Salt and Pepper

This has been quite the productive weekend. From my earlier post, you can see that the tank finally has water in it. Well, now that water is salted. My friend Kyle and I made a trip to the LFS (Local Fish Store, for those of you keeping score), and I was able to purchase the background, two powerheads, a digital thermometer, and some other miscellaneous equipment. I have a feeling I'll be making many of these "quick" trips to the LFS in the coming weeks. By quick, I mean over an hour, because we walked around and looked at all the fish and corals, and anemones, and.... and...

Here are some pictures:

Here is the tank, now with a black background, two powerheads, the filter running, and salt actively mixing. It takes quite a while for the salt to dissolve, so we put the powerheads lower to the floor of the tank to promote more mixing and dissolving. Thanks again, Kyle, for all your help.

In this shot, you can really see the pile of undissolved salt. It took some time, but it all dissolved pretty well after a while.

A closeup shot of one of the powerheads. This is the Koralia #1. I wanted the #2, because it is more powerful, but the store was out. Supposedly, they will have more in on Thursday. I am going to get the protein skimmer on Friday, so I'll pick up two #2's then, as well. These #1's will then go downstairs into the mixing pails and the quarantine tank.

The filter had a small leak overnight. We were able to fix it without much effort. Note of advice to anybody using one of these cannister filters - make sure with absolute certainty that the gasket between the cannister and lid has zero grit on it. Just one small piece of grit caused a leak in mine, and I'm glad I looked today, otherwise we would have had a small flood after a short while. I'm certainly keeping my eye on it over the next couple of hours, and even days to make sure it doesn't start to leak further. If it does, it certainly is going back to the store.

Here's a shot of the salt being pushed around by the powerhead. As I said, it took a while for it to dissolve, but it seems pretty good now. So, now I will let the saltwater "age" and go for live rock probably next weekend. Until then...