<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">I have been a member of the club for the past couple of months after I was referred to the club by Chris from Fishscales. He told me that there was a ton of information and knowledge in the forums and that the experienced members were always willing to give advice, opinions, and assist other hobbyists in any way possible. Well he certainly was correct and joining this club has really opened up a lot of doors for me and given me tons of invaluable information. I have PM'ed, emailed, and spoken to many of you over the past few months and I just want you to know how much I appreciate all of your advice, answers, and continued responses to questions which I am sure may seem basic to the experienced hobbyists. Everyone has been overly helpful, informative, and willing to share all of their knowledge. I look forward to meeting many of you in the near future. </span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">As for my build, I was lucky enough to meet Chris from Fishscales back in the start of October. I had been wanting to dive into the reef hobby for years and had been researching a couple of different possibilities for quite some time now. After getting to know Chris, he and I discussed some of the different options that would work for my system in my home. I immediately was impressed with his ideas, knowledge, and willingness to teach and educate me concerning saltwater reef keeping. Chris helped me design this system, build the entire system, and has really become a great friend over the past few months. His craftsmanship, eye for detail, and his love for the hobby are first class and my build would not have been possible without all of his hard work and guidance. (When I say his hard work, that means he did 90% of everything accomplished and I was his manual laborer/student). Thanks Chris!! And Julie!! And Tessa (my wife) for being soooo patient with this dream project!</span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">As for the system I am going to post a few pics of the progress that has taken place. The system is in the living room of my home and consists of two 148 gallon tanks plumbed together. They are 48 by 23 by 31 tall. Chris built them using starfire glass and also built both the refugium and sump as well. So he built all four tanks from scratch and they turned out perfect. The tanks are going on either side of a stone fireplace in the main living room. The bookcase units on either side of the fireplace had to be deconstructed and rebuilt to support the weight of the tanks and again, Chris knocked that out with ease and rebuilt them to look exactly as they had prior to project, (Which made my wife very happy). As for the actual system, it will total with water close to 370 to 380 gallons. We also used about 500 pounds of live rock. I am running an Aqua UV sterilizer 114watt, an MRC dual injector protein skimmer, and plan on adding a calc reactor in the near future. We have an RODI unit for auto top offs and the system is set up to drain outside the house and refill automatically for water changes. I am running T5 8 bulb 48 inch lights and will be using the reefkeeper elite as a controller and monitoring system. There are tons of details that I have left out, but I just wanted to get a post up in the forum to introduce myself, say thank you all for the advice and information you have shared since I joined the club, and thank Chris for everything that he has done and continues to do. I am looking forward next year to hopefully having a system that can compare to some of the beautiful tanks I have seen from the other members.</span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Thank you – Mark </span></span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">As for my build, I was lucky enough to meet Chris from Fishscales back in the start of October. I had been wanting to dive into the reef hobby for years and had been researching a couple of different possibilities for quite some time now. After getting to know Chris, he and I discussed some of the different options that would work for my system in my home. I immediately was impressed with his ideas, knowledge, and willingness to teach and educate me concerning saltwater reef keeping. Chris helped me design this system, build the entire system, and has really become a great friend over the past few months. His craftsmanship, eye for detail, and his love for the hobby are first class and my build would not have been possible without all of his hard work and guidance. (When I say his hard work, that means he did 90% of everything accomplished and I was his manual laborer/student). Thanks Chris!! And Julie!! And Tessa (my wife) for being soooo patient with this dream project!</span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">As for the system I am going to post a few pics of the progress that has taken place. The system is in the living room of my home and consists of two 148 gallon tanks plumbed together. They are 48 by 23 by 31 tall. Chris built them using starfire glass and also built both the refugium and sump as well. So he built all four tanks from scratch and they turned out perfect. The tanks are going on either side of a stone fireplace in the main living room. The bookcase units on either side of the fireplace had to be deconstructed and rebuilt to support the weight of the tanks and again, Chris knocked that out with ease and rebuilt them to look exactly as they had prior to project, (Which made my wife very happy). As for the actual system, it will total with water close to 370 to 380 gallons. We also used about 500 pounds of live rock. I am running an Aqua UV sterilizer 114watt, an MRC dual injector protein skimmer, and plan on adding a calc reactor in the near future. We have an RODI unit for auto top offs and the system is set up to drain outside the house and refill automatically for water changes. I am running T5 8 bulb 48 inch lights and will be using the reefkeeper elite as a controller and monitoring system. There are tons of details that I have left out, but I just wanted to get a post up in the forum to introduce myself, say thank you all for the advice and information you have shared since I joined the club, and thank Chris for everything that he has done and continues to do. I am looking forward next year to hopefully having a system that can compare to some of the beautiful tanks I have seen from the other members.</span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Thank you – Mark </span></span>
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<legend> Attached files </legend>
