Love my Patients by day, Love my RSR 350 Reef by night - MY BUILD!
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RtomKinMad
Well-Known Member
Hi Ellen, I’m an Icu nurse from Wisconsin. After a long stressful 16 hr shift yesterday couldn’t wait to spend my day off with my fish! Thinking about driving an hour to the best ever LFS just to visit with the owner. My husband is working! Lol no kids for us so we have 300gal reef, 180 fish only and building a new 93gal reef. My friends think we are crazy. I work extra shifts and double shifts just to get that special fish or coral! Lol welcome to this wonderful hobby and hope you enjoy it. What fish are you planning? Can’t wait to see what you do. Looks like a beautiful tank! Best regards, Kindel
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ellenRN
Community Member
Thank you and hi! I did my BSN at Duke - many of my classmates have continued on to become NPs, CRNAs, DNPs.... maybe someday for meHi Ellen, I’m a nurse too! Currently in Nurse Pactitioner school and also live in NC! Glad I’m not alone in this.Welcome to R2R!
Good luck with school!
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ellenRN
Community Member
Hi ! I love all of our kiddos but I have to say we dream about being kid free and are envious of kid-free friends!!! I am vicariously living through your post!
I am very excited about our little piece of the ocean! Fish, this is what we are looking at.... but I am still just in the researching stages! I am not sure if they will get along, or anything yet really. Still in major research mode. I really want to plan out what fish we are going to get because with our tank being as small as it is (I can't believe I am even saying that and OMG we just set up our tank.....) and I don't want to have extra fish in there that I am not totally in love with! And then, like with life, I am sure some of the ones I love will not be good for me.... kind of like my picking boyfriends hee hee
2 clownfish (actually already have, Im just behind on starting my BUILD....hopefully will catch all the way up in the next couple of weeks)
Cardinal fish
Bartletts Anthia
darf flame angel
mandarin dragonet
shrimp/Goby pair
Some tangs, we will get these small, I have learned our tank is too small for them really! I love the Powder Blue!!! Will probably get a Yellow but that will be last I guess?
We do want corals, so that cuts out some fish that have caught my eye :-(
What do you have in your tanks?!
Do you have a build thread or link to a post? I will see if I can find anything once I post this! Take care, Ellen
Hi Ellen! Welcome to R2R! I have the same tank as you. Thoroughly enjoyed reading your thread so far!
RtomKinMad
Well-Known Member
Hi ! I love all of our kiddos but I have to say we dream about being kid free and are envious of kid-free friends!!! I am vicariously living through your post!
Fish, this is what we are looking at.... but I am still just in the researching stages! I am not sure if they will get along, or anything yet really. Still in major research mode. I really want to plan out what fish we are going to get because with our tank being as small as it is (I can't believe I am even saying that and OMG we just set up our tank.....) and I don't want to have extra fish in there that I am not totally in love with! And then, like with life, I am sure some of the ones I love will not be good for me.... kind of like my picking boyfriends hee hee
2 clownfish (actually already have, Im just behind on starting my BUILD....hopefully will catch all the way up in the next couple of weeks)
Cardinal fish
Bartletts Anthia
darf flame angel
mandarin dragonet
shrimp/Goby pair
Some tangs, we will get these small, I have learned our tank is too small for them really! I love the Powder Blue!!! Will probably get a Yellow but that will be last I guess?
We do want corals, so that cuts out some fish that have caught my eye :-(
What do you have in your tanks?!
Hi ! I love all of our kiddos but I have to say we dream about being kid free and are envious of kid-free friends!!! I am vicariously living through your post!
Fish, this is what we are looking at.... but I am still just in the researching stages! I am not sure if they will get along, or anything yet really. Still in major research mode. I really want to plan out what fish we are going to get because with our tank being as small as it is (I can't believe I am even saying that and OMG we just set up our tank.....) and I don't want to have extra fish in there that I am not totally in love with! And then, like with life, I am sure some of the ones I love will not be good for me.... kind of like my picking boyfriends hee hee
2 clownfish (actually already have, Im just behind on starting my BUILD....hopefully will catch all the way up in the next couple of weeks)
Cardinal fish
Bartletts Anthia
darf flame angel
mandarin dragonet
shrimp/Goby pair
Some tangs, we will get these small, I have learned our tank is too small for them really! I love the Powder Blue!!! Will probably get a Yellow but that will be last I guess?
