JRichlenReef
New Member
Hello Everyone!
This is the beginning of my experience in the salt water aquarium hobby! As a kid, I grew up taking care of freshwater tanks, but they never were anything more than a few fake decorations, a hang on back filter, and the occasional glass scrape.
Now that I've graduated college and have lived in the same area for more than a few months, I've decided to get back into the aquarium hobby. While freshwater was where I got my beginnings, the colorful varieties of plants and animals in saltwater is what made me finally commit to making the switch. My girlfriend surprised me for my birthday with a 37 gallon tank, and I dove right in.
Right away I set a few goals for how I wanted the tank to look and function for easy care.
Initial Build
August 2024
Inline water heater to go on the return line back to my tank. Used sealed conduit fittings to seal around the water heater's cylinder and keep the cord and adjustment knob accessible. After every water change I will have to "bleed the line" to get all the air out of the system the collects at this fitting. Works like a charm and now I don't have to see it in my tank!
September 2024
After a 3 week cycle, I decided it was time to put my first fish in the tank! I added two clownfish and quickly learned my first hard lesson. While trying to preserve the aesthetic of my tank, I made the decision to not use any power heads. This was clearly a bad choice as there was not nearly enough movement in the tank to keep the fish happy. After a few short days, my smaller clownfish didn't make it. :( After a week with the new powerhead and Florence still doing great, I replaced my lost clownfish with a new one "Swimothee Shell-amet".
Florence Nighting-gill & George Washingfin (RIP)
New Hygger 2114 powerhead (wires not yet routed)
October 2024
While keeping up with weekly water changes, my ugly stage has officially started! I knew it was inevitable so I was already mentally prepared for the next few months to be frustrating. This month I also added a Royal Gramma ("Reef Erikfin"), a turbo snail ("Escargot"), margarita snails, and 2 peppermint shrimp ("Popcorn" and "Coconut"). After doing more research, I decided it was time to invest in an RODI system. I installed it underneath my bathroom sink and it works great! In hindsight, RODI should've been a requirement from the beginning. There is way too much unknown with tap water and I could never keep up with the algae growth. RODI water significantly decreased the severity of my ugly stage and made everything more manageable.
November 2024
At the beginning of the month I came home to a tragedy. "Florence Nighting-gill" must have gotten spooked and jumped right over the lip of the tank and onto the floor. Unfortunately it must have happened at the beginning of the day because it was dried up by the time I saw what had happened.
After a week or so I added a scooter blenny ("Scooter" [very clever]) and a sand sifting starfish ("Diggie Smalls"). Both are very entertaining to watch! The following week I replaced the clownfish that I had lost with a new one. Welcome "Carrie UnderWater"!
This month I started playing around with a Canon camera for some better photography. Clearly there is a difference in image quality! I also added my first corals. I purchased 3 frags from my lfs: 2 frags of zoanthids and 1 frag of green star polyps.
"Scooter" taken with Canon EOS Rebel T3
"Diggie Smalls" taken with iPhone 12
Green star polyps
"Gorilla Nipples" (I didn't name them lol) zoanthids
"Magician" zoanthids
December 2024
This was the first time I was away from my tank for an extended period of time. While I did purchase an automatic feeder to make sure no one went hungry, I had a coworker check in every few days and have an extra feeding with some frozen brine shrimp. No casualties!
January/February 2025
Purchased 3 green chromis. I will keep this number of live stock for at least a few months. I am happy with the bio-load and how my canister filtration & water change schedule is keeping everything in order.
In order to try and give my clownfish a home, I purchased a rainbow bubble-tip anemone and placed it in the tank. While I had debated on adding it at the risk of stinging my other corals that had started to grow nicely, my local fish store just received a shipment of them and had a ton on sale for more than 1/2 off anywhere else I could find them. It was a steal! I knew I was risking it because my lights are not very powerful, yet I decided to give it a chance. After a few days of moving around and getting smaller and smaller each day, I decided it was time to remove it before it had a chance to die, release toxins into the water, and nuke every living thing inside.
March 2025
First breeding event of my trochus snails! More photography with my Canon EOS Rebel T3 as well. Starting to see noticeable growth on all coral frags!
Next up on the list! I'd like to add an algae reactor to help lower my nitrate and phosphate levels a bit. If anyone has any recommendations or good threads for DIY, please let me know! Excited to be part of the community!
This is the beginning of my experience in the salt water aquarium hobby! As a kid, I grew up taking care of freshwater tanks, but they never were anything more than a few fake decorations, a hang on back filter, and the occasional glass scrape.
Now that I've graduated college and have lived in the same area for more than a few months, I've decided to get back into the aquarium hobby. While freshwater was where I got my beginnings, the colorful varieties of plants and animals in saltwater is what made me finally commit to making the switch. My girlfriend surprised me for my birthday with a 37 gallon tank, and I dove right in.
