And Then There Were Two

A few weeks ago, I found an iron stand and another 55 gallon tank on micronews for $50. We've been looking at setting up a refugium and this seemed too good to pass up, so we bought the two, and I spent a highly noxious few days spraying the stand with assorted pre-sprays, enamels, and coats so that it (fingers crossed) won't rust. Here's the new tank atop the stand, 2/3's full, waiting for the sand to settle.



Ultimate optical illusion, by the way -- these two tanks are within a quarter of an inch of each other for the dimensions... who would have thought after seeing this photo? The second (now in-use) tank will go on the bottom of the stand, and will hold the protein skimmer, a pump up to the display tank, and a deep sand bed with assorted macro-algae to further filter the water. We went today to get the baffles cut, so now all that's waiting is the sand to settle so that we can move all of the rocks, fish and corals from the old tanks to the new, and so that we can clean and dry the old tank to get it ready for siliconing things in place.

The white cabinet in between is another micronews find, and will hold the new pump which will power a closed-loop circulation system, and which can also hold all of the food, etc. Best part: it has a towel bar on the right side. :-) There's a glass panel for the door, currently removed, which I plan to frost so that the pump, etc. isn't quite so visible.