Here we go! Time to get this tank assembled and cycled!
Thanks to Black Friday, Saltwater Fantaseas had a sale on live rock! $2.00/lb. So, I picked up about 15 lbs of cured live rock to help jump-start the cycle. They were sold out of live sand 15 minutes before I got there, so I stopped by Cayes Aquarium and picked up a 20 lb bag of live sand to add to the 10lb bag I already had in there. I was happy to see that they had a mix of finer sand than I had in there already, so I have a good mix of particle size all the way from .5mm to 2mm with lots of bits of shell and rubble mixed in. I picked out some interesting and somewhat flat pieces of live rock to make the rockscape a little more than a pile of similar rocks. I ended up using about 25 lbs of the BRS reefsaver rock and 13 lbs of the live rock. It would be hard to squeeze more in there. The stuff that I used was the most porous rock of the bunch.
The first thing was to engineer a mantis habitat that he would hopefully use. On the largest piece of live rock that was to be at the bottom of the tank, I drilled out three 5/8" holes that all converged in the center of the rock. I then drilled up from the bottom to create a cavity large enough to hold Chuck. He can decide which holes he prefers, but his choices of entrances are limited to the front of the tank and the most visible side of the tank. He can also choose to burrow down in the middle of that rock and create an entrance between the two main support rocks.
Building a mantis home:
A perfect sized hole for Chuck.
Hollowing out the inside of the rock to create a nice burrow with a total of three entrances/exits.
Another hole:
Here's the finished rockscape:
From the right side:
From the left side:
Here are two of the entrances... a little hard to see, but there are two holes.
This will be one of Chuck's new roommates. This is Ahnie, a timneh African Grey. (Dory is the other, a Congo African Grey). They should be interesting companions:
Now the tank gets to do it's own thing and cycle. I was originally planning to cycle it with ammonia, but since I'm jump starting it with some really nice live rock, I'm using 1/4 cube of mysis shrimp in a media bag. That should get things rolling.
On top of the live sand, I'm also using Nite-Out II.
Once the tank cycles, I'll add some clean up crew and assess how things are going. I already know he doesn't bother with dwarf cerith snails, so they'll be a large part of the clean up crew. I'll also probably add some nassarius snails since the one that's been in there with him is still alive. Once I'm comfortable that the tank is fully cycled and stable, I'll figure out how to get Chuck out of the 7.5 gallon tank without getting myself or him injured.
