My First Aquarium

My first aquarium is finally just about ready to hold fish. I have been watching the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels every day for the last week and recently they seem to be dropping faster and faster. So maybe fish by next week???

I have built pretty much everything from the stand to the sump, refugium and all the plumbing.

I have a 75 Gallon marine land glass tank. A 20 gallon sump and a 10 gallon refugium.
I have 100 pounds of marco base rock. With what is now 15 pounds of live rock to seed it. I also have a 100 pounds of CaribSea Tropic Isle Tahitian Moon Sand. 80 pounds in the DT and 20 pounds in the refugium.

In the sump i have a AquaC EV 180 protein skimmer powered by a Mag drive 7. Witch is currently pumping out micro bubbles even after a couple 20 gallon RODI water changes. I have put a 100 micron filter sock on the out put in the skimmer and that is helping to keep it down. Any other idea's of what i should do? As for my return pump is a Mag drive 12.

The only thing i still really need to get is a new light all i have on it right know is the light that came with it. A 48 inch 40 watt light. It pretty much does nothing. I cant wait to see it under T5 lighting. Just have to save up for it.

If you see anything i should change before i add fish please let me know.

So here is some pictures.

toss some cheato in your fuge, bout the only thing i can see tank looks good

Hey! Looks like you got a lot of nice stuff there. I think should you leave the skimmer off as your trying to get beneficial bacteria to grow and they need something to produce off of. (I'm pretty sure this is right :D) I'm very new to the hobby also and made many mistakes. Don't be like me and add a fish so quickly. I tested my water constantly and saw no spike, so I added a blue damsel. Then the spike happend and I thought my fish was going to die. I got lucky and the little grimlin survived. Worst case scenario is you add an awesome fish like an athias then bam he dies from an ammonia spike.

So, my advice is to watch some House or Community for the upcoming weeks and pay no mind to your tank. It's HARD I know! Researching fish will also keep you very busy. It's all good fun.

I'm jealous of your big tank... I tell this to everyone with a bigger tank than me. : D

Your tank looks great...good job! :)

looking great! good start!

Hey Red, you dont mess around! Looks sweet!

you got a very good looking setup so far. cant wait to see it with a little life in it

Yea it took a ton of work to get it where it is now. I had a couple of times where i didn't now what i was going to do. I even thought about throwing in the towel a couple times. Had some thoughts of even just making it a freshwater. Sure happy i didn't do it!!

As far as the setup I thought if I just went all out on the setup from the start it would help me in the long run (since I am a total newbie). With what looks like to now be a good and healthy population off pods in the tank i couldn't be happier. Since i am still in my cycle.

I think the worst part of the whole build was the plumbing. I redid the drain twice and the return piping 3 times. It was some costly mistakes. I am finally happy where it is now.

After what was been 3 months of building, working and researching. Its finally almost time to sit back and enjoy all my work. I now though there will be things down the road I am going to want to change and add on but for now i am going to just let the tank be for a while and just see what happens. I am already thinking about coral but i want to be able to keep the fish good and healthy before i take that step.

Your tank looks good. How long has the skimmer been running? It usually takes them a couple weeks to break in and start running normally.

Non stop for the last 2 weeks. Should I be cleaning the foam tower or should I just clean the neck and cup?

Just wipe down the neck and cup about once a week. You shouldn't have to clean the entire thing more than a couple times a year.

Looks great! I'm getting ready to do my sump and plumming and everything. I've just been running off my LR and my skimmer up to this point and its been ok. Yours looks great! My skimmer doesnt pull much out of my tank at all, just a bit every now and then, but my water still tests ok, so I guess it is ok.

Your set-up looks great! You should be very proud, you've done a great job, especially for a newbie. Very nice and neat too. :claphands