Haven't posted in ages :(

I haven't posted in a long while, not really sure why. I will try and post more often.

I am getting rats again :D

I am really excited to be getting rats again soon, The only things I need to get are the cage and of course the rats.

I have brought them lots of stuff already, they are going to be really spoilt :D

Batwoman

My Batwoman collection so far.

Live rock is in

So Sunday was spent putting live rock in the tank

The water is in!

So, just a quick update- the water went in on Wednesday night, which was just regular tap water, with the conditioner treatment, and mixed up with Tropic Marine Pro Coral Salt. In hindsight; i suspect the regular, non-pro, salt would have been easier to manage, solely because of the initial levels would have been a little simpler- but none-the-less; two days after, and a small amount of swapping out some tank water with non-salted water to bring the salinity levels back down just a touch, and things are looking good!

Measurements from yesterday evening: 8.1pH (could do with 8.3, but we'll sort that with some buffer), 26.C on the nose, salinity @1.025, and very low ammonia and nitrite levels. Nitrates however are fairly high at 20ppm; but I suspect that's where the salt may have been a little too-pro! A heavier than normal water change after the cycle has finished should sort that out anyway :)

The tank after filling, with the lights on. Lots of bubbles on the glass in case you were wondering!

So, what's in store for this weekend? Live rock! Time to start the cycle going. Probably pick up some epoxy putty to stack the rock securely, and maybe an API Calcium Test kit- i've got some concentrated Marine calcium on the standby already, and it should help the pH buffer/levels a little once established too :)

Terrible Twos

The terrible twos do exist, They are not just an old wives tale to scare you from having kids.
My two year old has spent three hours this morning proving how terrible it is being two.
It is unbelievable that he didn't stop. After two and a half hours I figured he must be tired by now and but him to bed. This made no difference, He quickly got out of bed and just continued his tantrum on the bedroom floor. It is lucky that his floor is padded with all the head banging he does. (Head banging is completely normal at this age, even if it is scary chances are they will not do it hard enough to hurt themselves. It is mainly for attention or out of frustration.)
M is now sitting on the sofa and has calmed down. The problem is that he now needs his bum changed which will likely cause another tantrum.
Needless to say I am looking forward to him growing out of this phase. 

Setting up the tank

This is what our tank looks like at the moment with the coral sand and other equipment. We have got Fluval Roma 125 for our tank, the official fluval black/silver cabinet, Fluval U3 filter, Fluval M150 heater, and a Tunze 9002 as the protein skimmer.

This is our Tunze 9002 as our protein skimmer, It took a bit of tank and background modification to get it to fit- note that we've filed down the lip on the tank, as well as cutting out a large section of the background.

This is the protein skimmer with the top on- a very tight fit between the tank edge and lighting!

The left side of the tank lid- it's difficult to see here, but the front-most panel has been cut about an inch shorter length-ways, so that the lighting unit can be pulled nearer to the front in order to fit the skimmer bowl in!

Here you can see where we had to cut the lid of the tank for the protein skimmer cup to fit.
It is amazing the amount of things that you can do with a Dremel- excuse the rough edges... we'll sand them down at some point!

Tank with the lights on but no sand. You can see all the equipment in this photo though- heater on the left, protein skimmer at the far back right, and the filter just in front of that.

This is the hole that we cut with a Dremel to fit the protein skimmer.