I kept a mixed reef from 2003- 2007. Times were different then. But that tank crashed when I was out of townand had a power outage.
So my currrent reefing journey began September 2019 when I purchased a used (running) 90 gallon bow front aquarium. The guy said it was 3 years old. It came with chiller, API canister filter, some cheezy LED lights, glass top, canopy, stand, two clowns, a blue hippo tang, some sand and some rocks. Also some other miscellaneous items like Eheim auto feeder, syphon hoses, API exapired master test kit, heater, jugs etc. For $300 cash.
I picked up tank- arrived around 11 am. Finished breaking down and loading by 12:30-1. Made it to my place by 2:30. Started cleaning everything, and got it all back together and running by 10 pm.
a little back story: when I arrived to buy the tank: it was about 20 gallons low on water. And the water was so yellow/brown that you couldn’t even find or see the fish. It was covered in cyanos and a maroon turf algea, hair algea, and more.High salt, high po4, high no3 and everything way out of wack.
I rinsed and reused about half of the sand. Added 40 lbs new live Caribbean sand. I got rid of the plastic decorations but kept the algea invested rock.
I wish I had photos of the before the cleaning process or during. But I was so excited I didn’t take any photos. I took one photo after it was all done.
Remarkably the fish survived.
I had a few pieces of live rock and an additional canister filter with built on UV. Photos taken about an hour after done.
I then started in my hunt for used items, was on YouTube and r2r reading and learning.
I call everything above “phase 1”
This was the tank, and the initial I acquisition and set up. More to folllow....
Here’s a few pics from the first week:
So my currrent reefing journey began September 2019 when I purchased a used (running) 90 gallon bow front aquarium. The guy said it was 3 years old. It came with chiller, API canister filter, some cheezy LED lights, glass top, canopy, stand, two clowns, a blue hippo tang, some sand and some rocks. Also some other miscellaneous items like Eheim auto feeder, syphon hoses, API exapired master test kit, heater, jugs etc. For $300 cash.
I picked up tank- arrived around 11 am. Finished breaking down and loading by 12:30-1. Made it to my place by 2:30. Started cleaning everything, and got it all back together and running by 10 pm.
a little back story: when I arrived to buy the tank: it was about 20 gallons low on water. And the water was so yellow/brown that you couldn’t even find or see the fish. It was covered in cyanos and a maroon turf algea, hair algea, and more.High salt, high po4, high no3 and everything way out of wack.
I rinsed and reused about half of the sand. Added 40 lbs new live Caribbean sand. I got rid of the plastic decorations but kept the algea invested rock.
I wish I had photos of the before the cleaning process or during. But I was so excited I didn’t take any photos. I took one photo after it was all done.
Remarkably the fish survived.
I had a few pieces of live rock and an additional canister filter with built on UV. Photos taken about an hour after done.
I then started in my hunt for used items, was on YouTube and r2r reading and learning.
I call everything above “phase 1”
This was the tank, and the initial I acquisition and set up. More to folllow....
Here’s a few pics from the first week:
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