the other two large pieces are live rock, as is the small piece in the lower left.



The flat piece on top of the dead rock is a really interesting piece and I'm thinking of rotating it as it slopes off toward the back naturally. I love the bit on it that look like roots. What would those be?


Well that is it for now. I sat last night and turned on the moon lights and watched some TV. No denying the relaxation aspect, even with out the corals and fish.

Thanks for the compliments everyone. I decided to leave the large rocks as they were and went and did more shopping. WOOHOO!!! Another 4 lbs of live rock. Two of the pieces are high quality "Show" rock and I aldo got a couple pieces of Tonga branch. Both were more costly than I wanted to pay, but they really made a difference in the tank. I'll have some pics as soon as I get them downloaded from the camera.

As for stocking, I'm not going for anything major. I'm thinking small and inexpensive to start. I want a clown or two, a firefish, a goby, etc. My concern with the firefish is that I don't have a canopy or hood on the tank. I hear they can be quite the jumpers.

Pics coming soon.