al matthews
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- Jul 13, 2019
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- What state or country do you live in
- Canada
After a conversation I have had to think about my hobby of aquarium keeping. I have had planted fresh water tanks for many years, and after aquascaping for a while I have dipped my toes into saltwater.
I have had 5 (sometimes up to 10) tanks. all types of freshwater.
Too many tanks makes the hobby a chore. I do not want to become a fish store. I want to have a very nice collection that is always growing and moving toward my goal of having tanks that look like artwork.
This is my thoughts of my path in the saltwater sides of things.
I have found the hardest part to be optimizing downtime and growing time.
1. get a tank and start to grow some coral of different colours and get a hand of dosing and saltwater dosing. increase my colony sizes and pick up more local or cheap frags ( what can be kept in my system. this is mainly a grow out / test tank at this point. figure what you like and what you want to make a display of
2. when things are growing out a bit and i save more get a frag tank. this will allow me to turn the first tank into a display. then move any uneeded colonies to your frag tank and frag any coral that has grown too large. focus on making a healthy colonies for future fraging.
3. swap or buy frags to increase your coral count(in your display and frag tank) and frag any over growth from the display tank.
4. with an established display tank that is creating frags when it overgrows, and a frag tank with extra corals growing out then it is time to try my hand at other projects like a nano/pico tanks or a more dense display tank or larger display tank.
As i said this i my plan as i am a beginner.
I think it will be naive to think one will create a display tank on the first attempt, so the first tank will need a rework as you grow with experience.
I you have any advice on how the path of an enthusiastic beginner can be improved i love to hear
I have had 5 (sometimes up to 10) tanks. all types of freshwater.
Too many tanks makes the hobby a chore. I do not want to become a fish store. I want to have a very nice collection that is always growing and moving toward my goal of having tanks that look like artwork.
This is my thoughts of my path in the saltwater sides of things.
I have found the hardest part to be optimizing downtime and growing time.
1. get a tank and start to grow some coral of different colours and get a hand of dosing and saltwater dosing. increase my colony sizes and pick up more local or cheap frags ( what can be kept in my system. this is mainly a grow out / test tank at this point. figure what you like and what you want to make a display of
2. when things are growing out a bit and i save more get a frag tank. this will allow me to turn the first tank into a display. then move any uneeded colonies to your frag tank and frag any coral that has grown too large. focus on making a healthy colonies for future fraging.
3. swap or buy frags to increase your coral count(in your display and frag tank) and frag any over growth from the display tank.
4. with an established display tank that is creating frags when it overgrows, and a frag tank with extra corals growing out then it is time to try my hand at other projects like a nano/pico tanks or a more dense display tank or larger display tank.
As i said this i my plan as i am a beginner.
I think it will be naive to think one will create a display tank on the first attempt, so the first tank will need a rework as you grow with experience.
I you have any advice on how the path of an enthusiastic beginner can be improved i love to hear
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