I put the last of the water into the tank this morning. The sump was filled to a proper level, everything looked good (which probably means I should not have been doing this before coffee). I plug in the Snapper that is the return pump and.... discover that Chris had left some of the unions untightened. Like two on the returns. Water spraying out at high pressure. Quickly unplug pump. Tighten unions. Get towels.

Plug pump in again. No water spraying, but there is a puddle...

When I set up my 125g a couple years ago, I reviewed all the methods people were using to start the cycle in their tanks. I wasn't keen on using live damsels, and having rotting shrimp floating in water in the family room wasn't all that appealing either. I decided to go the route of using ammonia (technically ammonium hydroxide). I went to several stores, trying to find plain household ammonia that didn't have some sort of contaminant in it, be it surfactant/perfume/whatever. No luck. Not...

Tank is set up, sump in place and plumbed, skimmer hooked up (not on, obviously), light fixture back over the tank. I washed all the sand from the old tank and put it in the new one. Chris, the LFS owner, brought over 20 or so gallons of 'live water' - basically he did a water change of his tanks and brought over what he could. Now I get to make saltwater 30g at a time to add to the tank. My RO/DI system is supposedly rated at something like 75g or 100g per day, but at best I get about 35g from...

Yesterday we broke down the 125g. The lion went into one 33g Brute, the rabbit and tang into another. We took out two 5g buckets of sand, with some left in the tank. The rock is being left out to dry and die. It will be put back in during the cycling process to become 'alive' again and probably add a fair amount of organics to the cycle process. The sand is so filled with algae we decided to kill it - wash it with tap water.

The tank arrived this morning. I had four professional...

I had an electrician out today to assess what is going on with the wiring, and what can be done about it. What we settled on is to wire a separate 20A line via a 1/2" PVC outside the house, as otherwise we would have to knock at least one hole in a wall, and possibly more if there is no way to snake the wire past the fireplace. All in all fairly inexpensive, and it will put the aquarium on its own circuit.

Tomorrow the LFS owner comes over and helps break down the present aquarium....