chbix

Well its been a long time in the making...

Started looking at a SW tank about 2 years ago....Did lots of research and actually had a tank and a lot of equipment already purchased to set one up.

But life got in the way and I ended up selling most of it.

Well I got the bug again and started over. Got a 60g acrylic tank off CL and started working on getting equipment and now its up and running.

DT is a 60g and Im running a 20L sump underneath. overflow box drops down into the sump where I made three chambers. First is where the overflow box drains into and where I have my protein skimmer. Second chamber will be my refug, already have a few pieces of LR rubble and chaeto along with 2 heaters. Then a bubble trap into the final chamber where the pump goes back up into two outlets on opposite sides of the tank. Inside I have 3 power heads, one of which is used to maintain the siphon on the overflow box....Just in case. Lighting is a 4x65watt PC system that came with the tank. Got new bulbs all 4 are 50/50 10000k/actinic and the system has moonlights. Also got an AC3 controller used and set it up, got everything on timers and ready to go....kinda cool to dial in on my iphone and see the parameters no matter where I am...really freaks my kids out to turn the lights off and on from the couch!!

I have 60#'s of live sand in the bottom of the tank along with 55 #s of rock. 50 of which was base rock and 5 actual LR. I was attempting to make my own base rock but after 6 weeks of curing I gave up as the PH was still 14 after that time and consistent bi weekly water changes....maybe too much concrete mix in my second batch....so I gave up and spent the money on dry base rock.

I mixed in my salt and placed two raw shrimp in there to let it cycle. After approx 3 weeks, today I finally saw my ammonia dip off to approx .5ppm (was at 2-4) and the nitrates soar to 5ppm (was zero a day and a half earlier).

So just waiting for the rest of the cycle to finish and then going to be adding some shrimp and snails and then fish and corals. My lights are PC and probably only going to work with softies and maybe some easy light LPS for the time.