ReefRy
Active Member
Hi all!
My name is Ryan and I'm new to both this community and reefing. While I have been an avid aquarist since I can remember, dating all the way back to childhood trips to the lfs with my mom and continuing through adulthood with various combinations of tanks, featuring goldfish, tropicals and most recently Malawi cichlids, Amazonian puffers, shell-dwelling Tanganyikan cichlids, etc, this will be our first foray into the saltwater world.
First, the good...my wife Kenita and I moved to Tallahassee a few years ago to be closer to family and Florida State University. We very much enjoy attending as many football, basketball and baseball games as time and budget allows. Our home has three definitive themes: Kenita's arts and crafts, the university I love and the fishies that allow us to share their home with them! We currently have six tanks, all freshwater for now, with the upcoming saltwater change over coming next week. Three tanks will then become havens for our new saltwater friends. I've been quite busy the past three months doing my due diligence and researching (I do not know how we would have progressed without the experience and expertise from folks on this site, so thank you!) fish and corals first and foremost, as well as as much of the myriad gear my middle-aged brain can absorb. After careful consideration we've decided to turn our 75g into a mixed reef with a heavy emphasis on lps, zoas, and utilitarian fishies like a Kole tang and a Melanurus wrasse to help with clean-up and pest control. Budget and expertise constraints dictate we stick to less demanding corals, but as luck would have it, we actually prefer the look of lps to sps, and we certainly appreciate the more lax lighting and flow requirements. As such, I decided to go with an Aquatic Life T5 hybrid, with an Orphek UV bar for some pop. Aaand that brings me to the not-so-good, as well as the reason for my premature entry into the R2R community:
I knew when I ordered the light directly from Orphek (UV is unavailable from secondary sources, at least to my knowledge) I'd have to wait. My plan is to do a three month cycle that involves no light at all for the first month, then a gradual ramp-up, with my current Fluval 3.0 LED (programmable from the app) coming at one month in, then the Orphek at two months, followed by the T5 in December. As such, the problem is not that I need the light now, per se. The problem is that after emailing Orphek after one week of inactivity, I was told a tracking number would be issued last Monday. When that didn't happen I was told it'd be yesterday, for sure. After another mild disappointment, that brings us to today. I've seen (I too am guilty of lurking) several people with similar issues reach out to this community and get quick results from Orphek. My hope is that the same can happen in my case. Again, impatience isn't the issue. It'd just be nice to have some reassurance that the wheels are in motion and all is well.
Anyway, I've taken enough of your time. I'd like to thank all of you, sincerely, for sharing your wisdom with the world. It's people like you that make it possible for a noob like me to attempt a difficult hobby like reefing and harbor reasonable hope for success! Ryan
My name is Ryan and I'm new to both this community and reefing. While I have been an avid aquarist since I can remember, dating all the way back to childhood trips to the lfs with my mom and continuing through adulthood with various combinations of tanks, featuring goldfish, tropicals and most recently Malawi cichlids, Amazonian puffers, shell-dwelling Tanganyikan cichlids, etc, this will be our first foray into the saltwater world.
First, the good...my wife Kenita and I moved to Tallahassee a few years ago to be closer to family and Florida State University. We very much enjoy attending as many football, basketball and baseball games as time and budget allows. Our home has three definitive themes: Kenita's arts and crafts, the university I love and the fishies that allow us to share their home with them! We currently have six tanks, all freshwater for now, with the upcoming saltwater change over coming next week. Three tanks will then become havens for our new saltwater friends. I've been quite busy the past three months doing my due diligence and researching (I do not know how we would have progressed without the experience and expertise from folks on this site, so thank you!) fish and corals first and foremost, as well as as much of the myriad gear my middle-aged brain can absorb. After careful consideration we've decided to turn our 75g into a mixed reef with a heavy emphasis on lps, zoas, and utilitarian fishies like a Kole tang and a Melanurus wrasse to help with clean-up and pest control. Budget and expertise constraints dictate we stick to less demanding corals, but as luck would have it, we actually prefer the look of lps to sps, and we certainly appreciate the more lax lighting and flow requirements. As such, I decided to go with an Aquatic Life T5 hybrid, with an Orphek UV bar for some pop. Aaand that brings me to the not-so-good, as well as the reason for my premature entry into the R2R community:
I knew when I ordered the light directly from Orphek (UV is unavailable from secondary sources, at least to my knowledge) I'd have to wait. My plan is to do a three month cycle that involves no light at all for the first month, then a gradual ramp-up, with my current Fluval 3.0 LED (programmable from the app) coming at one month in, then the Orphek at two months, followed by the T5 in December. As such, the problem is not that I need the light now, per se. The problem is that after emailing Orphek after one week of inactivity, I was told a tracking number would be issued last Monday. When that didn't happen I was told it'd be yesterday, for sure. After another mild disappointment, that brings us to today. I've seen (I too am guilty of lurking) several people with similar issues reach out to this community and get quick results from Orphek. My hope is that the same can happen in my case. Again, impatience isn't the issue. It'd just be nice to have some reassurance that the wheels are in motion and all is well.
Anyway, I've taken enough of your time. I'd like to thank all of you, sincerely, for sharing your wisdom with the world. It's people like you that make it possible for a noob like me to attempt a difficult hobby like reefing and harbor reasonable hope for success! Ryan
