AlanM

There are still a few crabs in the display of unknown makeup. I see one under a rock sometimes. It's small and cute (but hairy and skittish), but I assume it won't stay that way. I also saw what I'm pretty sure is a 1 inch long mantis shrimp molt in the display tank as well. If there's a tiny mantis in the display I'm impressed that it's a really good and quiet hider. The sump mantis is still kicking and doing well, seemingly. I'll try to get a natural light picture of it at some point. I put a chunk of Rod's food down there and saw him grab it and drag it away. I'm running the red/blue LED fuge light on a reverse photo cycle and the macro algae that is in there seems to be doing pretty well on it. It looks like mostly feather caluerpa and one other plant with flat and round leaves. I'm having an issue with red cyano on the sand, rocks, walls, and frag rack. It's interesting how despite getting completely live rock I'm still seeing a bit of "new tank" type effects. The nitrogen cycle is in full swing, I assume, and I measure nearly 0 phosphate and nitrate, but there are just so many other bacterial cycles that work themselves out when the livestock, rocks, and sand are suddenly exposed to a new environment. I assume these rocks and sand are getting way more light than they had been getting on the bottom of Tampa Bay. Also the nutrients that they are getting as I put small amounts of food and reef roids in there are totally different. I plan to wait until mid-April before putting in fish. I'll probably only put in a couple. Here's a current FTS. Still some rock arranging to do and then some mounting of corals.

Today on accident I noticed some kind of tiny decorator crab. It's covered with little sand and shell particles. I have no idea what it is or if it's a predator but it's cool. It's only about one centimeter across.

I'll look over that site. It's pretty loud in there, so very active. For the moment it probably has a bunch to do down there in the sump, so I'll try to keep it happy in there until I can catch it for Isaac. The only hazard will be the venturi intake of the skimmer which is relatively unprotected, but if it stays away from that it should be fine.

Great. I will see if I can isolate it in some way. It's pretty fast and goes into any little hole. Otherwise you might need to take some big rocks with it, heh.

I think I got lucky with the "premium" rock shipment which is the second of the two shipments, in a way. I honestly didn't really like the look of the "premium" rock. I think it had been underwater for a longer amount of time. It did have a bit more sponges and some kind of coral polyps that look like of like small duncans on it, plus some random stringy macro algae, but it was also kind of covered with silt and very dense like bricks. So I didn't want to put it up in the main display and I put it in the sump. A few posts above I'd made a kind of refugium containment system to just basically hold any rocks and macro I didn't want up in the tank, so I put almost all of it down in the fuge box. Well, I'd been hearing some snapping noises and I had assumed I had a pistol shrimp that had hitchhiked in, but I noticed that it was coming from the sump tonight and went to investigate. Turns out I have a mantis shrimp down in the sump among the rock I put in there. So the lucky part is that I put it underneath because it would have been much more challenging to get to it if it was up top. I'm satisfied to let it live down there for a while, but to be honest I will probably want to get rid of it at some point and it will do better somewhere else, so if someone is interested in one, let me know. It's about 2 inches long right now and looks cool when it runs around. It's hard for me to tell the color because I have red/blue LED fuge lights down there so everything looks odd. It also doesn't stick around for me to get a good look at it. Given the noise, I assume it's a hammer type rather than a piercer type.

Just wanted to say thanks to Reef Nerd, BRK, and Aquahaus for bringing setups to the meeting and to the other members selling frags as well. We consistently have a really healthy and huge pile of coral to choose from at the meeting. I know it's a pain sometimes to bring it all and set it all up, but it's great to look through even when I end up buying too much. I think I still have some room for the next meeting.

Ah, so the holes in the bubble plate on top of the box are not all the way around? That's good to know. I guess it was firing water up and into the cup.

are you sure that the "MAX" label on the skimmer output valve pipe is marked correctly? What happens if you try other positions of that adjustment? Looks to me like the skimmer is working great and making piles of foam, it just isn't letting you set the water level low enough.

Yes, and I saw that @thakki had a bunch of SPS corals that I'd had in my tank before, so I'm getting those too. I'll eventually get some torches/hammers in there, if only so that I can see what the current is doing. 8)

First coral in the tank! Guess it's not going to be nems and LPS only. My favorite birdsnest: ponape. I've always thought this one with it's pointy tips and right angle branches looks like more like an alien organism than most corals. Thanks, @flooddc

In preparation for more rock I made a simple DIY refugium box for the sump. I may regret maxing out the size the next time I need to move something around in the sump, like the skimmer. But for now this is good. It's mostly just something to keep the rocks contained in one spot and to toss some macro in so I can start a reverse photo cycle.

Got it out of the rock. What do you think? Bad guy?

Yep. I have reef roids and add them once a day or so. I saw the gorilla crab in the rock so I reached in real quick with my thumb and finger over the in and out holes in that rock and pulled it out. It's in a beaker now. Check him out, maybe 1.5 inches across including legs, but a relatively small one as they go:

Porcelain crab feeding in it's typical pose. Also a brittle star up in the rock above.