We do want corals, so that cuts out some fish that have caught my eye :-(
What do you have in your tanks?!
hello, your selection sounds good!i lov our yellow tang! We don’t have a build thread. We started 4 yrs ago with 75 gal. Put in yellow tang and hippo tang. I really wanted a powder blue and a few more tangs so got a 120 gal and added them. Then my husband wanted triggers so we got a 90gal for triggers. Then we found that our hippo tang would outgrow the 75 gal and we found a 300gal for a good deal and bought it. It took a year to set up and get the supplies for the 300gal. We finally set up the 300 a year ago and moved all the other reef safe fish from our other tanks in. We got a few extras too. Found out I really lov wrasses. We also upgraded our 90 gal fish only to 180 fish only. Has been a lot of fun. We bought our fish tank without doing any research and had it up and running started researching. I did a lot of planning for the 300 gal and the 180. Planning and researching was half the fun! Sometimes our best laid plans worked and sometimes the fish had different agendas. Here’s some pictures of our tanks. I hope you guys have fun too. We are fortunate that we both lov this hobby. The fish do tie us down like kids do! Lol nice to meet you. Thanks for sharing and look forward to seeing the fish you pick.
Goby-won
Active Member
Ellen & Bunch - this is great. We should put this in the beginner thread area to help just starting out. Great job with the pics and descriptions. You can tell you are “science oriented”.
Lastly, just tell the kids to get jobs we have a reef tank now and you are on your own for college. We will soon have a 300DD in your room and you are are welcome to sleep on the floor if you want.
PS - Welcome to R2R.
Lastly, just tell the kids to get jobs we have a reef tank now and you are on your own for college. We will soon have a 300DD in your room and you are are welcome to sleep on the floor if you want.
PS - Welcome to R2R.
RtomKinMad
Well-Known Member
That’s so true! Happened to us. I said “ that tank is way to big!” When we got the 4” 75 gal and now I’m saying “ we should have gotten a 500gal!” My husband just laughs. We need a new house to hold our reef!
Thank you and hi! I did my BSN at Duke - many of my classmates have continued on to become NPs, CRNAs, DNPs.... maybe someday for me
Too funny! We probably live so close by. I work at Duke in CT surgery and that is also where I am enrolled for NP school. I’m a Tarheel at heart since that was my undergrad but they didn’t have the NP specialty I wanted so I had to move to the dark side. I will say I have had a wonderful experience at DUSON so far. Thank you! You should definitely consider advanced practice. It goes by so fast, before you know it you’re about to graduate. Added bonus....more money for reefing.
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ellenRN
Community Member
Wow! I feel like we are following in your footsteps! We did no research ahead of time, and it has all been since we ordered our tank! It sure has been a lot of fun so far learning about everything! We already have plans to get a fish-only tank, probably another Red Sea! When we do size-up, we are currently thinking maybe having a custom tank built into our living room somewhere. But who knows! We are so busy playing catch-up since we bought our current tank first, now we are trying to learn all we can so we make the least amount of mistakes - well, hopefully not too many stupid mistakes!!!!hello, your selection sounds good!i lov our yellow tang! We don’t have a build thread. We started 4 yrs ago with 75 gal. Put in yellow tang and hippo tang. I really wanted a powder blue and a few more tangs so got a 120 gal and added them. Then my husband wanted triggers so we got a 90gal for triggers. Then we found that our hippo tang would outgrow the 75 gal and we found a 300gal for a good deal and bought it. It took a year to set up and get the supplies for the 300gal. We finally set up the 300 a year ago and moved all the other reef safe fish from our other tanks in. We got a few extras too. Found out I really lov wrasses. We also upgraded our 90 gal fish only to 180 fish only. Has been a lot of fun. We bought our fish tank without doing any research and had it up and running started researching. I did a lot of planning for the 300 gal and the 180. Planning and researching was half the fun! Sometimes our best laid plans worked and sometimes the fish had different agendas. Here’s some pictures of our tanks. I hope you guys have fun too. We are fortunate that we both lov this hobby. The fish do tie us down like kids do! Lol nice to meet you. Thanks for sharing and look forward to seeing the fish you pick.
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ellenRN
Community Member
Hee hee the kiddos have already commented about how we should not be spending so much money on the fishies and should spend it on them!
We *do* require them to get jobs the summer after they turn 16.... They already lose their rooms when they leave for college, which they aren't too happy about. The oldest 2 used to have the nicer bedrooms, which they were booted out of and the next oldest 2 moved in...! With 6 kiddos, everything is a resource that can and will be taken away by who knows who if they aren't watching!
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ellenRN
Community Member
WOW!
