I'll start!
I'm currently on my fourth reef tank. I started back around 2010 with a 75 gallon tank and a MH. I was running a HOB skimmer and a wet/dry with BioBalls. Everything was going decent and we had color, we had pop, and we had movement. I had a Purple Tang and a Yellow Tang, some clowns, a Lawnmower Blenny, and some other random fish including a Yasha Haza and Randall's Shrimp combo.
Well, fast forward to 2014 and we're moving! Only hiccup: I was buying my parents' house and my sister and nephew were currently living there. We sold our house in October but couldn't move into the other house until January.
Well, I moved the tank to our new house and told my sister I'd be by periodically to do some maintenance on it and she didn't need to worry about it.
By the time we moved in, the hair algae had killed everything except some Mushrooms. The tangs were missing and everything else was dead so I tore it down and threw in the towel.
Fast forward to 2019: a friend at work gave me a 5 gallon AIO tank and a light so I jumped back in! I quickly filled that tank and had thriving corals. I decided since my tank was full, maybe I needed another one but bigger so I broke out the 75, got some LEDs and went to work.
Fast forward to 2022: the 75 is doing good and the 5 gallon is on Autopilot. Time to upgrade! So I start setting up my 125 at the end of June 2022. 4th of July Weekend I get it up and running, plumbed, sand, rock, sump - everything is good to go. We left town for a funeral and when we got home there is devastation in the 75. I have a massive hair algae outbreak that has effectively smothered/choked several corals and I find Monti Eating Nudibranches on my Montis. I lost almost everything in the 75.
I have a 125 set up with a 5 gallon tank worth of corals to fill it (DT portion is actually only about 3 gallons). I was able to save three Leptos, a couple of Ricordea and Rhodactis, my Electric Daisy Stylo, a small chunk of Bubble Gum Digitata, and a Red Brick Cyphastrea.
Fast forward to today: I've got a beautiful tank with fun fish and a good amount of coral. I've lost some corals and I've had some have massive growth. For the first time I ever, I can actually (mostly) keep Acros happy. I gave up after the first tank loss but the bug never left. I kept moving forward and I've made some good friends along the way. Reef2Reef is an amazing support group!
