Elysium
Well-Known Member
Good afternoon erverybody,
After being a lurker on several forums for advice, I got the LiveAquaria tweet and decided to see what this place was all about. Wow, was I surprised at how nice this place is compared to others. With the contest and all I figured I should finally join up with a group that shares my interests.
So about me. I guess I fit the perfect mold for a reefer. Younger guy with no wife and kids and lots of disposible income. I've been only working on this for about a year and half, and only seriously for about 6 months. So lets see where this all began and the ineveitable spiral out of control.
To start out I inherited 2 damselfish from a family member that used them to cycle their tank and were going to give them the big old flush for being... well... damsels. Out of the kindness of my heart and a little interest I saved them and banished them to a algae ridden 10 gallon tank for about 6 months.
At this point the strip light I was using died and rather than buy a new one outright, I figured I could check craigslist for a different setup for on the cheap. I managed to get a 35 gallon hexagon with a stand for a cool price of $35. Excited with my new setup I promptly upgraded my filter to a Penguin Biowheel and bought a new powerhead to help create the vortex effect in the now deeper aquarium. In went the damsels, crabs and the algae "life raft" rocks.
Unfortunately, with my job I tend to disappear for weeks to months at a time. During one extended leave I had someone watch the tank for me with instructions to top off the water as it dropped. Unfortunately they mixed new saltwater each time and the tank eventually went hypersaline. Damsels, crabs, all dead. Once the salinity issues were fixed the tank coontinued to run with some food spikes to have the biofilter recover while I finished up my out of town work.
Six months ago I decided to go all out and do a legit tank. For the first bit of livestock I picked up a gold-stripe maroon clown, flame hawkfish, six-line wrasse, 2 damsels (foolishly for color), and an algae blenny. Turns out the biofilter wasn't up to snuff even with all my priming ahead of time. But with spiking with bacteria and daily water changes all survived except the blenny which I suspect was damaged goods (onsale at Petco). I since then got a starry blenny to replace the agae blenny.
Since then I managed to upgrade the lighting from the standard fluorescent strip light to two Ecoxotic PAR38 LED bulbs with a custom made acrylic top. Everyone is happy and things are running smoothly.
.... until the craigslist bug bit again and the next build began (currently 50% done), but that is for another thread.
After being a lurker on several forums for advice, I got the LiveAquaria tweet and decided to see what this place was all about. Wow, was I surprised at how nice this place is compared to others. With the contest and all I figured I should finally join up with a group that shares my interests.
So about me. I guess I fit the perfect mold for a reefer. Younger guy with no wife and kids and lots of disposible income. I've been only working on this for about a year and half, and only seriously for about 6 months. So lets see where this all began and the ineveitable spiral out of control.
To start out I inherited 2 damselfish from a family member that used them to cycle their tank and were going to give them the big old flush for being... well... damsels. Out of the kindness of my heart and a little interest I saved them and banished them to a algae ridden 10 gallon tank for about 6 months.
At this point the strip light I was using died and rather than buy a new one outright, I figured I could check craigslist for a different setup for on the cheap. I managed to get a 35 gallon hexagon with a stand for a cool price of $35. Excited with my new setup I promptly upgraded my filter to a Penguin Biowheel and bought a new powerhead to help create the vortex effect in the now deeper aquarium. In went the damsels, crabs and the algae "life raft" rocks.
Unfortunately, with my job I tend to disappear for weeks to months at a time. During one extended leave I had someone watch the tank for me with instructions to top off the water as it dropped. Unfortunately they mixed new saltwater each time and the tank eventually went hypersaline. Damsels, crabs, all dead. Once the salinity issues were fixed the tank coontinued to run with some food spikes to have the biofilter recover while I finished up my out of town work.
Six months ago I decided to go all out and do a legit tank. For the first bit of livestock I picked up a gold-stripe maroon clown, flame hawkfish, six-line wrasse, 2 damsels (foolishly for color), and an algae blenny. Turns out the biofilter wasn't up to snuff even with all my priming ahead of time. But with spiking with bacteria and daily water changes all survived except the blenny which I suspect was damaged goods (onsale at Petco). I since then got a starry blenny to replace the agae blenny.
Since then I managed to upgrade the lighting from the standard fluorescent strip light to two Ecoxotic PAR38 LED bulbs with a custom made acrylic top. Everyone is happy and things are running smoothly.
.... until the craigslist bug bit again and the next build began (currently 50% done), but that is for another thread.
