My first tank

[Imtheguy35]

I've been in the hobby now for six months and I'm going to try to post my experiences here on my thread. I started with a Craigslist purchase of a 72 gallon bow front.with that purchase I got a 48 inch coralife pro tech series light,chiller,sump,and a Magnus skimmer,and three korila power-heads. I transferred about 70 percent of the water once the set up was complete so I could keep as much as the bacteria as possible.this is the tank after I got it all set up.

 

[Imtheguy35]

I went through a couple algae outbreaks and I quickly learned that a good cleaning crew makes the difference in a tank..than I had a Dino outbreak which was really frustrating. But after stopping water changes and topping off my tank with kalcwasser the outbreak slowly went away..

 

[Imtheguy35]

After I got the Dino under control I started stocking my tank a little at a time I went to my lfs and bought a arc eye hawk fish thinking they were all docile.. Guess again he killed two gobies and one blue reef chromis... So hawk went back to lfs.

 

[Trae]

Nice set up!

 

[Imtheguy35]

Thank you it's been great to get into the hobby!! I love it...

 

[Imtheguy35]

Just last week I had my third fish swim into my intake so I asked some r2r members some advice. I got some great feed back, and I'm actually in the process of covering my intake to stop the algae growth. I cut a piece of gutter guard to block my inhabitants from venturing in as well..

 

[Trae]

Im in the same boat. 72 bow front for about a month.

 

[Imtheguy35]

The latest thing I have learned is that just because you have halides does not mean you have to run them.. I only have a Kenya tree and some mushrooms, and my Haitian anem. Do not require that amount of light. I really do think running my halides were causing some of my algae blooms as well... Someone correct me here if I am wrong! Just what I have gathered through my experiences

!!

 

[Imtheguy35]

Did you go through the green hair algae outbreak! I thought I was going to be a chemist for awhile! I was so concerned about my water perimeters!!

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Looking good!! It's possible the halides could have been on too long or were too strong for your tank. This could have contributed a little bit to the algae outbreaks, but I feel that algae outbreaks are also a part of the learning curve with starting a new tank.

 

[Zero Nitrates]

Nice tank!
Have fun reefing!

 

[Imtheguy35]

I'm thinking about selling my fixture and getting 32 photons from reef breeders .. That way I can adjust It to what's in my tank.. At some point I want to get into corals but than I need to change to more specific testing methods like the Red Sea kit.. Right now I have the API..I really think the Dino was due to my halides I was only running the four hrs a day...

 

[kes]

great job! looks much better now without all that cyano.

 

[Imtheguy35]

My current stock... 2x O. Clowns,royal gramma,coral beauty,dragon goby, 2x pj cardinals, long nose hawk, copper banded butterfly and a Haitian anem. Does anyone have any ideas of any kind of inverts that would be safe... I was thinking a blue spiny lobster.... I just did not know if a 72g would be big enough?