reefbreakcultures
New Member
Hi everyone!
Behind this account, it’s actually two of us working together to build out reef tanks here in San Diego County. Our names are Jonas Luke and Jeff.
Background:
Jonas Luke: I have no true experiences in reef keeping or cultivating aquatic landscapes. However what I do lack in wisdom, I like to think I make up for in curiosity. What attracts me most to this community is the unspoken culture to it. It feels very shared and respected, without any feelings of restriction.
I am genuinely fascinated by the science that goes into cultivating coral because of how exacting it can be. Coral can survive on its own perfectly fine in the wild yet it seems like a full time job on paper. We have to put in so much effort in areas like chemistry, biology, engineering, hydroponics, and more… just to mimic what nature can seemingly readily provide to them.
There’s a mutual respect that needs to happen for you to be successful in something and I think I’m at the point in my life where I have mastered the ability to learn. I enjoy the challenge of learning something new. I like overcoming challenges by learning from your experiences. I geek out on the science behind it and at the same time I really resonate with the intention of it.
I’m excited to learn how to support and promote life underwater. Stepping into an area I know nothing about is scary, but I’m confident it’s something I’ll enjoy and even find fulfilling. Cultivating life is a skill we should all continue to improve.
Jeff: Growing up, I’ve had several freshwater tanks with sizes ranging 1 gallon-100 gallons. The switch to saltwater wasn’t until I was in my early 20’s. . . A little over 10 years ago, I was introduced to saltwater systems by a friend’s dad who had 2 nano reef tanks. He explained to me that the hobby didn’t have to be as expensive as others make it to be. He also knew a local reefer that would sell me livestock for good prices.
Within a week of that interaction, I gave away my silver arowana to another friend who had a 225g tank, and started turning my 100g into a mixed reef tank. After some research, I found that there were people that didn’t use sumps, protein skimmers etc. to have a healthy reef tank. I ran 2 canister filters (Fluval 405 and Eheim 350) and 10-15% weekly water changes with the complimentary saltwater that the Birch Aquarium provided to the IYKYK crowd, haha.
I’ve definitely paid my dues during the cycle since running without a sump or other helpful equipment meant I had to keep an even closer eye on my water parameters and make plenty of trips to La Jolla for saltwater. Not once did I do any dosing, nor acquire any more equipment than the 2 LED fixtures and 2 power heads I got from eBay to provide lighting and water movement for my coral. At the time I had a Fiji Yellow Toadstool Leather, a few different LPS, some Zoas and other soft coral, a Bubble Tip Anemone, and some type of acro that went unnoticed on some live rock and started growing out of nowhere which was a nice surprise.
I kept the tank stable for a year until my younger Sister passed away, and shortly after got out of the hobby to focus on healing. One thing to note was when she passed, I would neglect my tank often and saw that the less water changes (2-3 week intervals) and just “leaving it alone” caused a good amount of growth in all of my corals for the next couple months until I broke it all down.
Now that I have my own family, my Wife has been telling me that she wants me to start up another saltwater tank. We’re about to move into a new home sometime towards the end of this year or early next year. Once we are settled in, I’ll begin my project of building out a 90-95g mixed reef tank. And this time with careful planning, I’m going to try all the quality equipment I can afford to keep my coral and fish happy.
Shared Project/Vision:
We both find reef keeping fascinating and being that it can be a costly hobby, we want to eventually learn how to effectively and optimally grow corals to frag and sell so that we can cover our operational expenses. Long term, we eventually want to run a successful coral farm. But we both know we have years of experience to gain as well as proactively learning more about reef keeping. We are excited to learn from members of Reef2Reef, and also contribute our findings along the way to hopefully help others.
*We will definitely start our build threads when the time comes!
Behind this account, it’s actually two of us working together to build out reef tanks here in San Diego County. Our names are Jonas Luke and Jeff.
Background:
Jonas Luke: I have no true experiences in reef keeping or cultivating aquatic landscapes. However what I do lack in wisdom, I like to think I make up for in curiosity. What attracts me most to this community is the unspoken culture to it. It feels very shared and respected, without any feelings of restriction.
I am genuinely fascinated by the science that goes into cultivating coral because of how exacting it can be. Coral can survive on its own perfectly fine in the wild yet it seems like a full time job on paper. We have to put in so much effort in areas like chemistry, biology, engineering, hydroponics, and more… just to mimic what nature can seemingly readily provide to them.
There’s a mutual respect that needs to happen for you to be successful in something and I think I’m at the point in my life where I have mastered the ability to learn. I enjoy the challenge of learning something new. I like overcoming challenges by learning from your experiences. I geek out on the science behind it and at the same time I really resonate with the intention of it.
I’m excited to learn how to support and promote life underwater. Stepping into an area I know nothing about is scary, but I’m confident it’s something I’ll enjoy and even find fulfilling. Cultivating life is a skill we should all continue to improve.
Jeff: Growing up, I’ve had several freshwater tanks with sizes ranging 1 gallon-100 gallons. The switch to saltwater wasn’t until I was in my early 20’s. . . A little over 10 years ago, I was introduced to saltwater systems by a friend’s dad who had 2 nano reef tanks. He explained to me that the hobby didn’t have to be as expensive as others make it to be. He also knew a local reefer that would sell me livestock for good prices.
Within a week of that interaction, I gave away my silver arowana to another friend who had a 225g tank, and started turning my 100g into a mixed reef tank. After some research, I found that there were people that didn’t use sumps, protein skimmers etc. to have a healthy reef tank. I ran 2 canister filters (Fluval 405 and Eheim 350) and 10-15% weekly water changes with the complimentary saltwater that the Birch Aquarium provided to the IYKYK crowd, haha.
I’ve definitely paid my dues during the cycle since running without a sump or other helpful equipment meant I had to keep an even closer eye on my water parameters and make plenty of trips to La Jolla for saltwater. Not once did I do any dosing, nor acquire any more equipment than the 2 LED fixtures and 2 power heads I got from eBay to provide lighting and water movement for my coral. At the time I had a Fiji Yellow Toadstool Leather, a few different LPS, some Zoas and other soft coral, a Bubble Tip Anemone, and some type of acro that went unnoticed on some live rock and started growing out of nowhere which was a nice surprise.
I kept the tank stable for a year until my younger Sister passed away, and shortly after got out of the hobby to focus on healing. One thing to note was when she passed, I would neglect my tank often and saw that the less water changes (2-3 week intervals) and just “leaving it alone” caused a good amount of growth in all of my corals for the next couple months until I broke it all down.
Now that I have my own family, my Wife has been telling me that she wants me to start up another saltwater tank. We’re about to move into a new home sometime towards the end of this year or early next year. Once we are settled in, I’ll begin my project of building out a 90-95g mixed reef tank. And this time with careful planning, I’m going to try all the quality equipment I can afford to keep my coral and fish happy.
Shared Project/Vision:
We both find reef keeping fascinating and being that it can be a costly hobby, we want to eventually learn how to effectively and optimally grow corals to frag and sell so that we can cover our operational expenses. Long term, we eventually want to run a successful coral farm. But we both know we have years of experience to gain as well as proactively learning more about reef keeping. We are excited to learn from members of Reef2Reef, and also contribute our findings along the way to hopefully help others.
*We will definitely start our build threads when the time comes!
