[fishy888]

Thanks to Petsmart and their Columbus day sale I got Reef Crystals and a 40 lb bag of Caribsea Special Grade sand. Last night I got a 5 gallon bucket full of dry sand and a second 5 gallon bucket about 1/4 full.

It has been a bit busy lately so I still have to work on the stand. My wife offered to let me put the guppies I have in my 45 tall in her 55 so I could use my 45 as a sump. I am very fortunate to have an amazing wife. Not only is she letting me do that, but she is the one who surprised me with my 150.

This build will be my best yet. Part of what will make this build my best yet of course is that I am starting out with the intention of doing an SPS dominated tank. The other part is that I am going to get the right equipment from the beginning. I will do my best to show that it IS possible to have a healthy SPS tank without breaking the bank. So far, including the cost of the tank and stand, it has cost only 200 bucks if not a little less than that. It takes patience and some hard work to not spend a fortune on gear but it can be done.

As for filling the tank it will be a will be a week or two still. I need to clean the tank out and redo the stand that came with it. I also need to get the plumbing done. Since I will get to use the 45 as a sump I can redo the plumbing that came with the tank. My return will come from under the stand as opposed to coming from a sump that fed three different tanks like the original owner did. I got a trashcan like one would keep in their kitchen Friday night. That will be home to my algae scrubber to be. It is surprisingly well made. I am pretty sure it is a 13 gallon can.

My plan is to have the overflow feed the scrubber which would then drain into the sump. As for the return I will either tap it for the calcium reactor and charcoal reactor or I will get a second pump to handle the reactors. I might get a small skimmer too as a backup to the algae scrubber.

I am going to keep the scrubber lit 24 hours a day while the tank goes through the cycle. I will leave the main tank with only ambient light. That should help encourage algae growth in the scrubber. Lights for the main tank will come last but likely be the one piece of equipment I will spend the most on considering how important lighting is.

I know I will use MH lighting on this tank. I am not sure what color temp I want but 6500k to 14000k is the range I am considering. I am hoping to redo the stand this week. After that I am going to address the plumbing and clean out the sump-to-be. I also need to buy a return pump. It will probably be a mag drive 12 or equivalent.

Hopefully I'll have the tank filled to just below the overflow holes to aid in cycling the tank. I figure it can't hurt anything but it could help quite a bit. I will hopefully be able to get some dry and live rock in the aquarium in November. With the cycle already started die off from the live rock should be relatively minimal.