CJO
Valuable Member
Hi- my name is CJ and I live near Charlotte, NC. I've been around saltwater tanks my whole life (my dad has had one up since 1977, when we moved to Florida) but never got the opportunity to put one up until last year.
Last Christmas, I convinced my wife that our kids would love a saltwater tank. I ended up finding a decent system on Craigslist from someone who was moving out of the area. I used the live rock and half of the water. I also made a mistake and used the live sand as well, which led to a high nitrate problem for the first few weeks.
Here is the tank after I first set it up:
The tank came with a nice female ocellaris clowfish that was over 7 years old, a neon dottyback, a poor looking branching anchor coral, some bam bam orange zoas and a small colony of fire and ice zoas.
Equipment wise, there was quite a bit of outdated equipment- PC lights, older skimmer, maxijets, etc., but it also came with a calcium reactor and plumbed sump.
I'm an engineer by profession, so I've spent a lot of time over the past year doing research- I have 6 or 7 good books and have spent endless hours on the forums doing research.
I have spent most of my money on the aquarium on equipment- I upgraded the PC lights to DIY LEDs; upgraded the MaxiJets to Koralias and now to Vortech MP10wES powerheads; upgraded the sump to have a small refugium; and added an Apex to control everything.
I also slowly started adding corals and a couple of fish. This is what my tank looked like in the beginning of January, having been up for just over a year:
CJ
Last Christmas, I convinced my wife that our kids would love a saltwater tank. I ended up finding a decent system on Craigslist from someone who was moving out of the area. I used the live rock and half of the water. I also made a mistake and used the live sand as well, which led to a high nitrate problem for the first few weeks.
Here is the tank after I first set it up:
The tank came with a nice female ocellaris clowfish that was over 7 years old, a neon dottyback, a poor looking branching anchor coral, some bam bam orange zoas and a small colony of fire and ice zoas.
Equipment wise, there was quite a bit of outdated equipment- PC lights, older skimmer, maxijets, etc., but it also came with a calcium reactor and plumbed sump.
I'm an engineer by profession, so I've spent a lot of time over the past year doing research- I have 6 or 7 good books and have spent endless hours on the forums doing research.
I have spent most of my money on the aquarium on equipment- I upgraded the PC lights to DIY LEDs; upgraded the MaxiJets to Koralias and now to Vortech MP10wES powerheads; upgraded the sump to have a small refugium; and added an Apex to control everything.
I also slowly started adding corals and a couple of fish. This is what my tank looked like in the beginning of January, having been up for just over a year:
CJ
