[ReefDave]

Starting to feel like the Missouri State Highway Department, I keep talking about progress but I have nothing to show for it!

Today I will try to catch up to Jay a little bit. I plan on measuring and cutting all of the wood for the cabinet and canopy today. I would like to go ahead and get the cabinet put together and the canopy tomorrow.

Friday it will be off to home-depot to buy all of the boards to skin this thing with. I think I have it all planned out in my mind how I want it to work. Im a little confused about how to make the cabinet look right, but I think it will look good in the end. If not I have a back-up plan on how to cover most of my boo-boos.

Dual 250w ballast should be here Friday. That brings my total number of major purchases down to 2....Bulbs and Salt.....getting close in that department.

Of course plumbing and skin for the stand, reflectors for the lights, but those aren't major purchases.

I felt better all day today (no pains) so back to the garage with me first thing this morning. If I dont hear anything back on my camera by the end of the week that should mean that it was covered under warranty....so maybe in a few weeks I will have some picks for all of you....

Dave

 

[wanareef]

Not to throw a wrench in your progress - where did you buy the salt

Did you see the IO salt @ petsmart 200 gal bucket for $33.00

 

[thefatman]

only 6.99 for shipping too, not bad at all. too bad it's back ordered.

 

[Casey]

Yea Dave dont even think about posting with no pics

 

[ReefDave]

Sorry I typed that poorly. I mean the salt and bulbs are the only things I have left to buy.

The salt will be bought at petsmart, I saw that last week.

Now, the real kick in the teeth will be the 80lbs of live rock I need to buy. I Figure that with all of the work Jay has to do with his skimmer and stuff, I will probably catch-up, but it will be finding the money for that much rock that will have him finishing first....though he already has a tank, which means I have motivation on my side!

 

[thefatman]

i'm getting a lot of my rock from www.hirocks.com

i jsut can't ignor how cheap thier prices are! i'll still have to buy some LIVE rock to seed it, but at least i wont have to buy 100 pounds of live.

i'm probably gonna get 75 of the cheap stuff, and 25 of the lvie stuff, and paitently wait for it all to cycle and seed.

you could save some serious money going that route dave.

 

[ReefDave]

Actually I meant to post here and ask about hirocks.com.....is it good stuff? how porus is it? Totally reef safe?

Dave

 

[ReefDave]

Im looking at that sight right now, and 50lbs for $65 sounds pretty good. The only thing that bothers me is that it said "very dense" does this mean I will need 80 pounds to take up the space of 40? If it is more dense than say fiji how much more would you have to have to make it perform the same?

Either way I think I will get a box of the balanced (larger peiced 7-10 inchers, and then a box of the "bio-media" stuff. Ill put the baseball sized stuff in the tank, and the rubble in the refugium. Hopefully that will make up for the fact that the stuff is more dense. Plus my fuge will be pretty good sized, so I will have lots of room for the left overs. And it will be a good place to grab chunks for all those hundreds of frags that I just KNOW I am going to have.

Then instead of driving to Indiana, I can just cruise over to St Louis and get a few nice show pieces to cover/seed with.

What are you seeding your sand with? I thought I would buy some LS at an LFS in St Louis, and then get the www.IPSF.com mix n' match.

Dave

 

[ReefDave]

To anybody following this thread I just spotted this place Reef Rocks and it seems to be exactly what most of us are looking for. I was reading on Hirocks and most of the info was good, except there was some complaints about dense the rocks are, and that 50lbs doesn't really get you that much. I think the reefrocks look better, but are a bit more expensive (probably about 25 bucks more shipped) but from everything I can tell I think its the way for me to go.

Dave