Saltlifeozzie92
New Member
When I was 16 (15 years ago) I set up a 30 gallon salt water tank in my room. Everything was going great. Had some clowns, a blue tang and a few frags. Then my younger brother decided to dump all the products I had in the stand into my tank and ruined the tank. I got rid of the tank and never wanted to hear of a fish tank.
BUT… now I have a 2 year old son and a 1 year old daughter. My son used to go to a day care that had a small fresh water tank and he was obsessed with it. So I said screw lets look into getting a tank for the house. I started looking into different sizes and what I can accomplish and decided to look for something 75 to 100 gallons.
Due to lack of knowledge, I rushed inside to it a little bit but have made it work.
I found a tank with stand on offer up for super cheap. Stand was in good shape, tank had no leaks so I bought it and took it home.
After doing some research I realized I needed an overflow in order to hook up a sump… But the tank I bought was tempered glass and could not be drilled. I started googling ways to make it work and found an over the back overflow. I went to VIP Reef Aquariums here in Miami and they had them in stock. Got myself an EShopps PF-800 Overdlow Box. On Offer up I found an Eshopps FF-75 overflow. And for the return pump I got a Sicce Syncra Silent 5.0.
So by now I had the sump in the stand, the overflow set up and the return pump in place but still an empty tank.
After looking at the tank I realized I really wished the back glass was black.
That same night I went to Home Depot and bought black Rust-Oleum paint and painted the back glass. Much better!!
I started shopping around for rocks but had no idea how to make a good aqua-sculpture.
I found aqua scape designs in Kendall and they were able to get me some nice looking rocks to fit my tank. Passed by VIP Reefs and bought sand so that I could put the rocks in place.
I called VIP Reefs to see if they delivered water and luckily they did. The same day Xavior from VIP went and filled the tank for me and got the overflow going for me.
Cycled the water for about a month adding bacteria to it and checking the water weekly. After the water parameters looked good I went and bought some clown fish. And when I bought the clown fish I was quickly reminded of a very important piece to the puzzle I was missing… LIGHTING!!
I took the clowns home, added them to the tank and started doing some research in lights.
After looking at a few different lighting options, I went ahead and got myself 2 Exotech Radion XR 15s and slapped them in the tank with RMS Stands.
It felt great to finally have what I needed to start adding to the tank!
BUT… now I have a 2 year old son and a 1 year old daughter. My son used to go to a day care that had a small fresh water tank and he was obsessed with it. So I said screw lets look into getting a tank for the house. I started looking into different sizes and what I can accomplish and decided to look for something 75 to 100 gallons.
Due to lack of knowledge, I rushed inside to it a little bit but have made it work.
I found a tank with stand on offer up for super cheap. Stand was in good shape, tank had no leaks so I bought it and took it home.
After doing some research I realized I needed an overflow in order to hook up a sump… But the tank I bought was tempered glass and could not be drilled. I started googling ways to make it work and found an over the back overflow. I went to VIP Reef Aquariums here in Miami and they had them in stock. Got myself an EShopps PF-800 Overdlow Box. On Offer up I found an Eshopps FF-75 overflow. And for the return pump I got a Sicce Syncra Silent 5.0.
So by now I had the sump in the stand, the overflow set up and the return pump in place but still an empty tank.
After looking at the tank I realized I really wished the back glass was black.
That same night I went to Home Depot and bought black Rust-Oleum paint and painted the back glass. Much better!!
I started shopping around for rocks but had no idea how to make a good aqua-sculpture.
I found aqua scape designs in Kendall and they were able to get me some nice looking rocks to fit my tank. Passed by VIP Reefs and bought sand so that I could put the rocks in place.
I called VIP Reefs to see if they delivered water and luckily they did. The same day Xavior from VIP went and filled the tank for me and got the overflow going for me.
Cycled the water for about a month adding bacteria to it and checking the water weekly. After the water parameters looked good I went and bought some clown fish. And when I bought the clown fish I was quickly reminded of a very important piece to the puzzle I was missing… LIGHTING!!
I took the clowns home, added them to the tank and started doing some research in lights.
After looking at a few different lighting options, I went ahead and got myself 2 Exotech Radion XR 15s and slapped them in the tank with RMS Stands.
It felt great to finally have what I needed to start adding to the tank!
