Egg and I (he seems to be there a lot doesn’t he?) added my 20 lbs. of sand. Tomorrow I’ll get live rock.

Egg and I went in on an order to Drs. Foster and Smith for additional gear I need. I ordered two Maxi-Jet 600 powerheads, a second heater for water changes, test kits, various scrapers including a Mag-Float, filter pads and a refractometer. Even more money, and I only have a large tank of water so far! Oh, and Digital Aquatics let me know that they were behind on Reef Keeper 2 orders, hoping another wave would ship by 3/19! Ugh!

Egg, our friend Jeff and I got together to look at everything and set it up. We ended up at a Petco to get something to treat tap water for the initial fill. I got a bottle of Tetra’s AquaSafe. Back at home we set up the tank and filled it, testing the pump and all of the plumbing. We played with the light a bit and added Reef Crystals. I borrowed Egg’s refractometer to check my specific gravity until I could get one (I won’t bother with a hydrometer).

I got paranoid overnight, waking up multiple times thinking I had leaks, but it was fine. Took the following readings the next morning:

SG: ~1.023

Temp: ~78 F

Pictures!

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The Down Under folks let me know that the tank and cabinet were ready so I arranged to get help from my friend Chris to pick it up in his truck. We put the tank and accessories in my car (the main tank is heavy) and strapped the cabinet in his truck. Egg said he’d come over Tuesday to see everything. They didn’t have the skimmer in stock yet so that will require a return trip.

I finally decided to start up a tank after months of debating it. The MASC meeting in 2006 was really cool and I had some coral In Eggplant’s tank since then, growing and (I like to think) longing for their own home. So Egg and I went fish tank shopping. We stopped at Aquatica out near Fuquay, but all they really had were some JBJ tanks and I was hoping for at least an Aquapod like Egg’s. We then went to Down Under to see what they had. Turns out is was my lucky day as they had just started up selling a sweet in-house custom tank. They call it the Down Under Cube. It’s a 30 gallon display tank, cude shaped, with very thick glass, a reinforced lip and an overflow chamber with holes to go to a sump. Their package included the tank, a 20 gallon sump tank and the plumbing between them, a custom cabinet, a combo light much like the Coralife 24″ light (metal halide, 2x compact fluorescent and LEDs), a return pump, an in-sump skimmer, a heater, a floating thermometer, a 55gal bag of Reef Crystals salt mix, a bag of live sand, a hydrometer, flake fish food and various chemicals including a pH/Ca buffer. They also offered to stain the cabinet if I brought a stain. I took a stain and poly coat for them and just had to wait.

Later I ordered a Reef Keeper 2 controller like Egg has from Digital Aquatics. All in all it was a vary exensive day and all I had were some receipts. But soon.