Austinswill
Premium Member
Hi everybody,It has been a long time for me. My first go at a tank was pretty much a disaster. To keep it brief, I was a cheapskate and made my own rock with oyster shell and portland, my own skimmer, my own sump and designed the most convoluted plumbing scheme you have ever seen to convert a 250g acrylic FW tank into a reef tank with overflow box. The Rock was a nightmare and drove my Calcium levels up to like 1200ppm. The plumbing worked although it was noisy. The only thing that actually worked really well was the skimmer I made using a 5 gallon Ozarka water jug. That thing was insane.The final nail while I was working through the issues was taking a job 300 miles away. So I broke down the tank sold the livestock and abandoned the hobby after about a year into it.Well, I am finally back and situated enough to get going. I bought a very nice setup from a friend. He was away on vacation and his power went out and tripped a GFI breaker to the tank. Total loss. He got water flowing when he got home but the damage was done. The tank sat with pumps running for about 2 months and then I bought it. A few small corals survived but that was it.Setup is a 140 ish gallon reef tank which has an actual total water volume of 125 gallons. All Echotech lights/pumps with a nice refuge/sump and skimmer. I bought the echo tech bridge and have a Roller sock on the way which I am really excited for.Anyhow the tank was up and running very quickly as it had been through a massive cycle from everything that died. I had 30 gal of the original water and the tank was then filled with "pre bacterialized" water from a LFS (basically they drained water from their established tanks) The tank saw a very small cycle but the surviving corals were happy and open throughout. There are now 3 small fish, 3 snails and a few new corals that all seem happy. I have also seen some copepods (although I want more) and small starfish coming out. I have a small (25 gal pack) clean up crew that will arrive tomorrow.I will be stocking it with LPS and small fish... nothing longer than 3 inches. I like a lot of little things compared to a few big things! I plan to do small water changes where I target detritus and other muck as I suck out the water. Probably 5 g every week to 10 days. That doesn't sound like a lot I know, however I will also monitor trace minerals and replace as needed. I am glad to be back and am already finding the hobby much much more enjoyable. The equipment has come a LONG way since I first tried.Cheers!PS: my old username was Austintatious.... however it appears it was deleted and someone else took it 