This is about half the rock we'll ultimately have in here. Not much to see at this point, I know.

Oops--image is rotated, but you can sort of see the second and third chambers of our sump setup here. The bottom of the image is the refugium chamber, with a spongy filter dividing it from the third chamber, which is where the return pump lives. You can see that the Oolitic live sand we bought from the LFS is already seeping into the filter, and a little has skiffed the bottom of the third chamber as well. Did we pick sand of too fine a grain? Do we need to worry that the sand will get sucked up into the return pump and cause some mechanical or other issues? Or is a little seepage like this normal and probably done for now?

You can also see that, when we first put water in yesterday, we drew a fill line for when the pump is running, and about 12 hours later, we're already an inch below that line. From another thread, sounds like that's a normal level of evaporation. Should we be filling it fuller than this? My one concern is that evaporation at this level could lead to the return pump being partially above water if we're not super-vigilant about refilling it every day.

That's enough images for now. Thanks for indulging me. :)