Setting up

After a day wait for the silicon gel to dry, it is time to do a leak test! I was praying very hard the nite before that the the return pipes were well sealed as any leakage will be disastrous. The aftermath to this will ultimately incurred von's wrath and likely lead to a premature death to the new hobby.

We do not have a long hose, so filling up the tank was done in bucket and pails. So 'let there be water'.....

Filling up.... and more to go...

Half-way mark, everything still holding up....

Almost there.... keep the water coming....

And finally... the first drop of water overflowing into the sump... No leakage so far. Continue the topping up to flood the sump tank.

Holding our breath for any signs of water leakage.... Phew... and then we pause for a moment to savour a job well done. 400+ litres of water.... not sure von wants to know how much is the utilities bill this time.

We poured some chemicals to de-chlorinate the water and powered up the skimmer and pump for circulation and then wait for a couple of hours for it to settle. The amount of salt mix was calculated to achieve the desired salinity of 1.023 and we quickly drove to the fishfarm to get the salt pack. (not sure of amount now as the excel spreadsheet was accidentally deleted by von... Doh!!)

Came back with a carton of salt and we discovered that the salt was caked-solid. 'Gosh... we gonna have to scrap the block to disintegrate it into its original form so the salt can be readily dissolved in the tank', I commanded. The first few scrapes were easy, but as it goes, the salt block got tougher and our skin started to have this burning sensation. Poor von... diligently scrapping away with a despondent look. 'We got to put on gloves!', exclaimed von. 'Okok before it gets any worse', I quickly responded to quench out further protest... hehe

The water slowly turned cloudy as more salt were poured in and the required salinity was reached with about 10% of leftover salt to spare. Water started to become clear again in about 2hrs, only to become cloudy again when the sand was introduced the next day.

After salt mix:

Almost clear after 2hrs

The sand dumping was fairly quick and the sand was lowered down to the bottom using bucket to reduce the debris storm.

And finally, tara!!

Pearly white sandbed: