Mellow

Got some advice from Dan and I think I found the sweet spot by controlling the valve and now the suction has stopped completely. Hope it stays that way. Before and after adjustment

Hey bro, thanks for the help. Actually my compartment for sump has constant water level. It's just that during the suction, the water seems to gush very quickly down o the sump and that caused a momentary increase of like half a cm increase in my sump compartment. So im trying to mimise that. Is the suction common for durso?

Realised my durso pipe is causing fluctuations in the water level in my sump due to its suction. Can any bros advise me what might have gone wrong? Causing my skimmer not to perform at optimum performance

My biggest fear. Bald patches! haha. Hopefully once I fill the tank with corals and when they grow out, it will block off some flow and prevent the sand from scattering. Looks really ugly now

The star polyp encrusted live rock starting to open nicely

Thanks guys for the nice comments. In my boredom and absence of more life in my tank, I found some more life via a welcomed hitchhiker on the live rocks. Zoas!!!

thanks for the tip!

wah. So coincidental u saw it too. Haha. If it ever grows out, I can give u a frag if u like bro. For now, it's just an expensive and pretty live rock. Haha.

thanks bro for the thoughts. Actually I have no intention of cleaning the glass near to the second island where my external overflow is. Most probably I will try to grow some zoas or nice star polyps in the glass instead if there's a chance

Final shots for the day. Time to mop the floor...again!

Silly me tried to start the FR today as well. Should have been gently instead of dumping the whole can of rowaphos in it. Causing the whole sump to turn brown. Thankfully I haven't change water yet

Wanted to buy water from aquamarin today but realised they have shifted their RO source to new shop. Instead I find a live rock encrusted with green star polyps. Should have curbed my temptation as I actually had no intention to introduce corals or fishes for another 2 more weeks

And the view from the side facing the window

View from the side

And the second island which took me like almost an hour due to the rock on the right most. Might need to redo this island

And the second island which took me like almost an hour due to the rock on the right most. Might need to redo this island

Close up of the first island. Surprising this part took last then 10 mins.

Final scape looking like this. Gave it lots of caves and crevices for fishes to swim around. And of course, for better. The view when I enter from main door flow

Let them be life! This is the first of the two islands scaping that I really love when I saw some of the reefers tanks here. I'm hoping for this tank, I'll be able to see more sand and make it feel more open in general

Toughest part abt partition tank scaping is to ensure it looks decents at all 3 sides. Not forgetting there has to be sufficient clearance for cleaning glass. So rocks were given at least 3 to 4 inches of sand all 3 sides

Good deal for live rocks at T95. $5 per kg. Bought a total of 16 kg of lie rocks today and started to plan my scaping in the floor first to prevent my back from breaking

Decided not to mount the vortech controller but leave it lying on my shelf above the lights but secure the dry side wire in case dry side falls off. The ATI lights are really warm man considering I turned on only for half an hour and was standing in front of it while mounting the vortech.... Or maybe the weather is just insanely warm lately. have also set up all timers already. Left dosing pump to be set up

So far the bubble magus curve 7 skimmer is skimming light coloured green tea but pretty happy with performance, looking at the gunk on the neck, considering nothing is in the tank yet

Love the clean look of the vortech in tank. No more underwater camera looking device

Finally set up my vortech. This is my current configuration but I heard certain settings cause the vortech to wear and tear faster and also that the glass might not be able to handle the stress. Is anyone able to advice which mode is better for sps and also gentler on the hardware like the vortech and tank glass?