Who is near Flowery Branch?

[siege]

I've been given a set of lights fit for low-light SPS for my 20 gallon tank for Christmas. Problem is the (checks notes) ~$1,200 worth of other stuff I need to get a reef tank started right... so... probably mid- to early February, I hope to pull the trigger.

That said, I'm curious to find out if anyone is at all close to me so that once I do get the tank cycling I might be able to buy/acquire some sand, rubble/rock, and chaeto samples from some local folks, rather than buying from IPSF and AlgaeBarn?

 

[siege]

Erm, I more meant "samples of sand..." than any significant quantities. But apparently I can't edit a post and was too hasty to hit the post button.

Also FWIW I have enough dead coral and rubble to get me started, and I think maybe a bit of rock, just nothing live.

 

[billyocean]

I know it's probably not what you want to hear..but 15 lbs of kp aquatics premium live ocean rock delivered to your door is $300. You will basically skip the cycle and the problems that dry rock will bring along with it. If you stay around for a year or two..you'll look back and kick yourself for not biting the bullet now. It was two years before what I consider my dry rock to be what it is now....and it cost more money to get it to this point than just getting ocean live right from the start. You can grab rock from other reefers if you want but for a 20 gallon 15lbs of the kp is all you need.

 

[myvwrock]

I'm in auburn. Let me know whatcha need, I can h typically help. And you're tank is going to cycle, any new tank will, and any new tank goes through "new tank stuff" .

 

[siege]

I know it's probably not what you want to hear..but 15 lbs of kp aquatics premium live ocean rock delivered to your door is $300. You will basically skip the cycle and the problems that dry rock will bring along with it. If you stay around for a year or two..you'll look back and kick yourself for not biting the bullet now. It was two years before what I consider my dry rock to be what it is now....and it cost more money to get it to this point than just getting ocean live right from the start. You can grab rock from other reefers if you want but for a 20 gallon 15lbs of the kp is all you need.

Eh... thing is that's yet another $300, and I'm already pushing the edge of my wife's patience/acceptance with the $1200 of stuff currently in my cart. There is *maybe* $200 worth of stuff in there that isn't precisely essential - a "glass lily" outflow, an opaque backing for the refugium, a better light for the 'fuge, a feeding syringe, a few other minor things, and, technically, I could get by without a protein skimmer (the best affordable and workable HOB/in-tank option I could find is a Tunze Comline 9001, which is still $130), but I'm not going to. The other ~$1000 is essential just to get the tank up and cycling properly.

If I didn't have so many other things to spend money on, I'd probably also be doing a full sump with bigger skimmer, etc. But that's not in the cards right now, for more reasons than anyone here cares to read about (first-world problems), so unfortunately fish must be towards the bottom of my list of priorities. I don't want to half-*** it (which is why I'm getting the skimmer, even though I could probably get away without it if I do a 10% - 20% WC weekly, given I'm seriously over-filtering the tank with a canister rated for 80 -160 gallons). Soooooo many things to spend money on. Ugh.

I'm also not in any kind of particular hurry: I've been without (but dreaming of) a reef tank since 2008 or so, and could always add the rock at a later time, when I hadn't just burned a hole through my non-essentials budget. I'm just glad for the gift of the lights, which at least lets me finally put a LITTLE priority on getting a reef together again, sooner than later.

Trust me I feel you though. I've looked really hard at KP and IPSF's offerings. But I'm planning on taking it slow. Honestly, the only fish I plan on putting in the tank is a Mandarin, once said tank is fully mature and stable. MAYBE a clown, if my kids insist. Everything else is to be corals and inverts. With GARF no longer around, I figure it'd be easier (and cheaper) to get some biodiversity from and and rubble from established tanks (I'll renew my ARC membership as soon as I am ready to put water in the tank), and why would I pay $40 (not incl. shipping) for chaeto online, when there is probably someone local enough to me with an established tank willing to sell it cheap or give it away?

 

[siege]

I'm in auburn. Let me know whatcha need, I can h typically help. And you're tank is going to cycle, any new tank will, and any new tank goes through "new tank stuff" .

Right on, that's maybe 30m away or so, and my wife is usually in Hamilton Mill at least once a week.