Right away I set a few goals for how I wanted the tank to look and function for easy care.
- Glass intake / outlet
- Always loved the visual aesthetic of these commonly found in freshwater tanks and I wanted to see if I could make it work in a salt water environment.
- No visible water heater
- Heaters visible in my childhood fish tanks were always an eye sore, so I wanted to find a way to eliminate them from view.
- Canister filtration
- While most people prefer to use sump systems, I was drawn to the quiet nature and simplicity of canister filters and had read about some build threads that had success with them.
Initial Build
- Tank & Stand
- 37 gallon Top Fin essentials tank
- Ollie & Hutch tank stand
- Filtration, Heating, & Plumbing
- Fluval 307 Canister Filter
- 200W Top Fin Heater
- Glass Outflow / Surface Skimmer
- Glass Multi-level intake
- 3/4" PVC Rigid plumbing
- 7/8" Vinyl Flexible plumbing
- Sand & Live Rock
- 40 lb CaribSea Fuji Pink sand
- 15 lb live rock
August 2024
Inline water heater to go on the return line back to my tank. Used sealed conduit fittings to seal around the water heater's cylinder and keep the cord and adjustment knob accessible. After every water change I will have to "bleed the line" to get all the air out of the system the collects at this fitting. Works like a charm and now I don't have to see it in my tank!
September 2024
After a 3 week cycle, I decided it was time to put my first fish in the tank! I added two clownfish and quickly learned my first hard lesson. While trying to preserve the aesthetic of my tank, I made the decision to not use any power heads. This was clearly a bad choice as there was not nearly enough movement in the tank to keep the fish happy. After a few short days, my smaller clownfish didn't make it. :( After a week with the new powerhead and Florence still doing great, I replaced my lost clownfish with a new one "Swimothee Shell-amet".
Florence Nighting-gill & George Washingfin (RIP)
New Hygger 2114 powerhead (wires not yet routed)
October 2024
While keeping up with weekly water changes, my ugly stage has officially started! I knew it was inevitable so I was already mentally prepared for the next few months to be frustrating. This month I also added a Royal Gramma ("Reef Erikfin"), a turbo snail ("Escargot"), margarita snails, and 2 peppermint shrimp ("Popcorn" and "Coconut"). After doing more research, I decided it was time to invest in an RODI system. I installed it underneath my bathroom sink and it works great! In hindsight, RODI should've been a requirement from the beginning. There is way too much unknown with tap water and I could never keep up with the algae growth. RODI water significantly decreased the severity of my ugly stage and made everything more manageable.
November 2024
At the beginning of the month I came home to a tragedy. "Florence Nighting-gill" must have gotten spooked and jumped right over the lip of the tank and onto the floor. Unfortunately it must have happened at the beginning of the day because it was dried up by the time I saw what had happened.
After a week or so I added a scooter blenny ("Scooter" [very clever]) and a sand sifting starfish ("Diggie Smalls"). Both are very entertaining to watch! The following week I replaced the clownfish that I had lost with a new one. Welcome "Carrie UnderWater"!
This month I started playing around with a Canon camera for some better photography. Clearly there is a difference in image quality! I also added my first corals. I purchased 3 frags from my lfs: 2 frags of zoanthids and 1 frag of green star polyps.
"Scooter" taken with Canon EOS Rebel T3
"Diggie Smalls" taken with iPhone 12
Green star polyps
"Gorilla Nipples" (I didn't name them lol) zoanthids
"Magician" zoanthids
December 2024
This was the first time I was away from my tank for an extended period of time. While I did purchase an automatic feeder to make sure no one went hungry, I had a coworker check in every few days and have an extra feeding with some frozen brine shrimp. No casualties!
January/February 2025
Purchased 3 green chromis. I will keep this number of live stock for at least a few months. I am happy with the bio-load and how my canister filtration & water change schedule is keeping everything in order.
In order to try and give my clownfish a home, I purchased a rainbow bubble-tip anemone and placed it in the tank. While I had debated on adding it at the risk of stinging my other corals that had started to grow nicely, my local fish store just received a shipment of them and had a ton on sale for more than 1/2 off anywhere else I could find them. It was a steal! I knew I was risking it because my lights are not very powerful, yet I decided to give it a chance. After a few days of moving around and getting smaller and smaller each day, I decided it was time to remove it before it had a chance to die, release toxins into the water, and nuke every living thing inside.
March 2025
First breeding event of my trochus snails! More photography with my Canon EOS Rebel T3 as well. Starting to see noticeable growth on all coral frags!
Next up on the list! I'd like to add an algae reactor to help lower my nitrate and phosphate levels a bit. If anyone has any recommendations or good threads for DIY, please let me know! Excited to be part of the community!
