An aqua view

The last of Andrea's aquarium parts showed up Monday, THREE months after paying for it. I admit CAD Lights builds very nice aquariums, unfortunately they suck at delivering them. Their customer service is as bad as any company I have ever dealt with. The Canadian reps were good to deal with but they could seem to get nothing done from head office in a timely fashion. I wish I could end this on a happier note talking about the company but how when you buy a Christmas present for your wife and the company completely bungles the order and then takes three months to make it right do you feel good about them...anyway moving on.

We have spent most of the week finding the supplies to finish off the custom plumbing job she wanted. We split the return line into 3/4" return directed into the refugium and controlled by a ball valve to ensure that the flow is kept to a trickle. The other branch of the return stayed at the standard size of 11/2" into the main portion of the sump.

Once the setup was dry fit we ran a garden house in and filled the tank and sump with standard water from an outside tap (I had spent some time in the sun getting the ice out of the hose) and ran everything to ensure the modified setup would work. Everything seemed to be exactly as she wanted it so at that point Andrea shut everything down and drained the tank.

The following morning I shop vacuumed the remaining water and grit from the tank and then set the supply hose from our RO/DI (reverse osmosis/de-ionized) water system I had installed to perform the dual feature of giving us both pure drinking water and the special water recommended for supplying a reef aquarium. As this system will supply a maximum of 100 gallons of purified water per 24 hours it was going to take a couple of days to fill this beast. I started it at 07:44 Friday morning and we ran it well into the night Friday. We shut it off planning to be safe if we slept in...yeah right, 06:30 seen us starting the day by flicking on the water flow and getting ready for the days plans. We had some running around to do and Noah and I were scheduled for haircuts (only a slight trim for me thank you), Andrea needed new sneakers for running around at work and so on. We shut off the supply while we were out for a few hours but promptly turned it back on when we returned home.

As Saturday evening dragged on the tank seemed to have doubled in capacity, it was akin to watching paint dry waiting for the final inch to fill and the overflow to start draining water into the sump. Of course the whole time waiting for the tank to fill was not as simple as sitting there watching for Andrea, she had to mix enough of the special salt into it to make the specific gravity read 1.025, we did the calculations and she mixed the salt in, she ran the water heaters to help bring the water up to temp (26*C) and once the salt mix was done she had to add her sand bed. She chose after much debate to go with a deep sand bed in her refugium so she made that 4 inches deep while going with a shallow sand bed in her main tank so that is about 1.5" deep. Her rock had been in place for quite a while waiting for the missing aquarium parts.

About midnight she was content, the proper water levels had been reached, everything was finally running and everything was the way it was supposed to be. That includes water so cloudy you cant see into it, using very fine sand comprised mostly of calcium chloride means there is a bunch of very fine silty stuff in the water column, this will completely settle in the next couple of days and the water will become crystal clear. The tank still has to do whats known as "cycle" which essentially means it has to have an ammonia source to build a colony of nitrifying bacteria that will convert the ammonia (toxic to fish and corals) to nitrite and then build a colony of bacteria that will convert the nitrite (also toxic to fish and corals) to nitrate to prepare the system to process the fish waste once they are introduced to the tank. Once she can start adding fish and corals the system will become a living breathing coral reef, over the years it will grow into a spectacular show piece, however this is not a venture to be undertaken by those without patience.

Aquarium Index

Display Tank - this is a 48" wide, 20" high, 24" deep tank made from 1/2" thick Starfire glass, holding aprox 100 gallons. There is an overflow in the back center that has three holes drilled in it to allow plumbing to move water around.

A - D this is the part of the aquarium known as the sump.

A- This is the refugium, the original sump from CAD Lights did not include this, I bought a piece of glass at a local shop and we installed it to create this section. Allows for additional bio-filtration and allows a place to grow different algae for more bio-filtration and to grow micro organisms to feed the fish and corals.

B - Protein Skimmer - this is a device designed to do what natures waves do, create a foamy, bubbly spot that removes impurities from the water, much like the dirty foam winds pile up on the beach.

C - Filtration Media - this removes excess bits through mechanical media (foam)

D - the lower D is the section of the sump that houses the return pump which pushes 1100 gallons per hour of water from the sump back to the display tank. This water flows out into the tank helping create the current required to emulate a natural reef in tidal waters. The are also two other wave makers installed in the tank, each one capable of circulating 1100 GPH - these are connected to a programmer that enables them to alternate operating times to simulate ocean currents etc.

The upper D is the main return line, the upside down T in white is where the return water comes from the display tank, dividing it into the refugium and main return, the D is on the actual drain hose that provides the bulk of the water to the sump to be filtered and returned to the display tank.

The lights shown hanging above the display tank are full spectrum LED lights that are fully programmable to create a natural sun / moon cycle.