Hello all! My name is Rob and I just wanted to introduce myself and my first reef tank. I figured I'd stop being a creepy forum stalker and say hi. Special hello to Mitch for introducing me to his tanks a little over a year ago and costing me way more money than I will admit to my wife!
After seeing Mitch's tanks, I knew this was something I wanted to try. I've always been fascinated with saltwater tanks and made up my mind to give it a go. Fate would have it that a coworker donated a slightly used bow front tank that was about 28 gallons or so and a heater. I started doing TONS of research. Good thing I did because this stuff turned out to be really complicated for someone who had never kept fish before. I did what anyone that went to school before the Internet would do: I bought a couple of books on the subject.
Anyway, armed with the best reef keeping references that the 1980s and early 90s produced, I started my setup. I went to my LFS and purchased, on their recommendations (this still chaps my rear just thinking about it), two Sicce power heads, a Sicce canister filter ("Most setups use canister filters. You definitely need one."), a Current Orbit Marine Pro 18" LED ("Absolutely. You can grow anything with this light no problem"), 25 lbs of live rock and some "live" sand, some reef salt, an ammonia and Nitrate test kit and I was on my way.
This worked out as well as you could imagine. I realized that I would have nothing to do while the tank cycled, so I decided to read more on reef keeping on this fancy interweb thingy.
Did you know that using tap water was not a good idea? Or that canister filters are not as mandatory as my salesperson made it seem? Or that all of these things plus an underpowered light equals an algae garden of truly epic proportions? Well, after switching to premixed RODI water and ditching the canister filter I felt I was on the right track. Then my heater became stuck on. Over a long vacation weekend, my live rock took a 95 degree sauna. There are lots of algae species that really enjoy these kinds of temps, however various interesting marine lifeforms and beneficial bacteria growing on live rock strongly disagreed. After replacing the heater, I decided to let the tank cycle (again) and do some more reading on algae removal techniques. I have a black belt in Plucking and Scrubbing of live rock. Luckily algae wasn't the only thing that survived the weekend Jacuzzi. It turned out my mini cycle wasn't so bad and I had an explosion of new life! Curious about what these kinda ugly little corals were, I went back to the interweb and discovered that they were called Aiptasia. They liked me. They liked me a lot.
I wasn't sure yet if I should just leave the tank on someone's doorstep in the middle of the night or try and convince people that my Aiptasia & Algae Garden was my intention all along. Luckily that decision was made for me at 2 AM one Saturday morning when I heard a loud cracking sound followed by the gentle trickle of water. My Aiptasia sanctuary had sprung a leak. I drained the tank and placed my Aiptasia and algae friends and their rocks into the tub. Tossed in the heater and a power head and thought seriously about my choice of hobby.
The next day I purchased a sweet JBJ 30 rimless and set up the tank again. As a bonus, I took the opportunity to give the rocks a really good scrubbing and took a blowtorch to every aiptasia I saw. Oh how I laughed as they burned! I think I said "Say hello to my little friend" and quoted Ezekiel 25:17 as I worked.
My third cycle went pretty well, but I still had pretty bad algae and my nitrates were through the roof. Turns out the premixed water from my LFS was reading 20 ppm in nitrates. Nice. Then I saw my aiptasia buddies had come back. And they brought their friends. I decided to try Aiptasia X and it worked okay, but they would quickly retirn. The new LFS I went to suggested a peppermint shrimp as soon as the tank was safe for them to be added. I bought two. These were the first living things I was adding on purpose to my tank and I was pretty excited. So excited that after acclimation, I dumped them both in. I did not, however, remember to turn off the power heads. One shrimp was chopped to pieces as he was sucked through the vortex of death. The other managed to make it to the safety of the rockwork. Either he was pretty scared or I just got lucky because the next morning every aiptasia was gone. My tank is aiptasia free to this day, but my shrimp is kinda twitchy and nervous all the time.
Eventually, after constant water changes with 0 Nitrate RODI water and the addition of a mini reactor for GFO, my algae problem is taken care of nearly a year later. Over the last 6 months I also changed lights to a Ocean Revive T247b and added a Aquamaxx HOB1 skimmer (also have a Tunze 9004 that I'm thinking about going back to. It doesn't work quite as well as the Aquamaxx, but it is waaaaay more aesthetically pleasing). I also have the InTank media basket (great purchase), Auto Aqua Smart ATO (a little finicky but works great once you get it situated properly) and a Jebao RW-4 powerhead (also a great buy). I have a few various corals as well as the obligatory O. Clown fish pair named Kaitlyn and Spot (obligatory if you have a 3 year old daughter anyway), a fat Royal Gramma named Princess, an emerald crab named Grumpy and my PTSD shrimp named Pierre. I haven't named the snails, but my daughter calls them all Mervin. I finally feel like the tank is situated, but I'd like to upgrade my lighting to a Hydra HD even though the OR light grows coral very well. I'd like a little more in the way of features. I've also been looking at the Red Sea Reefer 350 and 450 tanks... those are nice
Anyway, thanks for reading and here are a few pics.
