So, now the tank is full of water, the Bean overflow is happily in place, and the only (tiny) leak actually drips into the sump anyway. I'll fix it, but it's not crucial right now.

The Warner Marine K2 skimmer is plugged in and switched on, it's actually producing far too many bubbles at the moment, even with the gate valve completely open (!). I've left it to overflow back into the sump, and I hope this is because the thing is squeaky clean and needs to bed in for a little while....

Well, the moment has finally arrived. It's been a hectic last few weeks (both at work and at home) so I haven't had too much time to play with the tank, but after re-doing some of the underneath plumbing, the tank and plumbing appear to be holding water

To test things out, I did as before, and short-circuited the plumbing so I didn't need to fill the tank, but once there were no leaks for a good hour or so of pumping, I could start to fill the tank up... Here's the start......

So much of this is just thinking ahead, trying to make sure it's not like being in the army ... hurry up, and wait ... hurry up, and wait ... ad nauseum.

The lighting set up is going to be DIY LEDs. This is for a couple of reasons:

• Cost is important - the less money I spend on lighting, the more I can spend on corals... oh, and the baby due in February [grin]
• Control is important too. The way I'm planning to ultimately set it up is a little more expressive than most. To

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Incremental progress is being made! The dead material is all in the tank now - the sand and rocks are set up how I want them to be, and it's actually starting to look like an aquarium, rather than a glass box...

You can see that I changed the angle of the stand supporting the large flat plate in the middle of the tank. I thought it was too beautiful a piece of rock to be mostly-hidden by nature of being too high up and horizontal. The slight inclination to the front shows off the...

Having power-washed the rock, and found about 6 metric tons of stuff-I-didn't-want-in-my-tank deposited on the floor, I started to play around with how the rocks ought to be positioned. The goal is to keep some open swim-space for the fish, to provide some tunnels and allow for line-of-sight to be broken, and to provide plenty of places to put corals.

I also wanted to keep to the minimalist style, although I'm not sure I actually managed that. For 100 lbs of rock, it sure takes up...