Now comes the bit I equally love and hate... the aquascaping. (Actually...as time wears on, I'm perhaps hating it a little more every day!)

I'd done a lot of research online on aquascapes and I had a vague idea of the kind of thing I wanted. I love the "bonsai" minimalist aquascaping look... but also need as much rock as possible for all those BTAs. BTAs love to attach under shelves and in holes, so I ordered 100lbs of Key Largo Rock and 30lbs of Shelf Rock from [URL="http://www.marcorocks.com/"]Marco...

As you might have seen in [URL="http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1972594"]my previous thread[/URL], I'd been toying with the idea of upgrading. I was going to hold off, but then I saw a thread in the Austin Reef Club about 144g sale and I just had to see it for myself. My husband and I have always liked the look of half circle tanks, but I'd seen a lot of people online saying the glass distortion was a deal breaker. I fully expected to stare into the tank and go "nah,...

I was just reefing along, minding my own nano-business when a local reefing couple put their gorgeous 144g Oceanic Half Circle tank up for sale. Well, what could a gal possibly do but buy it and start her dream tank?!

Here is "The Beast" (excuse the missing doors and canopy, they'll be on there soon)

[IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/TheAaarrrggg/tank2.jpg[/IMG]

My previous tanks have been a standard 55g and a [URL="http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1972594"]20g...

We're finally starting to get there... Yesterday afternoon I ordered 25 lbs of cherry primo picked live rock from [URL="http://www.liverocknreef.com/liverock/index.php?l=product_detail&p=7921"]liverocknreef.com[/URL] as a seed for the BRS rock already in the tank. This morning it arrived at the airport, so off to pick it up and here's what it looks like:

[CENTER][URL="http://www.0x0000ff.com/imgs/fishtank/lr_ll.jpg"][IMG]http://www.0x0000ff.com/imgs/fishtank/lr_sl.jpg[/IMG][/URL]...

So, this weekend I hooked up the Litermeter III. The plan was to set it up to swap out 20 gallons of water per week, and top up with freshwater. It didn't quite turn out that way, and I suspect I've got the wrong pump (I bought an 'external pump' rather than a 'water-exchange unit'). I think I'll be able to do it though.

[CENTER][IMG]http://0x0000ff.com/imgs/fishtank/litermeter.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER]

In the snapshot, the blue line is the freshwater, the red line is the...