New to it all

[Desgada]

Hi, and thank you to the people of this forum to the care you seem to take with this site. The info, and of course the giveaways, are amazing.

My name is Michael Forrest,and I am 27. I have a beautiful wife, Angel, and 3 beautiful kids. My bossy beauty Zoe, my sensitive sweetheart Albany Rayne, and my amazing monster Aiden.I currently own a company in Virginia called Faithful Hands. Me and my partner run a day support for adults with devolpmental disabilities. When I am not doing that I work on my long time passion beekeeping.

As for my tank, I have been looking for a tank for a long time and done a lot of research. I got lucky and bought a 55gal tank for 350. The tank included 63 lbs of live rock, I weighed it. 30lbs of live sand, a bunch of nano brittle stars, a fire shrimp, a sand sifting star, 5 BL hermits, a few turbo snails, a mated pair of Ocellasis Clownfish, and a pair of now deceased fire worms. Yes, I looked through every rock and all the sand to see if there were more worms. It also came with all the water treatments and a pack of frozen mysis shrimp. 2 decent powerheads, and all the other basics. Sorry, I know this is a lot of info.

I am planning on doing corals, but not sure which ones yet. Obviously we want more fish, and I plan on building a 10g sump with a small refugium. The tank currently has the stock lighting, but I would like to go with an LED setup but not sure which one yet. Any advice would be welcome.

 

[melypr1985]

Welcome to R2R! Sounds like you got a pretty good deal there

 

[kschweer]

Welcome to R2R !!!

 

[KJ]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[dbl]

Welcome to R2R and your new hobby. Sounds like you're off to a good start and at a seemingly pretty good deal...congrats.

 

[Tahoe61]

Welcome .

 

[CastAway]

 

[Maacc]

Welcome to R2R! Congratulations on your deal.

 

[Desgada]

Thank you all for the welcome. If any of you have any advice for me moving forward , I will take anything I can get. I really want some wow factor fish for my tank, but want to keep in mind the future of my tank. I also don't want to get anything that will be "uncomfortable" in my 55. Thanks in advance.

 

[Tautog]

Welcome to R2R

 

[Ayang90]

Welcome to the hobby! My wife and I started out with a 28 gal. cube with a pair of clownfish and learned a lot along the way. A few suggestions from my own experience especially if you want to get in to corals. Your largest challenge will be to maintain proper water quality and parameters so be careful about overstocking and over feeding. There is plenty of info. on this so read up on tank husbandry and get in to a consistent habit of tank maintenance which would include water changes (we do 5-10% weekly) and testing for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, PH and KH. Installing a sump is the next evolution but it makes maintenance a lot easier as most of your maintenance can be performed in the sump without disturbing your display tank, with the exception of cleaning the glass (I use the Tunze scraper which is awesome). You can then get a protein skimmer to help with the war on nitrates when you have corals. For your water make sure you use reverse osmosis water from a reliable source and a good quality salt mix. I have had some bad experiences so test the water with a nitrate test when trying a new source. There is a lot more that I haven't mentioned, heater, chiller GFO reactor so there is no shortage of things to read up on. We now have a 70 gal mixed reef setup with a 30 gal. sump and all the inhabitants are happy! Good luck.

 

[Salty1962]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[Maacc]

Thank you all for the welcome. If any of you have any advice for me moving forward , I will take anything I can get. I really want some wow factor fish for my tank, but want to keep in mind the future of my tank. I also don't want to get anything that will be "uncomfortable" in my 55. Thanks in advance.

Can you give us an idea of any fish you have in mind? You have some options like wrasse featured, chromis and dwarf angels depending on corals you want. I would stay away from tangs, not enough swimming room to keep IMO. Full size angels and groupers are also too small. You are big enough you could go predator softie.

 

[4FordFamily]

Welcome home, you will love it here!

Post pics of your tank!

 

[Desgada]

I posted some pics of my tank here:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/tips-on-my-tank.297620/#post-3640189

It is a little on the bare side atm, but we are trying to follow the "measure twice, don't let everything die in a wet ball of toilet paper" rule. I have figured out from a lot of research that this is a patience is a virtue type of hobby. So, we are keeping our future plans and compatability charts close at hand.

Please take a look and let me know what you think of my tank, and rockscaping.

 

[cromag27 Verified Sponsor]

Welcome!

 

[SantaMonicaHelp]

Hi, and thank you to the people of this forum to the care you seem to take with this site. The info, and of course the giveaways, are amazing.

My name is Michael Forrest,and I am 27. I have a beautiful wife, Angel, and 3 beautiful kids. My bossy beauty Zoe, my sensitive sweetheart Albany Rayne, and my amazing monster Aiden.I currently own a company in Virginia called Faithful Hands. Me and my partner run a day support for adults with devolpmental disabilities. When I am not doing that I work on my long time passion beekeeping.

As for my tank, I have been looking for a tank for a long time and done a lot of research. I got lucky and bought a 55gal tank for 350. The tank included 63 lbs of live rock, I weighed it. 30lbs of live sand, a bunch of nano brittle stars, a fire shrimp, a sand sifting star, 5 BL hermits, a few turbo snails, a mated pair of Ocellasis Clownfish, and a pair of now deceased fire worms. Yes, I looked through every rock and all the sand to see if there were more worms. It also came with all the water treatments and a pack of frozen mysis shrimp. 2 decent powerheads, and all the other basics. Sorry, I know this is a lot of info.

I am planning on doing corals, but not sure which ones yet. Obviously we want more fish, and I plan on building a 10g sump with a small refugium. The tank currently has the stock lighting, but I would like to go with an LED setup but not sure which one yet. Any advice would be welcome.

Hi Michael,

Welcome to the forum and congratulations with a purchase
Do Angel, Zoe, Albany Rayne and Aiden have their favorite fish? What corals do you like?

Zhenya

 

[Desgada]

Angel, like me wants fish that will bring the tank to life, but understands the restrictions that comes with 55gal. She lives bright colors tangs, fairy wrasse, dragonets. Aiden is 2 so he just loves watching everything. His favorite is probably the fire shrimp "fiver scrimp" as he calls it. Albany only wants a hippo tang. Zoe wants pretty coral.