Fireisfun

The light I am using is an industrial 4 'bulb' led set up that I dismantled and set up on a flat board. Its more of a temporary thing until the tank cycles. The sand was from petsmart, they sell live Caribbean sand in a moist vacume sealed bag. And yeah I've been using conditioned tap water for now as well as 10 gal from my exsisting tank, that also uses tap water... How effective are the ro devices that you can buy for your home?

Thank you for all the help so far. My old skimmer is pretty crappy and pulls a lot of water out with the skim( hence it being my old one) but I guess it can't hurt. I don't have a sump yet. Im converting my 40 into a sump once this tank has cycled and I've moved my livestock over. I am using my sump pump as a power head right now so the flow is probably a little excessive (1200gph at 0" head)

Here's a photo of what it looks like inside http://instagr.am/p/Qh4jgkPw_t/

The majority of the live rock came from 2 different lfs here in Edmonton and a few smaller pieces came from my existing tank to introduce the coralline algea. I should defiantly cut the light back though. I was hoping to spark some algea growth but I assume it's already getting enough sunlight. I would rather ride it out and get a nice natural source of bacteria going. I haven't been using my skimmer to skim, it's more of just a bio ball housing to introduce water/air emulsion for the bacteria on the balls to grow but would it be a good idea to start skimming? I don't want to accidentally starve off the bacteria as the are just starting to grow. I also have a canister filter on my existing tank that I could swing over and run for a few hours in the 120, but again will this end up inhibiting the bacteria growth?

Hey everyone I started cycling my new 120g reef tank with the foam rock wall inside. The cycle started out normal but strange things have been happening. I put 100lbs of live sand and 40lbs of cured live rock in, half of which was in an unlight sump. I put 10 gallons of water from my existing tank water in and stuffed my old sea clone skimmer full of old bio balls from my canister filter. I've added a bunch of pods, angel hair algea clumps, and I've been dosing stabilize The cycle started out normal, but lately the water had a yellow tinge to it. This morning it's gottenreally green an murky that I can't see the back wall. I added a turbo snail as a canary and it died in a few days. I'm still waiting for my test kit to come in so I have no parameters other than the nitrates went to 10mg/l the 3rd day and have since dropped back down to 0. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, that would be awesome

Cycle

Maybe 20-30lbs from the dry rock I had on it. I had to put a tube of silicone along the back to make sure it stuck to the back of the tank good.

Here it is with water. http://instagr.am/p/QSgnpqPwz-/

Here it is with the back ground in. I braced it up with some wood and left over egg crate to hold the background in while the silicone dried http://instagr.am/p/QNPAM-vwwo/ And here it is just prior to filling http://instagr.am/p/QNPDe2vwws/

Ah I decided just to take the hack saw to it. Wouldn't want the glass to break because of faulty supports. The tank has been filled and she's cycling now so once the water clears up I'll post some more pictures

I will be incorporating the silicone in as well. I forgot to factor in the middle brace of the new tank so the foam will have to be chopped up in smaller pieces to fit in place and then siliconed in after

They are almost impossible to see but it's te little orange strip things http://instagr.am/p/QGbK_iPw0a/

Ah they came back a little but there is a new thing. It looks like the red algea but it has an orange lip on it. Will post pictures later but It's a little hard to get one since they are pretty small and at the back of the tank

Alright all the z-poxying has been done on the front. I sprinkled sand on top of the z-poxy to give it more of a natural textured look but the sand was to fine and essentially went see through. http://instagr.am/p/QBZzOEPw44/ As you can see the left side of the wall had excess sand on it while the right has already dried clear.im really not to worried since the dark color is nice and algea and other things will attach them selfs to the wall anyway http://instagr.am/p/QBW7pdvw2Z/ Now to wait for my new tank to come in to see how well it all fits together

The foaming went pretty smoothly but when you do it make sure you fill in each hole of the egg crate or else you get pockets on the back side that you need to fill in (or else brushing the epoxy on is a pain). http://instagr.am/p/P-yz6qvw9A/ I started using a marine safe epoxy but it was very thick and hard to spread so I found z-poxy at great hobbies and it works amazing. I am going to seal the entire thing so that none of the foam breaks down and disintegrates. More photos to come

Okay the foam stuff was called dura foam and it's sold at canar in the pond section but it is labeled as landscaping and rv use. http://instagr.am/p/P7ns5-Pw4-/

I'll try and remember what it was called but it was a pain to find in Edmonton. It seems like canar was the only place that carried it. I've heard bad things about great stuff foam so I figured I would use pond/UV safe foam. Gloves are a must for using foam, trust me, it doesn't come off your skin unless you pick it off bit by bit. http://instagr.am/p/P63_havw-o/ The foaming part was pretty simple but if you let it dry for 15 mintues you can squish it down and get the air out of it. http://instagr.am/p/P5P-jcvw6Y/ http://instagr.am/p/P5QE22vw6f/

Hi every one, I Got the idea to start building a foam/rock wall for my 120 gal reef tank that I am in the process of setting up. Once I got measurements for the tank the hardest part of the fist bit is trying to find all the matterials needed. I went to Walmart, lowes and 2 different home depots before I found any egg crate. Next challenge was finding pond safe foam. Thankfully the girl at lowes said that canar rock products carries lots so that cut down on the searching. From there it was off to great hobbies to get z-poxy and big Al's for sand and dry rock. Once everything was together I used tin snips to cut the egg crate into the right sizes and then zipp tied the pieces together. I also made over hangs with the egg crate to support the bigger rock pieces and to conceal my HOB overflow. At the moment I have started foaming the egg crate and some of the smaller dry rock pieces and I highly recommend rubber/latex gloves and parchment paper to stop the foam from sticking to whatever it's resting on http://instagr.am/p/P5P60lPw6V/

Nah, I love to build and tinker with things and this sw reef hobby is prefect for that. I checked out mel's reef and it was an information gold mine for sumps of all shapes and sizes. I think I might try a smaller sized DIY gravity/ syphon ato to start with and take it from there. I like that they are cheap and have a very low chance of flooding

Yeah I will cycle the new tank once it arrives and maybe use a large rough tote as a temporary sump while I prep my old tank to be converted into a sump. The more I look into the ato system the more appealing it is but in reality it could be added in at any time?

It was on a piece of live rock that made up part of the main structure so I used an air hose as a siphon, cut them out with a razor blade and used the hose to suck up the algea as well as any spores that might have been released. Thank you for the info

The sump I'll be using is my current 40gal long tank so once the new display has cycled I'll start transferring my livestock over and start on the sump build. I bought a nice reef octopus Hob skimer for my current tank but it's rated to 200 gal so I'm going to try and incorporate it in the sump. I got the basics for suppy->skimmer->return<-refuge<-supply As well as baffles to stop the Bubbles from the skimmer, but I'm not sure what else it needs (filtration,carbon,etc). I do want to grow pods and rotifers in the sump as well. Thanks for the help so far

Im not sure if this is bubble algea or a Corel that came out of the live rock but any id would be helpfull http://instagr.am/p/Pp7dxUPw9O/

I might try and set something up this winter. I still have a bunch of old sea monkey food from back in the day, so if they are just GM'd brine shrimp maybe they could survive on that