New to R2R and very excited!

FishGuyTy · Mar 8, 2014

Hi all,&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;My name is Ty, im 24 and I live in Madison WI. I have worked at Big Kahuna Tropical Fish in Verona WI for almost 3 years now. I am the Aquarium Maintenance Technician Manager. We are an aquarium service and installation company so over the past few years I have had a lot of experience with a wide range of products and live stock. I value my job and everything it has taught me, but there is still so much more to learn! I am excited to improve my coral ID'ing and livestock naming.&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;I currently have a 65 gallon reef tank. I also have a coral frag system set up as more of a grow out bin in preparation for my 90 gallon custom build.&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;My 65 gallon is run by a 565gph canister filter w/built in 13W UV. I have a 150W 2 channel LED light that I have on Aquatic life light hangers. There is one 1300gph wave maker as well. I have a 3" sand bed, 80 lbs of live rock. I currently have a golden rabbitfish, 5-bar mystery wrasse, yellow watchman goby and magenta pistol shrimp pair, cleaner shrimp, harlequin shrimp, and a fire shrimp. I have 2 halloween hermits, 5 scarlet reef hermits, 10-15 blue leg reef hermits 3 assorted snails, 6 nass snails, and 2 pom pom crabs. For corals I have a ml hammer, ml frogspawn, lg duncan, 3 acans, feather duster (not really a coral), birdsnest frag, green acro frag, blue acro frag, red monti frag, captn america paly, green monti, green w/red flower pot frag, start polyp, calypso zoa, and 4 or 5 diff colored colonies of mushrooms totaling about 15 in the tank.&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;My Frag system is an old hydroponic grow tub with a sump that it sat on. The sump is about 36"lx24"wx18"h and the coral holding part is 36"lx22"wx8"h. I have a 3/4" drain and fill. A Rio 1700 runs the system. I have one small 160gph powerhead in the sump to circulate the water. I used a 5 gallon bucket with holes drilled in it for the filtration that the return water runs thru. The bucket is layered starting from the bottom with 10 lbs of rubble totoka live rock, 5 pounds of bio pellets, bonded, 2 chemi pure elites, and bonded.&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;I will be posting some pictures and hopefully videos of my tank and frag system in some different areas today to get some entries for the monthly prize &lt;img src="https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif" border="0" alt="" title="Smile" smilieid="1" class="inlineimg"&gt;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;

FishGuyTy · Mar 8, 2014

I dont know why this bad picture posted. Clearly I am new to this. I was trying to get one of my current pictures, but apparently it did not work. This was an absolutely stunning male Lyretail Anthias I had and was taking pictures of for the MACNA calendar photo contest. I have much better pictures of him too, I just cant figure it out yet. Sorry guys.

"Acro Sheen" · Mar 8, 2014

Welcome to the site! ! Pic looks pretty good to me and nice fish BTW!

FishGuyTy · Mar 8, 2014

Here is a better pic, maybe the one I submitted, I'm not sure.

Davesgt · Mar 8, 2014

Welcome to R2R! Keep the pics coming!

Reefing Madness · Mar 8, 2014

fishroomlady · Mar 8, 2014

would love to see pictures of the entire tanks! I'm still processing the 5lbs. of biopellets???

FishGuyTy · Mar 8, 2014

fishroomlady said:
would love to see pictures of the entire tanks! I'm still processing the 5lbs. of biopellets???

the bio pellets are more for diffusing the incoming water and are not submerged a majority of the time. I will get pics of that up soon. In the mean time I have added a few pics to my first photo album for my 65 gallon reef. The pellets are int he sump of the frag system, which I am excited to show off. It was a cheap, easy set up and it is working well for not having a skimmer and having been neglected as far as water testing is concerned.

FishGuyTy · Mar 8, 2014

Here is my reef tank. I know it is a little dirty on the sand bed, and the corals are all just randomly placed, but remember, I am in the process of preparing for my custom 90 gallon. I am waiting on supplies and am still going back and forth on buying or making the stand. It has been pretty cold here in WI and the garage is not heated, so buying the stand sounded worth it, but now that it is warming up, I'm back to wanting to build. Within 2 months I will be setting upi the 90 and beginning to move things over. I have let the tank go a bit and have collected a bunch or new corals to start growing out in the mean time, hence the need for my fragging/grow out system. Stay tuned as I plan to post about the new set up as much as possible.