No matter how much forethought goes into the planning of an aquarium, any seasoned reefer knows that Murphy is never on our side. Whether it’s designing the system to avoid a sump overflow, writing controller code to prevent failing heaters from cooking the tank, or quarantining new arrivals to keep unwanted intruders at bay, there’s always something unknown… lurking…

Re-leveled & filling

Last week, after having run tap water for a few days, I drained, re-leveled, then filled my new Elos System Mini with my last batch of Reef Crystals salt – quite fortunate that I had exactly 25 gallons of saltwater mix left. That evening I placed an order with Premium Aquatics (also where I ordered the system mini from) for 15 lbs of Bali Alor live rock, a bag of Tunze Reef Excel Lab salt, and 10 lbs. of  Tropic Eden Miniflake Live Sand. Since Premium Aquatics is in Indianapolis, UPS ground is a cheap and effective overnight service for reef aquarium goods to Chicago and I had the shipment the next day.

PA's Bali Alor live rock has some great shape

My plan for this reef tank is to keep it as low impact environmentally as possible. Unfortunately, the live rock is an area that I am deviating (and I suspect I may falter in the fish department as well, if I can’t find what I want from locals selling off).  I have plenty of coral encrusted live rock left over from my last system that could have easily filled the Elos Mini, but I decided against using it for two reasons…

1) I would like a fresh start and, more importantly

2) I do not want any Anthelia sp. in my system if at all possible! Thus, the choice was made to use real live rock, all the while attempting to justify to myself that “It’s only 15 pounds”.

Sand, but no aquascape yet

This past Sunday the aquarium is looking good, the Bali live rock has been sitting for a few days, so I decide to get the sand in and be done with the initial set up so I can sit back for a couple weeks and hopefully watch some interesting new life pop up. There are a couple small coral colonies that have potential, albeit slight. One looks to be a standard Psammocora sp., which is always exciting for me, being my favorite stony coral (hence my username on the reef boards). It’s browned out, not looking too hot, but Psammocora is a pretty resilient stony coral, so I have hope. The other appears to be a small cup like skeleton, a grouping of five, akin to Dendrophyllia sp. There is the tiniest bit of viable flesh, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed for it as well.

So, what does all this have to do with planning for the unexpected? It seems like the initial aquarium set up has gone pretty well. The fresh water run had no leaks, live rock looks great, no bad hitchhikers (yet!) and sand has settled. The water is now crystal clear, the Tunze salt I’m trying out mixes up well, and the soon-to-be reef tank looks great, especially when coming down the stairs… oh, shit…

The phrase about curiosity makes me very nervous