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Hello everyone. I am almost done with my 195 build and going to be ordering the live sand and salt to start mixing. I just ordered 195lbs of dry pukani rock for the DT. I am looking for some advice on what's the best way to kick start the cycling? I am think about putting all rock on trash can with salt water for a couple weeks to test phosphate to see if any is leaching out of the rock and if necessary add gfo to absorb any. I have a 60 gallon cube in filter room to hold rock as well. Since ...

Even though I have a Fluval G3 Canister Filter that is working quite well for me now, I have been thinking that I would like to replace the coral insert after I have obtained all my other equipment and place in some live rock and maintain some high end SPS Coral. So I'm in the market currently for a new hang on back protein skimmer. I'm interested in the Reef Octopus BH-1000 Hang on Back Protein Skimmer. So I created this little overhead schematic to have one of the online retailers to check ...

Back in March I added a little anemone to the tank, unsure if it had been a wise purchase, if it would survive or if I would be able to properly feed it.

Well, after a few unsuccessful attempts to feed it small pieces of shrimp I stopped feeding, but the anemone has been slowly growing, apparently just from light and whatever it might be filtering out of the water.

Here is what it looked at the start:

Here is what it looks ...

So as my little journey with this aquarium begins, I started thinking about what equipment I needed to address various aspects of the build process. So obviously the first thing that I thought about was power. With the recent power outages my first thought was that I need something to not only protect the equipment by conditioning the power coming from the outlet but also give me some backup power in the event of a power failure. So I purchase an APC Battery Backup that covers both of my power ...

Last weekend, I attended San Diego's Comic Con (Thursday to Sunday). I had a great time, and during my time away, a friend watched the reef to make sure all was well. There was a power outage on Friday night, and the Apex notified me via text and email, but never informed me if power was restored. I didn't really feel comfortable contacting my friend at 2 a.m. his time, so I wrote him the next morning to let him know and have him give me an update. He stopped by and reported all was fine. Whew. ...