My first reef tank

Finally I have made some headway to a long process, this a my 90 gal project which happens to be my first salt water attempt. 120 lbs. of sand and approx. 100 + lbs. of rock. It is all dry now, the rock I got out of a tank that was in a house fire and the power was lost and it was in January, I am a fire/arson investigator and when I was investigating the fire three days after the fact the tank was dead and maybe 35 degs. The property owners gave me the rock, so I cleaned and dried it out. "stunk like #@*^$ I might add" So here are some pics of the tank with no water in it, the lights are just sitting on the tank just to see what they are going to look like. Also I have added some pics of the sump construction in progress as well. Please give advise on anything anyone sees going wrong or right This my first and I am a big time virgin to the whole set up and salt process. I have had fresh water tanks all my life, the rocks I used putty stick to secure them and they are sitting on the bottom of the tank not the sand bed. Thanks for any and all advice, I will continue to upload pics as the project moves on.

 

Nice man looks like you are well on your way. How deep is that sandbed?

 

About 4", here some more pics

 

looks like a great start, some may say your sand is a little much, (to deep)

 

Yeah you might want to cut it back to 2" and use the rest in a refugium. DSBs tend to have more problems later on in the tanks life.

 

Don't pay any attention to the date on the pics, I'm not smart enough to change the dates

 

Boy that is going to be a pain getting some of that sand out, I guess I will use a gravey laddle

 

yes better now than when it has water in it, or use a new wet/dry vac, i keep my sand about 1"

 

Nice looking setup there! BTW, was the fire because of the wiring for the tank? Just curious.

 

No the fire was the result of a ceiling fan that had a heating coil in it.