Hello everyone

[thinkharderchri]

My wife and two young girls have been campaigning for a fish for a couple years now. After I did some research I decided that if we were going to do it we would go way past simply having a beta in a jar and instead create a full blown hobby for all of us (ok, mostly me).

I purchased a Red Sea Reefer XL 525 from marketplace about a month ago. It needed a heavy cleaning since it had been neglected a little...

The liverocks that came with it were in pretty rough state as well, so I elected to bleach them back to scratch...

I got the tank into our house and staged it for my family to realize the vision I had in mind...

I bought an RO/DI to make the water with versus lugging jugs to the LFS, and have now filled the tank.

I have been going slow even though I have had to explain a few dozen times why we have to keep testing water in a tank that has no fish in it. Now we are on day 12 of our Dr. Tims Fishless cycle and are looking forward to all the knowledge we will gain as we go through this adventure!

 

[Bluemoon]

Happy reefing!!
Haha, i am betting that it will soon be your own hobby. Unless you can really grow that octopus and dinosaur out of it! haha. Octopus maybe, but no dinos!

 

[civics14]

That’s awesome. Anything in particular you are planning for the tank?

 

[thinkharderchri]

I would like to have a mixed reef tank eventually with several fish to enjoy as well. Planning on starting out with mostly softies though and a couple Clowns.

I would love to have a full blown refugium going in the sump also to keep the alge bloom away if possible. I am just not to sure at what point I should get it going.

 

[davisg]

Happy reefing!!
Haha, i am betting that it will soon be your own hobby. Unless you can really grow that octopus and dinosaur out of it! haha. Octopus maybe, but no dinos!

Yeah I started in this hobby with my wife, now she won’t even feed the fish because she doesn’t know how to work the apex, the uv sterilizer and all that. She’s completely given up, though she will still marvel at my creations most of the time… haha!!

 

[gill]

Sounds great! Go slowly. I started my tank 6 years ago as a FOWLR, then rescaled it for soft corals, then some LPS, then upgraded the lights, learned about dosing, then tried SPS. If I had jumped straight into corals at the beginning, I am sure it would have been a disaster! Instead, my tank developed along the same path as my learning curve.