- Joined
- Oct 30, 2019
- Messages
- 13
- Reaction score
- 14
My journey into this hobby started a little longer than a year ago, I had been interested in Marine Aquariums since I was a juvenile, but my time in the hobby began October 12, 2018. I remember it like it was yesterday. I drug my garden hose into my living room and filled up my 40 gallon tall display tank. Mixed in some water conditioner, Salt, and waited for things to stabilize. I added 40 pounds of dry rock I had purchased on amazon for roughly 80$.
Everything was hang on the back, but I added a refugium. I added some Damsels purchased from Petco. A month later I added 2 Phantom Ice clown fish, long story short I had to take the Damsels back, luckily my local LFS, not Petco, was willing to take the fish back. It wasn't easy catching those fish.
After re arranging the rock multiple times, adding some coral, an upgraded sump and skimmer, this was my progress after 4 months. I don't have any picks but the first upgraded sump I built actually cracked while in use because the baffles where too big and they expanded. I was able to get a replacement 20 gallon long tank and shave the edges of the baffles too make them fit properly. Also purchased appropriate RODI setup. After rebuilding and reinstalling this is what the tank looked like. Later my Nem split.
Then came my first live sale, it was unique corals 20th anniversary sale, needless to say 2 days and 500$ dollars later I had set up delivery for the next weekend.
These are just a few of the corals I purchased. Clearly I had caught the bug. throughout the next few months I would go on to battle aptasia, gha, bristle worms, those little snails that spit their web across your corals. During this time I found a 120 gallon Truvu on craigslist and decided to pull the trigger, purchased it for 400 dollars and buffed out the acrylic. The stand was ordered custom at the LFS, when I say custom, I mean that I ordered a 4x2 stand and cut appropriate sized holes in the bottom. I used PVC, rock rubble and MARCO rocks cement to create some of my rock scape
Here is a current pic. Purchased some branch Rock and shelf rock from Saltwateraquarium,com. Added corals over the last six months from local vendors and a few more live sales. Its still pretty empty though, I've left plenty of room for expansion.
Basically, Im running Kessil AP700 for lighting, Eshops S-300 skimmer, AI prime fuge light, BRS carbon reactor, a pair of GYRE XF 230 pumps, an AVAST marine KALK reactor and a rio return pump. My fish had decided to be skittish during this pic. More pics of livestock to come.....
Everything was hang on the back, but I added a refugium. I added some Damsels purchased from Petco. A month later I added 2 Phantom Ice clown fish, long story short I had to take the Damsels back, luckily my local LFS, not Petco, was willing to take the fish back. It wasn't easy catching those fish.
After re arranging the rock multiple times, adding some coral, an upgraded sump and skimmer, this was my progress after 4 months. I don't have any picks but the first upgraded sump I built actually cracked while in use because the baffles where too big and they expanded. I was able to get a replacement 20 gallon long tank and shave the edges of the baffles too make them fit properly. Also purchased appropriate RODI setup. After rebuilding and reinstalling this is what the tank looked like. Later my Nem split.
Then came my first live sale, it was unique corals 20th anniversary sale, needless to say 2 days and 500$ dollars later I had set up delivery for the next weekend.
These are just a few of the corals I purchased. Clearly I had caught the bug. throughout the next few months I would go on to battle aptasia, gha, bristle worms, those little snails that spit their web across your corals. During this time I found a 120 gallon Truvu on craigslist and decided to pull the trigger, purchased it for 400 dollars and buffed out the acrylic. The stand was ordered custom at the LFS, when I say custom, I mean that I ordered a 4x2 stand and cut appropriate sized holes in the bottom. I used PVC, rock rubble and MARCO rocks cement to create some of my rock scape
Here is a current pic. Purchased some branch Rock and shelf rock from Saltwateraquarium,com. Added corals over the last six months from local vendors and a few more live sales. Its still pretty empty though, I've left plenty of room for expansion.
Basically, Im running Kessil AP700 for lighting, Eshops S-300 skimmer, AI prime fuge light, BRS carbon reactor, a pair of GYRE XF 230 pumps, an AVAST marine KALK reactor and a rio return pump. My fish had decided to be skittish during this pic. More pics of livestock to come.....