hyper
New Member
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2025
- Messages
- 7
- Reaction score
- 8
- Location
- united states
- What state or country do you live in
- Virginia
hello everyone, I wanted to take the time to share my experience I have had in the last year and a half in the reef keeping hobby. So far it has been a rollercoaster in every way possible from multiple tanks to nutrient imbalance and diseases.
I will start with my very first tank it was a 15-gallon jbj cube. had no clue what i was doing but i started with two basic clowns. I ended up finding and getting one of my all-time favorite fish so far, a black cap basset. I dont have any picture of this tank, But i quickly upgrade. I found a good deal on a 25 gallon water box with all equipment
The water box came with a prime 16hd and the upgrade siccile pump, I tried building a custom scape with some shelf rock. I ended up really hating the rock setup after a couple weeks. The tank was perfect for my small room, livestock at the time was two clowns, black cap basslet, purple fire fish. At that point of time i was maybe 2 months in, me and a couple friends in the hobby took a trip to a fish store several hours away as a boys day trip. That trip was a mistake on my part as I ended up getting 3 fish. a 6-line, tomini tang, and a watchman goby. I know (now) that the tang was way to big for a 25. Sadly, he didn't make it two weeks, I found out that he brought in an internal parasite that ended up killing almost all my fish. the only survivor's was the 6-line and goby. After treating for the parasite I went down the rabbit hole of coral. tank was 3 months old
a month later i complety bottomed out all nutrients. ended up getting dinos. I was never able to get the dinos under control till I upgraded again not long after i upgraded to a sepora 38 gallon, one of my favorite tanks i have had so far. i was finally able to get a rock scape I throughly enjoyed. The 38 gallon was a dream and everything was great i had multiple corals grow, my torches were big and fluffy. All around a perfect tank
So far the equipment on the 38 was
two AI prime 16 hd
One AI Nero 3
One AI Nero 5
EShops sump
AI axis 40 pump
While i was working out of town I found a 60-gallon tank for free with everything. I didn't have the room in my room for it so I gave the one fish to my dad (pretty big dory) and i actually traded the 60 for the 38 i had setup.
About a year ago from time of when this post goes out, I moved out of my dad's house and got an apartment. He had recently upgraded to a 100 gallon, So I took his rimless 80 gallon. I took a lot of time to set up the 80 gallons, I really wanted to take my time this time, trying to learn from past mistakes such as rushing when I should have had patience.
while i was setting up my 80-gallon i setup my 25 gallon i still had in storage. i slammed it full of all the coral and moved all my fish over.
The entire time i was setting up my tank i couldn't figure out what lights i wanted, It took me several months to figure out what to get, I finally went with the noopysche k7 v3. it was highly recommended in Facebook group chats and to be completely honest i love the lights, there setup is a pain but you can't beat the price of the lights
I had decided that bleach cureing was the best option for all the rock so that was a month long process. Once I cured all of the rock i spent some time trying to make a aquascape that would be thought out about coral placement.
I fealt like this design was best sutied to cover any kind of coral i wanted with room to expanded if need be. I ended up useing black sand as it seamed the most visual appealing. not long after i started the cycling proces with frits tubo start waited a week make sure everything is in check and added my first fishs. I Added my two clowns
after another couple weeks i got what i thought to be my dream fish, a purple tang. i loved him so much till i found out why he should be the last fish added, he was a total ******, went after any fish i added ( i know a purple tang should be bigger than 80g)
I ended up transfering all my coral from the 25 along with a online coral order or two. my stocklist at the time was
Two clowns
purple tang
a blue chromis
2 royal grammas
Midas blenny
fairy wrasse
two sand shifting gobies
a flame tail tomini tang
I was able to get my hands on an apex system for the 80 gallon and to be honest i hated it so much it never worked for me it was always disconnected, i believe my issues came from user error. i ended up trading my full setup to friend.
I had this tank till January of 2026. i found a amazing deal on a 150 gallon (200) we and my dad took off at 7 pm to drive two hours for it.
me, my dad and our buddy took a full day to tear down the 80 and replace it with the 150. I will never underestimate a tank move again we worked for probably 13-14 hours straight to get it all done.
