My Saltwater Journey

[420reefing]

I have been debating about doing this build thread for a while. While I am calling it my IM 200EXT Peninsula build thread. It is really going to be a full documentation of my journey in the hobby. I hope you enjoy and maybe even learn a thing or two along the way. I am no expert by any means but feel I have had some success in the hobby.

I have wanted a saltwater aquarium for as long as I could remember. Unfortunately do to my finances I have always had to stick to freshwater. Over the years I have had almost every kind of fresh water tank you could think of, but chiclids were my favorite. I breed them for a while and ultimately just ended up keeping a tank of pretty male peacocks and called it good. In 2019 my father passed and I said f*** it I don't care what it cost I am getting a saltwater aquarium.

So I started searching FB marketplace and found a 50 gallon (almost cube) for sale not to far from me. I drove an hour to go pick it up and later that day I had a brand new (to me) saltwater tank set up in my office. I wanted to do it right so I used the used the live rock and sand that had been in the aquarium and waited a few weeks to see if the tank would go through another cycle. This gave me a chance to start testing my water. After a few days a random mushroom popped up out of the live rock I must have hidden deep in the rock and came along for the journey. Based on the test results I am not sure he is gonna make it...

 

[420reefing]

Time to add some clean up crew. It's been about a month since I set up the tank and have decided to add some snails and hermits. I have also noticed some more hitchhikers, few feather dusters, a bristle worm and some purple algae (I think its red grape caulerpa. Oh and my first fish a starry blenny. Hopefully he will take care of the hair algae issues.

 

[420reefing]

Ok well in hindsight I guess this was my first mistake. I got a sand sifting star...He started starving pretty quickly so I gave him to my LFS. I also upgrade my flow pumps to a GYRE I think this was XF230.
*edit I guess my videos don't work. If anyone knows how to upload them please let me know.

 

[420reefing]

It's now May of 2019 and I am adding some more fish. At this point the Starry Blenny has had the tank to himself for about 4-5 weeks. Everything is looking and testing better. A paid of Black Ice clownfish an Orchid Dottyback and a Scarlet Skunk Cleaner shrimp.

 

[420reefing]

Noticing the Sand Sifting star is starting to waste away. This was after he was in the tank for about 4 weeks.

 

[420reefing]

End of May beginning of June 2019 I added a refugium and an ATO also some good shots of the fish at this time. The Starry has been in for about 2 months the rest of the fish about a month.

 

[kevgib67]

Your off to a good start, sometimes the little hitchhikers can be as interesting as fish, corals and inverts.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Tank seems like it is doing great!