bherbold8
Active Member
Hello my friends!
About 9 years ago I made a sporadic purchase and bought a 32G (maybe I never really knew) Hex tank with canister filter and jumped into the hobby. I had varying levels of success with coral and avoided any major catastrophes . Life got busy but I knew i'd eventually be back.
Well i'm back! My waterbox Mini Peninsula 25 showed up yesterday after some shipping delays due to the recent winter weather here in Texas. Here is list of my current gear:
*WB MP 25
*Stock return pump
*Stock filtration (Chamber basket arriving soon)
*Sine Wave pump SWL10 (2nd one arriving soon)
*XR15 Pro Gen 4 with RMS mount
*Aquatop 75w heater
*20lbs caribsea arag-alive reef sand (Will likely add one more arch)
*22 lbs aquacultured caribsea life rock (soaking in LFS for 4 weeks roughly)
*5 lbs dried and cured coral/reef rock from Hawaii (had for about 10 years)
*Fritz Reef Pro mix
Future potential upgrades:
*I may upgrade the stock return pump for additional flow. I've read a lot about this stock pump being noisy. I removed the suction cups and have it sitting on a piece of carbon filter and it's quite quiet at the moment.
*Planning on running filter floss, chemi-pure blue, and marine pure spheres in first chamber. Middle chamber for now has filter pads, some sediment/LR rubble from a local Austin reefers healthy, established reef, then activated carbon. I would like to run a nano skimmer down the road but have read it can't fit with the RMS mount back there. I'm setting up the light later to see what room i'm left with.
*ATO (suggestions?)
*Kraken lid with feeding door
Future fish stock:
Clown pair
Tail spot blenny
Mostly soft corals but do want to dip my toes into SPS. I had one acro piece that I had pretty good success with in my dirty hex tank with weak LED lighting so I think i'll be better prepared this time around. Also considering a Nem for my clowns but this would come later...still undecided as they do add some risk into the equation.
For now.... I'm assuming I have a decent head start as far as bacterial count due to the aquacultured life rock and the seeding sediment from a helpful local reefer. I have a small piece of raw shrimp sitting in my tank for now. I'm going to be adding Fritz zyme 9, but i'm still waiting for bio spheres to arrive til I add this. Does this make sense? I figured i'd want the bio spheres in the tank for when I add the Fritz so that they have a better chance of hosting all the bacteria then if I added the balls afterward....confusing hobby sometimes hah
My redsea test kit should be in later today. Figure i'll wait til Monday and see where everything is at as far as ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, PH, etc.
Anyways I think thats all i've got for now, but i'm sure i'll have questions coming up so hopefully some of you will keep an eye out for progress pics! Happy reefing and enjoy your weekends
About 9 years ago I made a sporadic purchase and bought a 32G (maybe I never really knew) Hex tank with canister filter and jumped into the hobby. I had varying levels of success with coral and avoided any major catastrophes . Life got busy but I knew i'd eventually be back.
Well i'm back! My waterbox Mini Peninsula 25 showed up yesterday after some shipping delays due to the recent winter weather here in Texas. Here is list of my current gear:
*WB MP 25
*Stock return pump
*Stock filtration (Chamber basket arriving soon)
*Sine Wave pump SWL10 (2nd one arriving soon)
*XR15 Pro Gen 4 with RMS mount
*Aquatop 75w heater
*20lbs caribsea arag-alive reef sand (Will likely add one more arch)
*22 lbs aquacultured caribsea life rock (soaking in LFS for 4 weeks roughly)
*5 lbs dried and cured coral/reef rock from Hawaii (had for about 10 years)
*Fritz Reef Pro mix
Future potential upgrades:
*I may upgrade the stock return pump for additional flow. I've read a lot about this stock pump being noisy. I removed the suction cups and have it sitting on a piece of carbon filter and it's quite quiet at the moment.
*Planning on running filter floss, chemi-pure blue, and marine pure spheres in first chamber. Middle chamber for now has filter pads, some sediment/LR rubble from a local Austin reefers healthy, established reef, then activated carbon. I would like to run a nano skimmer down the road but have read it can't fit with the RMS mount back there. I'm setting up the light later to see what room i'm left with.
*ATO (suggestions?)
*Kraken lid with feeding door
Future fish stock:
Clown pair
Tail spot blenny
Mostly soft corals but do want to dip my toes into SPS. I had one acro piece that I had pretty good success with in my dirty hex tank with weak LED lighting so I think i'll be better prepared this time around. Also considering a Nem for my clowns but this would come later...still undecided as they do add some risk into the equation.
For now.... I'm assuming I have a decent head start as far as bacterial count due to the aquacultured life rock and the seeding sediment from a helpful local reefer. I have a small piece of raw shrimp sitting in my tank for now. I'm going to be adding Fritz zyme 9, but i'm still waiting for bio spheres to arrive til I add this. Does this make sense? I figured i'd want the bio spheres in the tank for when I add the Fritz so that they have a better chance of hosting all the bacteria then if I added the balls afterward....confusing hobby sometimes hah
My redsea test kit should be in later today. Figure i'll wait til Monday and see where everything is at as far as ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, PH, etc.
Anyways I think thats all i've got for now, but i'm sure i'll have questions coming up so hopefully some of you will keep an eye out for progress pics! Happy reefing and enjoy your weekends
