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That’s fantastic! I picked up an IM20 long and was considering making it a seahorse tank, if I go that route be prepared for me peppering you with questions!

Geat pics! You have to isolate, otherwise they'll get gobbled up in your DT, by literally EVERYTHING.

Bump!

I really like this idea - outside of the Holidays.. I'm almost tempted to say anything from 11/25 - 1/15 should be a blackout. Kids are out of school, holidays, relatives, travel, Black Friday sales - it's a lot.

I'll be in Tahoe until 1/11/25 (wtf 2025?!) - free any time after that afaik. WC location works for me ;)

Petco! 20% off code: BLACKFRIDAY20 (free shipping over $35) https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/red-sea-salt-bucket-55-gallon-3867312 BRS has 160-200gal boxes on sale: https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/aquarium-salt-mix-red-sea.html

40% off select Brightwell products, doorbuster so may be short lived! Edit: select hannah checkers as well https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brands/brightwell.html

I was going to ask the same, grabbed the 200gpd a day or two ago.

Rough layout of lights. Don't give me a hard time, it's what I've got laying around (old 26HDs)! I have some OR2s as well I can supplement with for now if needed, until I can go for some XR-30s or HD64s. Might have to sell a kidney.

Meanwhile, the tank was still full of sand - we got enough rock and sand out to move it, again time sensitive so we had to haul ass. That's a 5 gallon bucket, half full, after moving it twice now. Breaking through the top crust, it was STILL damp/wet, which naturally added weight throughout the...

As I mentioned, they had a nice t5 system - which I yanked, because I'm a modern man, dammit! Had some old rails - so I chopped them and made adjustable (fwd, back, left, right, etc...) - and it's universal enough I can shoehorn any brand/type/size as long as the bracket fits the light.

Dismantling, to start cleaning

In the sump:

Crushed coral is what I had back in the 80s-90s, and was "standard". But now? Oof, a lot of controversy around that.

It was - years of moisture and salt, it took some "persuading"!

Step ONE - pull doors As you see from the pic above, screws were in bad shape and I had to drill a few out. Aside from that here are some good pics of what kind of state I was dealing with:

I put the sump back underneath, just to have some room, but this should give you an idea how literally CRUNCHY everything is. Zoom in on the sock - that is basically cement in there.

Been a while - let's see, where did we leave off? Ah yes - getting it OUT of their house. Fun. So I had th U-haul overnight and parked it in the driveway, backed up very closely to the garage door so nobody could get in. Nosey neighbors had all kinds of interesting theories (HOA President lives...

I think this may have been part of my transition to coarser/heavier/larger grain sand - WAVEMAKERS! You end up with a pile of the finer stuff in a corner after it's been blasting around, clouding up the tank. This is even more noticeable in a nano.

What is you our preferred substrate and why? If you opt for no substrate (in display, not talking frag tanks here), what is your reasoning behind it? If you do have sand, how deep - and is there a particular grain size you like? For some reason I'm drawn to the larger special grade from...