I had some green hair alage issues so i decided to take a trip to the lfs they had a deal on a powder brown and a one spot fox face, 100 per fish so i grabed both. I should have know better becausse the lfs has a washy history on fish health. The powder brown ended up haveing ich ( i know i should have qt ). The ich spread pretty quickly to my purple tang and midnight clown, I moved both to qt but sadly they didnt make it. I still have ich in the tank but its almost inpossble to catch the fish in the tank. AS of now my tanks is doign alright other than slightly high phos. just runing a af phos remover. I currently been debating on doing a pretty basic hydro's system consisting of the hydro's launch along with a wave engine with two icecap gyre 4ks. I been having a hard time dialing in the flow so go big or go home right. i have also been wanting to do a pretty basic dosing setup to have the stability for my corals. I want to get to the point where I can have a torch garden, elegance corals, and some sps, i know its been a long road and Im only a year and a half in. I know for a fact that i don't plan on leaving the Hobbie anytime soon. So im sure i will be in other threads and lurking around on here. Any feedback/recommendations would be greatly appreciated. And if you manage to read through this entire thing Thank you for listening to my story so far
I will start with my very first tank it was a 15-gallon jbj cube. had no clue what i was doing but i started with two basic clowns. I ended up finding and getting one of my all-time favorite fish so far, a black cap basset. I dont have any picture of this tank, But i quickly upgrade. I found a good deal on a 25 gallon water box with all equipment
The water box came with a prime 16hd and the upgrade siccile pump, I tried building a custom scape with some shelf rock. I ended up really hating the rock setup after a couple weeks. The tank was perfect for my small room, livestock at the time was two clowns, black cap basslet, purple fire fish. At that point of time i was maybe 2 months in, me and a couple friends in the hobby took a trip to a fish store several hours away as a boys day trip. That trip was a mistake on my part as I ended up getting 3 fish. a 6-line, tomini tang, and a watchman goby. I know (now) that the tang was way to big for a 25. Sadly, he didn't make it two weeks, I found out that he brought in an internal parasite that ended up killing almost all my fish. the only survivor's was the 6-line and goby. After treating for the parasite I went down the rabbit hole of coral. tank was 3 months old
a month later i complety bottomed out all nutrients. ended up getting dinos. I was never able to get the dinos under control till I upgraded again not long after i upgraded to a sepora 38 gallon, one of my favorite tanks i have had so far. i was finally able to get a rock scape I throughly enjoyed. The 38 gallon was a dream and everything was great i had multiple corals grow, my torches were big and fluffy. All around a perfect tank
So far the equipment on the 38 was
two AI prime 16 hd
One AI Nero 3
One AI Nero 5
EShops sump
AI axis 40 pump
While i was working out of town I found a 60-gallon tank for free with everything. I didn't have the room in my room for it so I gave the one fish to my dad (pretty big dory) and i actually traded the 60 for the 38 i had setup.
About a year ago from time of when this post goes out, I moved out of my dad's house and got an apartment. He had recently upgraded to a 100 gallon, So I took his rimless 80 gallon. I took a lot of time to set up the 80 gallons, I really wanted to take my time this time, trying to learn from past mistakes such as rushing when I should have had patience.
while i was setting up my 80-gallon i setup my 25 gallon i still had in storage. i slammed it full of all the coral and moved all my fish over.
The entire time i was setting up my tank i couldn't figure out what lights i wanted, It took me several months to figure out what to get, I finally went with the noopysche k7 v3. it was highly recommended in Facebook group chats and to be completely honest i love the lights, there setup is a pain but you can't beat the price of the lights
I had decided that bleach cureing was the best option for all the rock so that was a month long process. Once I cured all of the rock i spent some time trying to make a aquascape that would be thought out about coral placement.
I fealt like this design was best sutied to cover any kind of coral i wanted with room to expanded if need be. I ended up useing black sand as it seamed the most visual appealing. not long after i started the cycling proces with frits tubo start waited a week make sure everything is in check and added my first fishs. I Added my two clowns
after another couple weeks i got what i thought to be my dream fish, a purple tang. i loved him so much till i found out why he should be the last fish added, he was a total ******, went after any fish i added ( i know a purple tang should be bigger than 80g)
I ended up transfering all my coral from the 25 along with a online coral order or two. my stocklist at the time was
Two clowns
purple tang
a blue chromis
2 royal grammas
Midas blenny
fairy wrasse
two sand shifting gobies
a flame tail tomini tang
I was able to get my hands on an apex system for the 80 gallon and to be honest i hated it so much it never worked for me it was always disconnected, i believe my issues came from user error. i ended up trading my full setup to friend.
I had this tank till January of 2026. i found a amazing deal on a 150 gallon (200) we and my dad took off at 7 pm to drive two hours for it.
me, my dad and our buddy took a full day to tear down the 80 and replace it with the 150. I will never underestimate a tank move again we worked for probably 13-14 hours straight to get it all done.
I had some green hair alage issues so i decided to take a trip to the lfs they had a deal on a powder brown and a one spot fox face, 100 per fish so i grabed both. I should have know better becausse the lfs has a washy history on fish health. The powder brown ended up haveing ich ( i know i should have qt ). The ich spread pretty quickly to my purple tang and midnight clown, I moved both to qt but sadly they didnt make it. I still have ich in the tank but its almost inpossble to catch the fish in the tank. AS of now my tanks is doign alright other than slightly high phos. just runing a af phos remover. I currently been debating on doing a pretty basic hydro's system consisting of the hydro's launch along with a wave engine with two icecap gyre 4ks. I been having a hard time dialing in the flow so go big or go home right. i have also been wanting to do a pretty basic dosing setup to have the stability for my corals. I want to get to the point where I can have a torch garden, elegance corals, and some sps, i know its been a long road and Im only a year and a half in. I know for a fact that i don't plan on leaving the Hobbie anytime soon. So im sure i will be in other threads and lurking around on here. Any feedback/recommendations would be greatly appreciated. And if you manage to read through this entire thing Thank you for listening to my story so far
