Starting up Saltwater! Woo!

[greech]

$80???

You can't get a bag of dry Carib-sea near you? 20 lb bags are around $19.99. Even if you had to have it shipped it would only be $30ish at most.

If not just keep the CC clean.

 

[Haydn24]

I'm in australia... lol. It's quite expensive here.

The lighting fixture is a SupremeAqua HB-600B dual T5 24", but I will be upgrading do the quad T5 24". I had never heard of it untill I came across it on the net and its great for a cheaper lighting fixture

Everything will be arriving tomorrow or tuesday..

Just some more pics of it with a bit of water in it (fresh, de-chlorinated) and a pic of the clip on light that will be used for the macro in the AC 70 fuge (I'm not sure if its me but I think my camera makes the pictures look more green than they actually are, lol). The water was a bit cloudy cause I just dumped the water in. I will be a lot more careful with a bowl when I do it with the salt water

 

[Lady G]

Tank looks great so far, I LOVE those kind of tanks!!!!

WOW, that is quite the price for the aroganite sand in your area...I don't blame ya for going with the CC!!!! Come over to the states for a visit, and take a bag or two home with ya!! Better yet, get a huge supply and sell it then use the money for your tank LMAO!!!!!

 

[Lady G]

Oh, word of advice...when adding the water, pour it through a strainer or over a plate, it helps it to spread out a bit and not stir the sand/CC quite so much

 

[Haydn24]

Thanks! Yeah will do haha. Thanks for looking.

 

[Haydn24]

Well everything arrived this morning! (except AC 70 because that was from another source). Anyhow, I'm not sure if I should have done it this way but I did and it seems to be okay. I filled the tank up with de-chlorinated freshwater and in a 10L bucket I mixed 2.5 kgs of Red Sea salt untill it was mostly disolved (around 1.5 hours) using an airator, powerhead and a heater. Then I put that in the tank and turned the powerheads on and let it circulate for a while. I calibrated by refractometer and measured the salinity in the tank after 30 mins and it was 1.024 Which is what I aimed for... However I measured the pH and it came out at around 8.6 I know it hasnt stabalized so hopefully it will drop. The alkalinity was also low... so I don't know whats going on there but I hope it sorts it self out. Otherwise everything is looking good

My order was missing the atlintic bulb which I'm not happy about but will that be an issue for the short term? In the fixture I have 6500K and a 10,000K bulbs. Will this be fine untill I recieve the atlintic?

I won't be buying LR for 2 more days. I want to set the AC 70 up with the fuge first and get everything right.

Thanks for looking!!

 

[Haydn24]

???

 

[Fishfriend1]

Well everything arrived this morning! (except AC 70 because that was from another source). Anyhow, I'm not sure if I should have done it this way but I did and it seems to be okay. I filled the tank up with de-chlorinated freshwater and in a 10L bucket I mixed 2.5 kgs of Red Sea salt untill it was mostly disolved (around 1.5 hours) using an airator, powerhead and a heater. Then I put that in the tank and turned the powerheads on and let it circulate for a while. I calibrated by refractometer and measured the salinity in the tank after 30 mins and it was 1.024 Which is what I aimed for... However I measured the pH and it came out at around 8.6 I know it hasnt stabalized so hopefully it will drop. The alkalinity was also low... so I don't know whats going on there but I hope it sorts it self out. Otherwise everything is looking good

My order was missing the atlintic bulb which I'm not happy about but will that be an issue for the short term? In the fixture I have 6500K and a 10,000K bulbs. Will this be fine untill I recieve the atlintic?

I won't be buying LR for 2 more days. I want to set the AC 70 up with the fuge first and get everything right.

Thanks for looking!!

i don't think the missing bulb will be a problem, but I would make sure no water can get to the part where the bulb was supposed to go.

Very nice looking tank, its gonna be awesome when your done! Good Luck!

 

[greech]

No issues with the bulb. Your pH will almost certainly change once you get some LR in the tank and your fuge is going. I would not attempt to tweak the pH at this time.

Using tap water for the initial fill is fine but I would use RO/DI if at all possible once you get LR into the system.

 

[Haydn24]

Well the pH stabalized at 8.2... phew. I know that almost everyone in the states uses RO/DI water.. But everyone here in Canberra uses tap water. It's just not an issue. All the LFS use it, we have a specialist SW coral and fish store here and they use tap water so I think it will be okay My LFS has 3 beautiful setups, with SPS and they use the same water source so if everything goes alright I will just follow along We have 0 nitrates, 0 phosphates, really low TDS and just chlorine.

I'm going to buy a small portion of LR today just to get things going. I will be putting the LR in in quaters, not all at once about a week apart. I just need my AC 70 to arrive. Otherwise everything is looking good

Oh and I think im going to run 2 10,000K bulbs for the mean time untill I can get the atlintic.