 

[Jack Landers]

I've got some stuff in Stone Mountain too. For a 20 gal tank it doesn't take much. If your available over the weekend.... come on by and let me help set you up. Do you have the tank?

 

[Adam]

I'm in Flowery Branch. Off Lights Ferry and McEver. I've got a pretty large setup and might have some of the stuff you'll need for much less than retail.

 

[siege]

Argh. I suppose one way to keep myself from being too verbose in a post is to lose track of what I'm doing and reboot my computer before clicking post reply.

Oof.

Anyway, a sincere thank you to all for the offers of assistance. I hope to take you up on them soon, but with a sick kid in the house, my car in the shop having its brains replaced (for the 3rd time in 4 weeks), and a family vacation planned week after next, I expect to be pretty tapped for time and money. I also don't want to risk getting anyone sick till I know kiddo is better.

I'm in Flowery Branch. Off Lights Ferry and McEver. I've got a pretty large setup and might have some of the stuff you'll need for much less than retail.

That's awesome news! I'm sure I'll be seeing you (fairly) soon!

I've got some stuff in Stone Mountain too. For a 20 gal tank it doesn't take much. If your available over the weekend.... come on by and let me help set you up. Do you have the tank?

Yep, I do indeed have the tank. I was hoping to keep my freshwater fish in it and save the 29 bow for a reef, but I did a dumb and put a pearl gourami in the 20 that we had downgraded to during our move this spring... and it got aggressive with the black skirt tetras. At which point my wife insisted I do something, so I found the parts for it and managed to crash-cycle it (0ppm NH3, 0 NO2, <20 NO3) in 13 days flat. And now I get to sigh every time I look at it and think about what could have been. Oh well, at least the gourami quit bullying the tetras, my neocaridina are breeding happily and my Amanos are continuously berried. So, the 20 gallon reef it is.

As above, I'm both lacking transportation (probably) this weekend, as well as don't want to get anyone sick, but I'll be in touch for sure.

My lights can fit a tank up to 36" (Current USA Orbit Marine IC Pro Dual) though, so, if I managed to save enough money elsewhere and/or someone has a ludicrously good deal on a 29g, or a 30/40g breeder, I'd certainly consider it. I have a 100g on offer from a friend, but I just don't have lights for it. Or a stand. Or a particularly good place to put it.


(Please forgive the mess, it's been a busy holiday. Tank is cloudy because I put some leaves harvested from pondwater in it as an experiment now that the tank has lights again - the originals got stolen to supplement the lights on the 29g. And yes, I've moved the power strip to someplace safer. 3g acrylic tank will be drilled and elevated to use as a hong-on-side refugium. 10g was a birthday present to my wife for a pea-puffer tank: I do need a good deal on a 2 - 5g or a HOB 'fuge to use to breed snails if anyone has one they want to get rid of.)

 

[myvwrock]

Argh. I suppose one way to keep myself from being too verbose in a post is to lose track of what I'm doing and reboot my computer before clicking post reply.

Oof.

Anyway, a sincere thank you to all for the offers of assistance. I hope to take you up on them soon, but with a sick kid in the house, my car in the shop having its brains replaced (for the 3rd time in 4 weeks), and a family vacation planned week after next, I expect to be pretty tapped for time and money. I also don't want to risk getting anyone sick till I know kiddo is better.


That's awesome news! I'm sure I'll be seeing you (fairly) soon!



Yep, I do indeed have the tank. I was hoping to keep my freshwater fish in it and save the 29 bow for a reef, but I did a dumb and put a pearl gourami in the 20 that we had downgraded to during our move this spring... and it got aggressive with the black skirt tetras. At which point my wife insisted I do something, so I found the parts for it and managed to crash-cycle it (0ppm NH3, 0 NO2, <20 NO3) in 13 days flat. And now I get to sigh every time I look at it and think about what could have been. Oh well, at least the gourami quit bullying the tetras, my neocaridina are breeding happily and my Amanos are continuously berried. So, the 20 gallon reef it is.

As above, I'm both lacking transportation (probably) this weekend, as well as don't want to get anyone sick, but I'll be in touch for sure.

My lights can fit a tank up to 36" (Current USA Orbit Marine IC Pro Dual) though, so, if I managed to save enough money elsewhere and/or someone has a ludicrously good deal on a 29g, or a 30/40g breeder, I'd certainly consider it. I have a 100g on offer from a friend, but I just don't have lights for it. Or a stand. Or a particularly good place to put it.

