My First 120l Salty Adventure

[nivarp]

Well here is my tank diary!

About 2 months ago I went to a local garden centre to have a look at some tanks. I had kept tropical freshwater fish a few years back but after moving house and getting married I got rid of it and I wanted to get back into it again. We (me and the wife) saw a nice tank and stand that was going pretty cheap, so we bought it and got it home. I had been looking at what fish to keep and loved a few marine fish that I had seen earlier at the garden center. I thought why not keep marine and started doing some research. Hence I ended up joining here in March and I must say everyone has been very helpful and informative [thumbup.gif]
After many days and nights of reading through the forums which I still do now as I just can't help it, I started making a list of stuff I would need. Hence the Salty Adventure had begun. Last weekend I finally got my lr and sand in and its currently cycling even though it was supposed to be cured!

Finally some pics!

The Tank


RO Unit and other bits ( Toby [thumbup1.gif])


Some more bits and pieces


The Tunze Nanostream 6025 (Which was a bit bigger then I thought it would be considering its a nanostream!)


The RO unit all connected up


The first drops of RO going in


LR and Fiji Pink sand added


Deltec mce300 Skimmer plugged in


How it currently looks as of 27/04/2010


Now I still have plenty to do as I gotta paint the back of the tank or I might get some self adhesive waterproof vinyl. Also gotta sort out the lighting aswell as I am using an old T8 from a 2ft tank. I don't have the light on, I just had it on to take the photo and on the odd occasion to see whats going on in there and some lr rescaping or should I say minor adjustments! Also had to mod the Deltec intake as it wouldn't quite reach far enough into the water, so gotta sort that out at some point!

Test results as of today currently are:

Temp: 26
SG: 1025
PH: 8.1
Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 50
Nitrite: 2
Phosphate: 0

Judging by those results I guess its cycling. So will test in a few more days and see how its doing [thumbup.gif]

[LittleOcean]

Looking good mate, [thumbup.gif]

I think your right, still cycling won't be long now tho..

[cdurkin100]

Looks great, nice to see a dark wood cabinet. Im thinking of an upgrade and all I can find is black and bloody beech [014.gif]

[MaRiNe_MaDnEsS]

Lol how are you going to paint the back of the tank now. It must weigh a ton.

[nivarp]

Lol how are you going to paint the back of the tank now. It must weigh a ton.

Yes I know I should have prob done it first but there is about 1ft of space behind the tank, so can get access to the back of the tank with a roller without too much hassle Thou I will prob go for the vinyl route as I don't wanna make too much mess.

[Reefcubeboy]

Looking great...going to have great water movement there with 2 6025's in there...run 1 in the rio here and it belts the water around !!

[nivarp]

First signs of life! Looks like a very very small Dove Snail about 3mm in size. Its cleaning the glass, even thou there isn't any algae to eat that I can see!

[Sandy]

looking good, nice aquascape and sort out that backing, it would drive me mad not having one [laugh.gif]

cheers sandy

[Ding Dang Doo]

Tank looks really great. The scaping looks very natural, plenty of room for fish to move about.

Careful if you are using a self adhesive backing in a limited space, as it will be tough to fit without getting any air bubbles or creases in it. It can ruin the whole effect if you end up without a smooth finish. Take it slowly and make up a large soft pad to press the s/a backing to the glass-don't use your hand to apply it, you don't get a smooth pressure to realase the air bubbles. Also ensure the width of the backing is a fair bit larger than the area you want to cover and trim the excess off after... These things have a tendancy to end up running off at an angle... Leaving you with a gap!

Hopefully you will see more life coming from the rock as the cycle takes place.

ATB

Pete

[ilovemyfishes]

Love the scaping, I like the idea of rock on one side with a free swimming area on the other. Looks great, and can't wait for it to develop [thumbup1.gif]