72 hours after the move

[Stusdesktop]

Got the tank home Thursday evening and this is it after settling back down for 3 days, everyone seems relatively happy. More rock is going in hopefully this week, new power heads, wavemaker and lighting should be here some time this week too.

Here are a couple of pictures of the tank and the livestock we got with it, please excuse the picture quality, need time to read the camera manual still .... someone make the day about 10 hours longer please (but no more work hours).

3/4 tank shot

Candy canes I think, possibly Fiji

More candy canes

Frogspawn ??

Purple mushrooms

Dark purple mushroom

Halloween hermit possibly, definitely a hermit who loves algae

There is also a black brittle star who made the move safely and is happily curled up in a rock.

 

[shawna1972]

Glad the move went well and all livestock safe and sound

 

[dreaminmel]

Nyce! :thumbsup: What size tank is this?

 

[aquadonkey]

Love that little hermit!! So cute
Glad the move went well - now comes the fun part!

 

[shawna1972]

I would just watch and test to make sure you don't have a spike of any kind

 

[Stusdesktop]

The tank is a 40g, we found it on CL pretty much as it is for a give away price (considering our initial tank outlay was bouncing around between $800 and $1200 for a new one). There was the tank, stand, dual tube lighting, Skimmer, power head, hob filter, live rock and livestock, pretty much everything to at least start.

We brought it home Thursday evening, lots of 5 gallon buckets and totes and a 15 minute trip meant that having heaters/power heads for every container wasn't a massive need. After getting it home we dropped another 40lbs of "live sand" in with the existing 1/4 inch of sand, refilled with the existing saltwater and brought it back up to temp. All of the livestock was left in a tote with a heater and power head overnight while the tank settled down. Friday the tank was tested and parameters were all good although I'm not 100% happy with the test kits the previous owner had so new kits arrive from Dr Foster & Smith this week (along with other goodies). Everybody was added back into the tank after floating in plastic tubs and getting acclimated and now we're seeing good extension from everyone and one or two heads of candy cane and frogspawn showing in what looked like dead heads in their original home.

Due to arrive this week is another 50lbs of base rock, 3 new power heads and a wave maker (giving us in the region of 600gph turnover) and also a new lighting fixture with 4 T5 tubes for 156w of lighting and moonlights. Coming in the very near future will be a medium sized HOB refuge, macro algae and pod growth (hopefully at least).

Longer term will be the addition of a clean up crew to try to combat the algae that was in the tank and also a detritivore crew (I'm a fan of natural systems as far as possible so worms and and sand sifters of all varieties). We'll add corals slowly between now and September, probably zoas and palys for now and then once we get back from Europe we'll look at adding a couple of fish to the tank.

We'd planned on going a lot slower but the chance for the complete tank came at the right time and right price so we jumped, now we'll slow it down and introduce things when the tank is ready for it. I'm happy that the livestock not only survived but also is already showing itself far better than in it's previous placements.

There's going to be a lot more questions coming from me and probably lots more pictures and eventually trips to frag swaps too I hope.

Stu

 

[shawna1972]

That's great! and yes Ask away!!!and BTW- Welcome!!!

 

[superkat]

Ask away, Stu....lots of very helpful and extremely intelligent folks here. Holler if you ever need any help! I'm always willing to lend a hand.