View attachment 95982
(Please forgive the mess, it's been a busy holiday. Tank is cloudy because I put some leaves harvested from pondwater in it as an experiment now that the tank has lights again - the originals got stolen to supplement the lights on the 29g. And yes, I've moved the power strip to someplace safer. 3g acrylic tank will be drilled and elevated to use as a hong-on-side refugium. 10g was a birthday present to my wife for a pea-puffer tank: I do need a good deal on a 2 - 5g or a HOB 'fuge to use to breed snails if anyone has one they want to get rid of.)

As for lights... I love t5s. But if you're on a budget, I would go with some black box leds from Amazon. Philizan, viperspectrum are a few names. They will grow anything and great bang for your buck. Hobby doesn't have to be expensive per se

 

[siege]

As for lights... I love t5s. But if you're on a budget, I would go with some black box leds from Amazon. Philizan, viperspectrum are a few names. They will grow anything and great bang for your buck. Hobby doesn't have to be expensive per se

Yeah, it's hard not to love T5's, but they're spendy and power-hungry, and the bulbs and ballasts need replacing regularly. I will, however, never do fluorescent lights in a reef ever again.

TBH, I probably could have had T5's for what these lights cost (they were about $260 I think) but I wanted LED's for longevity, as well as the programmability these lights had, specifically with a smooth ramp in brightness between lights on and lights off, and not just 3 or 4 "steps" like most seem to have. Yes, I know all of us have been doing tanks for decades now with lights that snap on and off, and our tanks have survived and even flourished, but I'm also sure and certain that, though they "survive" it, it's not good for fish or corals. The addition of the pump controller, along with being bluetooth instead of wireless or using a chinzty remote control, and rated for up to low-light SPS kinda sold it for me. Also, while it's a bit of a gimmick, I like that I can set it to emulate "weather": I don't care about the thunderstorm mode, per se, but the others to occasionally simulate a cloudy day, etc., I think, will help result in hardier corals, similar to the difference between a flower raised in a perfect hothouse environment that dies at the first sign of stress, vs. flowers grown outdoors that are subject to wind and rain, etc.

At this point, the only light I really need is for the refugium, as the one that came with that little Kollercraft tank is barely sufficient for a betta and handful of neons, much less freshwater plants, much less macro-algae. I suspect I'll eventually want a higher-powered spot to use for more light-demanding corals or two, probably at the top of the tank, but not any time in the near future. I could probably use some better lights for my freshwater tank than I have, but, they're good enough for my needs, I think (I need a PAR meter maybe) and I can't justify spending the money just because it's a bit jerry-rigged.

At this point, it's all the OTHER stuff I need that's adding up, especially if I want to do it as right (as I can afford) from day one.

 

[Steve Burton]

"(I need a PAR meter maybe) "
Par readings are available free to supporting members.

 

[myvwrock]

As for a fuge light I use an ikea hanging light pendent with a grow light bulb from home depot. Works great

 

[siege]

As for a fuge light I use an ikea hanging light pendent with a grow light bulb from home depot. Works great

I've actually got several BR30 grow light bulbs mounted in the ceiling immediately above the island countertop there, but it's a 10' ceiling or so, and it's turning out not to be quite as sufficient as I'd hoped for my potted plants that I brought in for the winter, as my Wisteria Frutescens have had some yellowed and dropped leaves. I could pick up a pendant to work with the bulb, but I also have to be mindful of the decor, wiring, etc., given the kind of central location... so a $16 light like the NICREW one on my list there I think is a pretty good compromise to the much more expensive magenta ones I did browse.

"(I need a PAR meter maybe) "
Par readings are available free to supporting members.

Oh, be sure, I'm renewing my membership, and soon - I just need to get past the holidays and back from vacation. My membership more than paid for itself in the past just in the support from the community, much less the other benefits it conveys, but this is still good to be reminded of. Meters aren't as expensive as I expected, but more than I want to spend for something I'll almost never use, for sure, and it would be good to understand the levels in both of my tanks. The freshwater isn't as critical by any means, but it's hard to characterize lighting levels by eye and what seems dim to me might be more than sufficient for my planted tank.