Excited to see how this goes, following along @Arcu2 thread as well. Happy to see MP10 works fine. Mine should come in a couple weeks.The tank is wet, salty, and cycling!
After almost a day of making RODI water I had enough to fill the tank and sump. Interestingly, I measured only about 39 gallons out of the 54.5 volume advertised on Waterbox's website. Obviously the rock and sand take up some volume, but I wasn't expecting it to be that much. Either way, I just tripled the volume from my previous tank. I'll take it!
After testing my existing vortech MP10, the magnetic hold seemed plenty strong even though the glass thickness is technically above the max tolerance for the MP10 so I went ahead and ordered a second. I also decided to go with MarcoRocks sand... I'm not sure about this decision since currently I have a temporary MJ600 powerhead in the tank and it's already blowing the sand everywhere, the addition of MP10s to the tank isn't likely to improve the situation. It's possible I may need to take it out and replace with crushed coral or something similar. We shall see.
On to the cycle! I decided to give Brightwell's dry rock starter kit a shot. I dosed the ammonia/nutrients as directed and ended up with as close as I can tell 2ppm ammonia which is exactly what the instructions say it should be. Next I put the Microbacter Start XLM into the tank and the cycle is off! According to the directions, if all goes as planned the tank should be cycled in approximately a week. I'll be measuring ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate along the way and will keep the thread updated on the tank's progress.