Day 3 update from yesterday:
First up, Scraped about another sq./ft of paint off the glass, I'm buying a different scraper after work today now that I've gotten the hang of it. I'm using a narrow little 1/2" blade, going to step it up to a utility blade holder and make quick work of the rest. The hair dryer was working a little, I'm having a heat gun brought over today as well to soften the paint.
Next up I finally decided on my skimmer. Going to try out the new(er) Warner Marine MF201. Mark(itekt) probably wanted to punch me thru my phone texting last night for not buying the super reef octopus, but I really like the way this one is designed, has an internal pump and pulls around 1300 liters of air at only 17w of power. Jon Warner and team came up with a proprietary bubble plate design that is supposed to minimize turbulence, and the kitschy feature of this skimmer is the water effluent comes out the bottom plate of the skimmer thru a plate gate valve with insanely fine tuning adjustment, which is intended to minimize micro bubbles escaping the skimmer.
And finally before crashing for the night, I got my order in for substrate. Going with trusty old seaflor special grade. It's bagged dry, typical grain size of 1-2mm, and once rinsed off and in the tank, looks great. I just couldn't justify the price for reef flakes, as beautiful as it is, it's still just sand. I got 120# for $105. The flakes would have been $150. And this is just the first 120#, I may want to add more sand once I see just how deep this first load is in the tank. Also ordered myself a bigger mag float for the 1/2" glass. I'll likely buy one of those piranha or hammerhead ones when they go on sale, the wooden dry side will look good with the oak furniture on this tank.
That things gonna be a beast. And do you know what kind of paint it is? Knowing the type can help determine the removal.
