Hello, from South Carolina

[Garrick]

Hey, everyone!

I'm re-entering reef-keeping after a break of a few years.
I have a 25 gallon Solana, severely under-stocked and a bit of a mess at the moment. Water parameters are solid, but the glass is in need of some serious cleaning.
I'm getting a new skimmer and top-off tomorrow and plan to use that as an excuse to give the tank a decent polish.

I'm very much enjoying these forums and look forward to getting to know you.

Thanks,

Garrick

 

[underwaterfirefighter]

Welcome to R2R! Let's see some pics of your tank.

 

[Cuda]

Welcome to R2R! We like Pictures!

 

[nayrgaijin]

Welcome to the site Garrick !!!!
Glad to have you here !

 

[sprinklerdudes]

welcome

 

[Garrick]

Thanks, everyone. I'll be scraping the recent bout vodka-scum off the glass before pictures happen. Fortunately, a new algae magnet is in the box with the rest of the stuff.
The goal is to make the tank look less "science experimenty", as my wife says.

 

[JR's Reef]

Welcome!

 

[IamRit]

Hello, hello. Welcome to R2R.

 

[Russellaqua]

Welcome to the forums!

 

[firsttime]

Welcome to the forums, I am flying down to Greenville, SC in couple of days, can you tell me if there are any good LFS in that area?

 

[Yellowtang]

Welcome

JR,

 

[Blackhawk Fan]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[SaraB]

Welcome to R2R. Scrape that glass and show us your tank!

 

[amore169]

Welcome.

 

[Garrick]

Welcome to the forums, I am flying down to Greenville, SC in couple of days, can you tell me if there are any good LFS in that area?

I haven't made it to Greenville yet. I'm still pretty new here.
Columbia has Fishy Business and Charlotte, NC has Fintastic which is definitely worth the drive. It's right over the border.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[FishyFarr]

alright someone else from SC
I am up near charlotte and good to see you online.

 

[Garrick]

Okay, here is the set up.

It's 25 gallons, I'm using the stock Solana return pump which is a few hundred GPH.
The live rock is from Tampa Bay Saltwater. That place is fabulous.
Filtration is basically a bag of carbon and some Brightwell Aquatics zeoliths.
For flow, I'm running a Hydor Koralia 1 and two Nanos and a Tunze Nano. I love magnet mounts so very, very much.
I replaced the stock skimmer with one from Sapphire Aquatics, which operated like a champ except for an issue with the impeller (which Sapphire corrected brilliantly). I read good things about the Tunze Nano DOC skimmer, though, so I picked up one of those. And by "good things" I guess I should admit I mean "magnet mount".
However, as I went to replace the Sapphire I saw it's gunk-filled cup and watched it skimming it's little heart out, so I left it. Well, I cleaned the cup. So I guess I run two skimmers on 25 gallons.
I also added a Tunze Osmolator for top-off. Guess what kind of mounts that has!
In typing this all out, I realize how horribly traumatic the early nineties suction cup era was for me. I'll go over that with my therapist.
I replaced the bulb with a Phoenix 14k (and spent the rest of the night fiddling with the white balance on the camera).
This was the result:

And a little hardcore goby action:

Thanks,

Garrick

 

[Garrick]

Close to a year since this has been updated. Sorry about that.
I had an issue with the chiller where the controller freaked out and dropped the tank temperature to about 50 degrees overnight. There wasn't much to do but remove the dead stuff, change water and wait. And wait and wait.
The tank was starting to mature in a nice way, coral and fish-free, but nice.
Then the floor flooded.
Oddly, it wasn't a reef-related flood. The valve behind the icemaker leaked into the wall. For weeks. I replaced the valve for $3 at Lowe's and felt pretty good about it, but it did about $10k worth of damage to the hardwood floors.
Reefwise, this meant moving the tank.
Wanting to make the move as trauma-free as possible, I set up a new tank and transferred the equipment and rock and some water. Everything made the transfer and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the fumes from sealing our newly flattened floor don't nuke the tank again.
That's why I'm posting now. I'd appreciate a collective "fingers-crossed", if possible. I sealed up the tank pretty good and the room that it is in, as well, added a bag of fresh carbon and shut off the air intake on the skimmer. Tomorrow afternoon I'll pull out and discard the carbon and fire the skimmer back up.
I'd post pics of the new tank, but I can't get to the kitchen right now while the floors are gooey.
The new tank is a Marineland 47 gallon column. I've swapped the halides on the old tank for LEDs on the new and couldn't be happier with the look of it.
Pics to follow this weekend, for serious.