Hi!

I suppose before I introduce you to the tank, I should tell you how I got it. Basically, I saw a listing for it on ebay classifieds. I thought, "Wow! A 75 gallon tank with Live Rock, Lighting, a Protein Skimmer, and some Mushroom Corals!?!?! For $400??? WOW!!!" I then emailed the seller and tried to arrange a day. We decided to go on a Sunday, but their entire family, including them, got sick. Next Sunday, 1-9-11, I was being driven to Wheaton, Illinois, (Near Chicago) by my dad. I was rattling on and on about the things I would be looking for in the tank...

"Looking at? We're not going to look at it! I'm not driving back and forth while you try to decide whether or not you want it! We're going to buy it!", he exclaims. (Not angrily, this was merely exclamatory.) One phone call to the seller later, we were on a detour to Menard's to get eight five gallon buckets for transporting water and Live Rock.

Five minutes later, we were in their house. Walking into their living room, I saw a beautiful 75 gallon tank with a maple finished stand. It had a four bulb PC light fixture! (Two blue _W _*K, and two white 65W 10,000*K bulbs) There were even 4 LED night lights on it! As I looked incredulously at the tank, I saw a blackish blue fish with white spots swim behind some of the rocks. It was a Marine Betta! Wow!!! The only bad things that I could see in the tank were:

It had a horrible hair algae problem,

and,

Two of the PC bulbs weren't working, even though they were new!


Anyways, long story short, I bought the tank with everything for $350. I put the fish and corals in the buckets (Along with as much water as possible) and the LR in separate boxes. While setting up the tank, we had to tighten one part of the overflow box. It ended up loosening another, causing a leak. I got electrocuted trying to unplug my power strip... Yay!!! Right before I went to sleep that night, I finished adding all of the LR and needed twenty more gallons of water.

The next day, I got the the water out of my fridge's filtered water outlet, (RODI in the future) and added salt. When the salinity was right and the temperature was within five degrees of that of the tank, I added the water for an average specific gravity of 1.023. I turned on my filter system, and BAM!!! The tank came to life. After only twenty or so minutes, my tank was almost perfectly clear. I started a twenty (Again, twenty... Why so often?) minute aclimation of the Marine Betta, who was in my aerated and heated five gallon bucket. When it came time to add him, I slowly grabbed it with my SW only net. He slowly was lowered into the tank, and as soon as the net was off, leisurely swam off to a dark corner, to not be seen again for a whole FORTY MINUTES!!!! AHHHHH!!!! Sorry, it came out quickly, after only forty minutes of hiding time.

It likes to sit in the rocks, hiding and watching me. Hurray for stalker fish! Anyways, my pumps, which were loud, are now quiet, after ten or so minutes of intervention on my behalf. Now onto the problem post with pictures!!!