Now that everything is clear, I can see lots of life and almost don't see the need for the upcoming second half shipment of "premium" rock, although I'm sure it will be interesting. I'm seeing lots of white banded brittle stars. I've spotted four small green porcelain crabs that hang out upside down under rocks and one small unknown crab. The rocks have lots of small living barnacles that open and extend feeding fans and retract and close. I thought I caught a glimpse of a gorilla crab when I thought I saw a rock move and looked under it, but when I got my red flashlight I could never find it again. When it comes time to do a real aquascape I may take out the rock and shake them in a bucket of saltwater to see what jumps off. 8) So far it's been worth it and a more entertaining startup to the reef tank than dry rock and bacteria.

I agree. I use the alk checker and the ULR phosphate checker. I had some very old reagent this morning that I thought might still work. I kind of doubt that that I have only 24ppm carbonate on a tank filled with Reef Crystals water at 35ppt salinity, though, lol. Good idea to check expiration dates.

Blast from the past, but many years ago I printed out Tom's alkalinity chart that he put up here, but I lost it at some point when I wasn't in the hobby. I went looking for it on the google and found it on this post again. Thanks, Tom and Johnny!

Cleared up by the morning. Not too much visible life emerging so far. Just a couple of limpets and some kind of crab. It will be a couple of weeks before I make any rock decisions for what goes in the sump and what stays in the display. Good thing the tank came with a big sump included.

Live sand and rock day from Tampa Bay Saltwater! It went on the plane in Tampa at around 1pm and arrive at BWI at 3:40pm. I picked it up around 7pm. The water was still 70 degrees, so pretty good. I got 15 pounds of sand and 15 pounds of their "base" rock which is stuff that's been under the bay for years, but doesn't have much growth on it. I asked for "nano" sized rocks and they did a great job of only sending small stuff. It ranged in size from about 6 inches to about 3 inches which is perfect. It's cloudy as heck in there now. You're not supposed to rinse the sand, of course, just kind of dump the water off, lay the bag down in the tank and shake the sand out. I had one visible cute hitchhiker, which I think is a porcelain crab. I'll know better if I catch a look at him again. So here's a basic unboxing series of pics. Sorry for all the blue in some of the pics. My lights are kind of ramping down. I was pretty impressed with their packing and the pickup process from SWA cargo was super easy. Boxes as they arrived: Free Pop Rocks and stickers! Also a little envelope of dry bacteria which I wetted down in a shot glass and squirted in. Bags rubber-banded inside. Sand was double-bagged. Rock was triple bagged. No leaks. Bag full of rocks and yucky water Pulling the rocks out of the water. They recommend gloves because there can be sharp stuff on the rocks Fun little crab hitchhiker in the sand bag Cloudy tank. The rocks just get set in there on the sand today. In a couple of days I'll start arranging. Now I have to do some ammonia checks for the next week or so, but I don't really expect much. Fun times and no big spills on the dining room floor!

I'm waiting for my live rock delivery from Tampa Bay Saltwater on Monday. Second delivery is a week later. In the meantime I'm seeing some interesting things while looking at a tank full of mostly nothing. I had never seen tubeworms like this before. The feather part is fluorescent green. The tube is only about 1mm wide. They're kind of cool. They retract if I accidentally tap the glass, so they're pretty sensitive.

OK, thanks. Maybe I'll try swapping it over to the back wall to see what happens. Do you remember what percent you ran the light at when it was in full growth mode and by itself? I have a few smaller power supplies that I'm swapping in right now because the fans on them are quieter and I'm only running it at 20% just to make sure it's all running.

Yes. As you know normal sand will get blown around by the powerheads, but I'm hopeful that the Tampa Bay Saltwater sand which is much much coarser and about half broken shells will stay put enough to not look bad. The sand and rock in there now is the stuff from my 2g pico that I put in just in case it had some life in it. So far I've seen 4 zoas (rastas and sunkist), an asterina starfish, some aptasia, and a nassarius snail that survived the months of neglect in the pico with heating, topoff, and flow, but no feeding or water changes. I visited Reef Escape last week and got a few hermits to have something moving around in there and bought an mp10 while I was there. I'll put another on the overflow wall like you did. I put the pink fake nem in there to see how much flow gets to that end from the powerhead, and it's not much unless I really blast it on the far end.

Hung the light and got it all working. It doesn't look this blue in person. I may have to break out the orange filters. 8) I still have some wiring to clean up and am waiting for my order from Tampa Bay Saltwater the end of January. The problems with Southwest Airlines have shut down their air cargo shipping operation. Once I get that in there I'll be ready for fish and corals within a couple of weeks, I think.

They may be little collonista snails. If their shells are round they probably are. Harmless if so.

I ended up needing to hand tighten some bulkheads on the overflow box once the water warmed up because I saw a couple of drips. Other than that, no leaks. There are some quirks to still work out, but it's been pretty good so far. The drain area overflowing into the filter socks was making some trickling noises, but stuffing just a little bit of floss in the tops of the socks quiets it right out. It's running at 78F and 35ppt salinity, which I'll keep going for a week or two to make sure everything I know how everything works before ordering rocks and sand. Next is mounting the light.