Lohr
New Member
Well I am finally taking the plunge into salt water. It will be known as the crowsnest tank for referral purposes (it was the old town bar of which i have the sign for and the tank will be below it). I have a long history of tanks with about 25 years of experience, starting at about 10 years old. I had tanks in one form or another for most of my life, finally taking a break from the hobby in 2015 after the unexpected loss of my arowana (stray voltage), which i had successfully moved from Virginia to Maine. My freshwater experience is varied and has covered most tank styles including, blackwater, full planted with mud bottom and c02 injection, ciclid, discuss, large predator tanks, biome tanks, column tanks, community even a riverbed tank with hillstreams.
My ultimate goal which I am about 3 years out from, is doing a large kitchen remodel at which point I want to put in a 180/300 gallon tank built into the wall with a room behind it for maintenance, mixing, and all that fun stuff. My current build will be a 75 gallon aqueon, which i will eurobrace myself. I plan to run a 40 gallon sump as well, this tank will serve as a learning tank and eventually become my secondary display/frag tank/who knows, but i want to build some experience prior to starting the big boy tank. Below are the items i have already as well as my needed items i have planned, but please feel free to make any recommendations.
Current items:
Display tank: 75 gallon eurobraced
Sump: 40 gallon tank (3 chamber plan, with return pump, skimmer chamber, and refegium)
overflow: eclipse large bean animal style
Lights: hydra 64 and 2x hydra 32
Flow: Jaeboa gyre 120
live rock: approx 55 lbs marco shelf and base rock, 20 lbs branch rock, 15 lbs live rock to be donated from a friends aquarium.
QT/med: Two 10 gallon AOI
Salt: coral sea blue bucket (well sack as i ordered it)
Planned items:
Skimmer: Bubble magnus curve 7 elite
Return pump: sicce 6.0 silent, (on the fence about SDC to get temp monitoring for redundancy, wave and modes are not to important as i plan to run set return speed, but sdc is about twice the cost)
heater: brs titanium? (bad reviews but not sure whats better)
heater controller: inkbird
monitors: TBD
Controller: TBD
plumbing: TBD
Fuge light: TBD
Doser: TBD
Sand: caribsea special grade
This weekend I plan to start to soak my rock for 6 months, 72 days to allow for the donated rock and soaking to go fallow and the additional time to culture bacterial growth, i will have heat as well as flow, i plant to jump start this with Dr.tims as well. I live in downeast Maine so i have concerns of fish shipping in February so i plan to start the display tank in early March, barring advises here. As time gets closer i will update the thread with a stock list, clean up crew, dosing plan and others. I do plan to utilize the reef moonshine method as one of my destination goals in to reduce water changes, that said i realize that is a destination and not a starting point, so until stable i plan to do water changes concurrent with the reef moonshine method. I am still on the fence and researching all the other various items needed, mainly now planning on redundancy for critical stuff like heaters, temp and ph monitoring. I have been lucky enough to have a mentor in this process which has been helpful, Salty Dave, who i should give a shout out too. During the soaking i am doing various deep dives into water chemistry and coral care. I plan to run a mixed tank, but primally LPS with some sps up high, but i don't intend to model my entire tank around acro needs.
All that said i am equal parts nervous and excited to start this journey and enter the community.
My ultimate goal which I am about 3 years out from, is doing a large kitchen remodel at which point I want to put in a 180/300 gallon tank built into the wall with a room behind it for maintenance, mixing, and all that fun stuff. My current build will be a 75 gallon aqueon, which i will eurobrace myself. I plan to run a 40 gallon sump as well, this tank will serve as a learning tank and eventually become my secondary display/frag tank/who knows, but i want to build some experience prior to starting the big boy tank. Below are the items i have already as well as my needed items i have planned, but please feel free to make any recommendations.
Current items:
Display tank: 75 gallon eurobraced
Sump: 40 gallon tank (3 chamber plan, with return pump, skimmer chamber, and refegium)
overflow: eclipse large bean animal style
Lights: hydra 64 and 2x hydra 32
Flow: Jaeboa gyre 120
live rock: approx 55 lbs marco shelf and base rock, 20 lbs branch rock, 15 lbs live rock to be donated from a friends aquarium.
QT/med: Two 10 gallon AOI
Salt: coral sea blue bucket (well sack as i ordered it)
Planned items:
Skimmer: Bubble magnus curve 7 elite
Return pump: sicce 6.0 silent, (on the fence about SDC to get temp monitoring for redundancy, wave and modes are not to important as i plan to run set return speed, but sdc is about twice the cost)
heater: brs titanium? (bad reviews but not sure whats better)
heater controller: inkbird
monitors: TBD
Controller: TBD
plumbing: TBD
Fuge light: TBD
Doser: TBD
Sand: caribsea special grade
This weekend I plan to start to soak my rock for 6 months, 72 days to allow for the donated rock and soaking to go fallow and the additional time to culture bacterial growth, i will have heat as well as flow, i plant to jump start this with Dr.tims as well. I live in downeast Maine so i have concerns of fish shipping in February so i plan to start the display tank in early March, barring advises here. As time gets closer i will update the thread with a stock list, clean up crew, dosing plan and others. I do plan to utilize the reef moonshine method as one of my destination goals in to reduce water changes, that said i realize that is a destination and not a starting point, so until stable i plan to do water changes concurrent with the reef moonshine method. I am still on the fence and researching all the other various items needed, mainly now planning on redundancy for critical stuff like heaters, temp and ph monitoring. I have been lucky enough to have a mentor in this process which has been helpful, Salty Dave, who i should give a shout out too. During the soaking i am doing various deep dives into water chemistry and coral care. I plan to run a mixed tank, but primally LPS with some sps up high, but i don't intend to model my entire tank around acro needs.
All that said i am equal parts nervous and excited to start this journey and enter the community.
