Congratulations to William1 who won the tank of the month contest for May 2008. Hit the read link for more information about his beautiful tank.
Thanks everyone! It’s been a long time coming for me in the hobby I think now a year and a half.
The last six months I have been working on my reef tank one step at a time. I remember when my wife took me out to purchase the tank I have now for an early B-day present…
I have always been a keeper of fish ever since I was 6 years old with my ten gallon and gold fish the ones with the bubble eyes. It meant so much to me to be able to watch and learn things threw my beginner tanks.
When I first started out I didn’t know much about saltwater tanks. I thought all tanks were the same wrong. My 90 gallon came with a stand useless canopy that opened from the top not front. 1 pc light 4 bags of LS bucket of reef salt, mag 12 pump, and wet/dry filter.
Wow I was on my way. Not really I had no LR, no fish, nothing but a desolate tank with cool moon lights.
Next purchase was some rock which I was finding very expensive. So after browsing the internet I found marcorocks and ordered about 100 lbs. Not live rock but a great price. I cleaned the rock well not curing it but cleaned it well. And then threw it in the tank… Mind you I don’t know much about tanks. The next day the whole house stunk so bad wow no skimmer.
So on to my next purchase, a skimmer. Well after becoming a member here I found that after reading the endless threads on skimmers I should have one. Well let’s look at skimmers WOW all kinds out there everyone has their own idea of a great skimmer. So let’s skip naming them all…Just too many. So I found lifereef and bought my first skimmer… And I needed it too the protein was building up everywhere in the sump on top of the water.
So let’s see tank, stand, salt, skimmer, rock, algae, more algae, and more algae. The light I was told to buy was just good enough for let’s see nothing but fish…
The first year I just tried to keep regular parameters and add some fish and small zoas after adding a second light just to keep everything alive. Then I decided to move 1000 miles and take it all with livestock included.
Well needless to say a few things made the trip and I lost a sebea anemone, huge frogspawn, fish, and hermits. After my move to the ATL I fixed almost everything that was wrong one step at a time. 6 months later I have installed a refugium new lights more sand more LR. I still need to upgrade some electrical and do a little more cleaning.
Finally I was ready to start keeping anything I want. Parameters are always on point I’m dosing on a regular and have great growth in all my livestock and corals…It’s been a hard and long road to complete this tank but patience is key when you’re in this hobby.. It would be great for all people interested in this hobby to do the research for the first for six months and get as much info as possible before starting your tank….It hasn’t been easy by any means until the last 3 months that I really have been enjoying my hobby. I am not the type of person to give up.
So thanks to everyone for the support and complements even when I first started it helped me keep going even when things did not want to go my way…And for all the newbie’s out there we are always here to answer your questions and help out as much as possible. Just remember what works for some people doesn’t always work for you.. You have to try and make those decisions on our own only using us for guidance. So let’s get to the good stuff equipment:
90 gallon with corner overflow
100 lbs rock + 30lbs LR to seed the tank
Lifereef skimmer
refugium 40 gallons with cheato and some LR, shrooms, copod heaven
tek light 8 T5’s
two koralia 4’s + one maxijet
knop calcium reactor (NEW)
ATO system
stealth heater
Milwaukee PH controller
Lighting schedule:
Atinics 9:00am -9:00pm
Daylight 10:00am-8:00pm
Moonlights 9:00pm-9:00am
Reverse lighting on the refugium.
Maintenance:
Monthly water changes, every other day clean my filter sock, and clean glass. I always inspect everything visual each day to make sure everything is running normal and fill up my holding tank. In amazement I have packed every piece of my equipment under the stand well almost. The top off tank is next to the stand.
I usually try and test the water weekly but now over the last few months I just test once a month.
Dosing:
I used to dose a 2 part B-Ionic every morning 60ml each. Do to the start of heavy dosing I got a used knob calcium reactor awesome no more dosing and I can keep a regular calcium and alk level with ease.
Feeding:
Everyone feeds a little differently I make my own food from stuff I find at the farmers market and LFS frozen brine, mysis or cyclopees, garlic, krill, silversides, bloodworms or some combination. After blending it all up freeze and feed. I feed two times a day with enough food to consume in about 3-4 minutes. I also dose DT’s phytoplankton for the filter feeders.
Additives I am using right now:
• Essential Elements
• Iodine
• Mag
• Zooplex/Chromaplex
• Magnesium
I guess livestock should be next with all the pics. I have never really had a lot of fish at one time there was 10 I think bow there are 6. It’s not that I don’t want anymore I am just picky looking for just the right fish..The damsel was my daughter’s fish she wanted so it had to go in the tank.
Fish & inverts:
• 1 Foxface
• 2 pecula clowns
• 1 midas blenny
• 1 three striped damsel
• 1 hippo tang
• 1 manderine
• 3 peppermint shrimp
• 1 cleaner shrimp
• 5 blue legged hermits
• Gigas clam
• 1 red legged
• 1 emerald crab
• 1 Green carpet anemone
• 1 GBTA
• 1 sandsifter star
• Multiple snails about 7
• 1 huge Mexican turbo snail
As for all the coral I don’t have all the exact names but here we go.
Corals:
• Large orange montipora cap
• Lime green montipora cap
• 2 Unknown montipora cap
• Green staghorn
• Green/grey acro
• Acropora divaricata
• Watermelon chalice
• 1 LE frag
• Other various acro
• Bali green slimmer
• Pink millie
• Purple millie
• Blue millie
• Yellow polyp purple digita
• Orange digita
• Purple tub birdsnest
• Pink birdsnest
• Metallic green flavia
• Green candy coral
• Hairy green mushrooms
• Misc. zoas fire and ice/hot pinks/atomic greens/yellow/orange
• Misc. mushrooms blue/watermelon/red/orange
• Green star polyps
• Xenia
• Colt coral