I have a strange twist with my nursing - I was waitlisted at UNC-CH for their accelerated BSN, so ended up going to Duke! I probably would have preferred UNC, it would have been much cheaper But I did love Duke, and we had such an interesting cohort! One of my classmates, in her previous career, wrote 27 Harliquen (sp?) romance novels! We had a few lawyers, a lobbyist from Washington DC, one or two Peace Corps volunteers, and a couple like me - I come from a computer science/programming background. Everyone was from all over the country, and a few outside the USA.DUSON really tries to direct their BSN students to advance practice. I was planning on continuing on and doing Informatics, but life got in the way! Now, we are too busy trying to pay/plan on our 6 kiddos to go to college....
We are planning on going to the Reef Farm's event this coming Saturday I think it is. Have you heard of it? the Reef Farm is a small coral shop in North Raleigh - they are super nice and they are having some sort of annual event with a number of coral vendors and such. If you are going, maybe we will see you there!
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ellenRN
Community Member
Btw, your tank is absolutely gorgeous!!! And I totally love all the fish you have in there! I really hope we follow in your footsteps!hello, your selection sounds good!i lov our yellow tang! We don’t have a build thread. We started 4 yrs ago with 75 gal. Put in yellow tang and hippo tang. I really wanted a powder blue and a few more tangs so got a 120 gal and added them. Then my husband wanted triggers so we got a 90gal for triggers. Then we found that our hippo tang would outgrow the 75 gal and we found a 300gal for a good deal and bought it. It took a year to set up and get the supplies for the 300gal. We finally set up the 300 a year ago and moved all the other reef safe fish from our other tanks in. We got a few extras too. Found out I really lov wrasses. We also upgraded our 90 gal fish only to 180 fish only. Has been a lot of fun. We bought our fish tank without doing any research and had it up and running started researching. I did a lot of planning for the 300 gal and the 180. Planning and researching was half the fun! Sometimes our best laid plans worked and sometimes the fish had different agendas. Here’s some pictures of our tanks. I hope you guys have fun too. We are fortunate that we both lov this hobby. The fish do tie us down like kids do! Lol nice to meet you. Thanks for sharing and look forward to seeing the fish you pick.
Hi @ellenRN, you mentioned in an earlier post that you didn't have a GFCI receptacle behind the tank. You may have already addressed this but I just wanted to point out that they have plug in GFCIs that you can use when changing out the receptacle isn't an option.
vector824
Active Member
Those go inside the breaker box and do the same thing as a GFCI outlet, just on the whole circuit. Definitely a good option.
Your tank is looking good! So excited to see it stocked. I’m currently finishing my BSN online at UCF... isn’t going back to school FUN...
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ellenRN
Community Member
Thanks and thanks for the tip! Is this something that I can purchase and easily put inside the breaker box - or do we need to get an electrician to do this? Sorry so many questions, I really don't want to mess around with electricity when I really don't know what I am doing!
Going back to school is hard (total switch of mindset UGH) and online is even worse, imho. The benefit of flexibility and doing it anywhere/home is good, but the downside of that is distractions would always take me away from my schoolwork! Good luck! When do you finish? Hopefully it comes with a pay raise at work!
vector824
Active Member
Thanks and thanks for the tip! Is this something that I can purchase and easily put inside the breaker box - or do we need to get an electrician to do this? Sorry so many questions, I really don't want to mess around with electricity when I really don't know what I am doing!
Going back to school is hard (total switch of mindset UGH) and online is even worse, imho. The benefit of flexibility and doing it anywhere/home is good, but the downside of that is distractions would always take me away from my schoolwork! Good luck! When do you finish? Hopefully it comes with a pay raise at work!
It’s just like replacing a breaker in your electric box, if you’re not comfortable then consult an electrician! Shouldn’t be too harsh YouTube probably has videos on it.
Yeah that’s true! It’s definitely tough over the summer. I’ll finish next May! It’s like a dollar an hour raise but I’m not doing for the money ha! I’ll probably finish out with a masters in something... nursing leadership with an MBA or just an MBA. We’ll see!
I haven’t installed a GFCI breaker but I was considering it recently. If working in your breaker panel is scary (it is to me since I have no experience with it), they have adapters that you attach to your outlet like the one below.
NY_Caveman
likes words, fish and arbitrary statistics
they have adapters that you attach to your outlet like the one below.
Just curious, are these type of devices safe for long term aquarium use? @Brew12 do you know?
Brew12
Electrical Gru
Technically, they aren't designed for long term use. The reality is that they are just fine to use long term. Their target market is the construction industry where GFCI's must be used with all extension cords. Since extension cords are not allowed by OSHA to be used in a non-temporary manner, these are listed the same way.
Oh, and wonderful setup btw!!!
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