skinnywater66
Active Member
Hi there, this is just an informal welcome to all reefers who care to help a noob on his way. A little background is in order i guess so here goes. I am a professional sports photographer living in southwest florida and started a tank about 3 years ago. Anything you could do wrong I did. I live in Port Charlotte, Florida on a saltwater canal and got the grand idea of starting a reef tank. I found a 10 gallon tank and took some rip rap rock out of my canal and started a tank. Went to the beach and gathered up some sand and water and thought I was well on my way to a successful tank. You have no idea the problems I had encountered but even as bad as everything went I learned alot. I battled some of the worst green hair algea you have ever seen and turned around a tank destined for complete failure into something that even supported life. In two years I kept some low light corals and a pair of clownfish, 3 anthias, and a copperband butterfly fish. How I don't really know. I would go to the beach and get water once a month, feed so heavily that the smallest bristle worm in my tank was around 10 inches long but yet everything continued to grow. I have battled green hair algea so thick that I could fill a 5 gallon bucket every week for about 6 months and when I finally won that battle things looked great. I kept everything alive for about 3 years but never had any luck with corals so i Just let my tank go all natural. It's crazy but thats when everything flourished. I litterly had rip rap from my backyard, water from right off shore the beach and just a heater to keep the water at a constant temp. No skimmer, no anything but a powerhead and a prayer and things were growing like crazy. I did a 25 per cent water chance with beach water about every two months and things kept improving. I got so lazy in this tank that I quit checking anything but yet it flourished.. The only thing that killed this tank was my laziness and complete lack of doing anything. Things were going so well that I just stopped checking but when the bottom fell out it feel out hard. So here I am after a 3 year break trying to do it right this time. I have a 65 gallon rimless deep blue aquarium, a homemade 40 gallon sump and am going with Tampa Bay saltwater live rock to start this build. Any help would be greatly appreciated and welcomed. Thanks
