Briar's Reef

[gabelex14]

Good evening everyone,

I am green to the hobby as this is my first reef tank. I have a 75 Gallon Seapoura Reef Ready tank that has been running for going on five months. Some backstory on myself, I'm a Police Officer in the state of Ohio. Outside of my career I've been through some nasty stuff and have struggled with anxiety in my life off and on for ten years. Some related to LE some not.

I got into aquarium keeping as a gift for my daughter at Christmas time. I thought this was pretty cool so I got into fresh water for myself. A few years later I made the transition to a reef tank. This hobby has given me a level of reprieve from my mental health. Having a positive outlet that isn't substance abuse and/or not centered around my career has been life changing. ie. weight lifting, training jujitsu, running.

I think it's the husbandry and being able to take care of something that is completely reliant on you. I created this ecosystem and it gives me a purpose every morning to make sure everything is the way it's supposed to be. Sure the tank stresses me out because I want my coral and fish to be healthy but in the grand scheme of things it's not that big of a deal.

Regardless, my hope is my story is able to reach someone that struggles with mental health, especially another LE brother or sister. Anyway here's my thread


Tank Dimensions
48"x18"x18"
75 Gallon
Rimmed Aquarium
Hinged glass lids

Lights
x2 AI Hydra 32 HD
x2 AI Prime 16HD
-planning to add a Quanta Helix Bar for supplemental lighting

Pumps
AI Hydra Centrifuge Axis 90
AI Nero 3
Jebao Gyre

Controler and Gear
Yes, I went with Hydros and haven't regretted it yet
PH probe, salinity probe, temp probe
Protein Skimmer- Magtool N-100
Heaters- Two Aquatop 100w Glass
No filter socks of refugium

Parameters
Salinity- 1.025
PH-8.10
ALK-7.8
Nitrate-10ppm
Mag-1400
Calc-400
Phosphate-.06
Temp-77 degrees

Fish
Tomini Tang
Two clowns
Yellow faced sleeping Goby

 

[fishface NJ]

Wonderful tank. The reef tank can be therapeutic.

 

[gabelex14]

Wonderful tank. The reef tank can be therapeutic.

It's a start! Looking forward to what the future has

 

[Fish Fan]

Very nice start new friend!

Aquaria in general have been shown to reduce stress, reduce blood pressure, anxiety, etc. That's why you see them so often in doctor's offices

I wish you the best of luck with your build - following!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Love the corals you have in there!

 

[Evil1]

Looking good!

 

[gabelex14]

Update

It's been a few months since my last thread update. My tank has been through a lot since then. A cyano outbreak which was fairly easy to fix. But it did start the chain of events to all my torches dying off. I had about 10 torches that all slowly died off. I had 4 frogspawn and one hammer die off with one spawn and 3 hammers remaining. Later I found out it was because of a lack of flow in the tank and my salinity running too low. It threw off my ionic balance. But this die off of LPS encouraged me to go to an SPS dominant tank.

So I started dosing trace elements, mainly Isol8 MT and Flouride due to ICP test results. I did see a significant improvement in color of my acros specifically. I finally got things in a nice balance nutrient and chemical balance wise and the attack of the Dino's occurred. I have a theory to why my nutrients bottomed out but that's for another thread.

So I started dosing brightwell nitrate and phosphate and got my nutrients back into a good range. About .09 P04 and 11 NA3. Once that level was steady for about two weeks I added a UV sterilizer to my main display (a key detail), added two Jebao puck pumps, and significantly increased my CUC. Those being two tuxedo urchins, 10 bumble bee snails, 5 emerald crabs, and a sand sifting conch. After, I did a 48 hour black out and dosing large amounts of phytofeast And bang, no more Dino's.

As of today my tank hasn't been in this good of shape yet. I'm starting to build the SPS livestock as we speak with a beautiful set of acros from TCK corals.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/💨...-tunze-equipment-valued-at-759-usd-💨.1167233/