After seeing Mitch's tanks, I knew this was something I wanted to try. I've always been fascinated with saltwater tanks and made up my mind to give it a go. Fate would have it that a coworker donated a slightly used bow front tank that was about 28 gallons or so and a heater. I started doing TONS of research. Good thing I did because this stuff turned out to be really complicated for someone who had never kept fish before. I did what anyone that went to school before the Internet would do: I bought a couple of books on the subject.
Anyway, armed with the best reef keeping references that the 1980s and early 90s produced, I started my setup. I went to my LFS and purchased, on their recommendations (this still chaps my rear just thinking about it), two Sicce power heads, a Sicce canister filter ("Most setups use canister filters. You definitely need one."), a Current Orbit Marine Pro 18" LED ("Absolutely. You can grow anything with this light no problem"), 25 lbs of live rock and some "live" sand, some reef salt, an ammonia and Nitrate test kit and I was on my way.
This worked out as well as you could imagine. I realized that I would have nothing to do while the tank cycled, so I decided to read more on reef keeping on this fancy interweb thingy.
Did you know that using tap water was not a good idea? Or that canister filters are not as mandatory as my salesperson made it seem? Or that all of these things plus an underpowered light equals an algae garden of truly epic proportions? Well, after switching to premixed RODI water and ditching the canister filter I felt I was on the right track. Then my heater became stuck on. Over a long vacation weekend, my live rock took a 95 degree sauna. There are lots of algae species that really enjoy these kinds of temps, however various interesting marine lifeforms and beneficial bacteria growing on live rock strongly disagreed. After replacing the heater, I decided to let the tank cycle (again) and do some more reading on algae removal techniques. I have a black belt in Plucking and Scrubbing of live rock. Luckily algae wasn't the only thing that survived the weekend Jacuzzi. It turned out my mini cycle wasn't so bad and I had an explosion of new life! Curious about what these kinda ugly little corals were, I went back to the interweb and discovered that they were called Aiptasia. They liked me. They liked me a lot.
I wasn't sure yet if I should just leave the tank on someone's doorstep in the middle of the night or try and convince people that my Aiptasia & Algae Garden was my intention all along. Luckily that decision was made for me at 2 AM one Saturday morning when I heard a loud cracking sound followed by the gentle trickle of water. My Aiptasia sanctuary had sprung a leak. I drained the tank and placed my Aiptasia and algae friends and their rocks into the tub. Tossed in the heater and a power head and thought seriously about my choice of hobby.
The next day I purchased a sweet JBJ 30 rimless and set up the tank again. As a bonus, I took the opportunity to give the rocks a really good scrubbing and took a blowtorch to every aiptasia I saw. Oh how I laughed as they burned! I think I said "Say hello to my little friend" and quoted Ezekiel 25:17 as I worked.
My third cycle went pretty well, but I still had pretty bad algae and my nitrates were through the roof. Turns out the premixed water from my LFS was reading 20 ppm in nitrates. Nice. Then I saw my aiptasia buddies had come back. And they brought their friends. I decided to try Aiptasia X and it worked okay, but they would quickly retirn. The new LFS I went to suggested a peppermint shrimp as soon as the tank was safe for them to be added. I bought two. These were the first living things I was adding on purpose to my tank and I was pretty excited. So excited that after acclimation, I dumped them both in. I did not, however, remember to turn off the power heads. One shrimp was chopped to pieces as he was sucked through the vortex of death. The other managed to make it to the safety of the rockwork. Either he was pretty scared or I just got lucky because the next morning every aiptasia was gone. My tank is aiptasia free to this day, but my shrimp is kinda twitchy and nervous all the time.
Eventually, after constant water changes with 0 Nitrate RODI water and the addition of a mini reactor for GFO, my algae problem is taken care of nearly a year later. Over the last 6 months I also changed lights to a Ocean Revive T247b and added a Aquamaxx HOB1 skimmer (also have a Tunze 9004 that I'm thinking about going back to. It doesn't work quite as well as the Aquamaxx, but it is waaaaay more aesthetically pleasing). I also have the InTank media basket (great purchase), Auto Aqua Smart ATO (a little finicky but works great once you get it situated properly) and a Jebao RW-4 powerhead (also a great buy). I have a few various corals as well as the obligatory O. Clown fish pair named Kaitlyn and Spot (obligatory if you have a 3 year old daughter anyway), a fat Royal Gramma named Princess, an emerald crab named Grumpy and my PTSD shrimp named Pierre. I haven't named the snails, but my daughter calls them all Mervin. I finally feel like the tank is situated, but I'd like to upgrade my lighting to a Hydra HD even though the OR light grows coral very well. I'd like a little more in the way of features. I've also been looking at the Red Sea Reefer 350 and 450 tanks... those are nice
Anyway, thanks for reading and here are a few pics.
