Welcome. I’m also in Colorado and new to keeping a reef.
Lots of research, planning and a pile of money helps lol.
I highly recommend you setup a QT for coral and fish.
I went nuts and followed G Santana advice and went full fiscally irresponsible and even then still didn’t have enough stuff. Oh. And the patience.
I took all the time to seemingly do everything right. All but QT my fish. That has come to bite me now that I’ve added my 3rd and 4th to last fishes.
Friendly advice.
Even if the store offers QT and fish seem healthy and sick free.
still do your own QT for observation at minimum but ideally should treat fish for at least the basics.
I went overkill spent many thousands extra on building a relatively small setup. Now all of that is compromised because I decided to NOT QT my fish but instead buy from a reliable source.
so even though I’m QT my coral. Still have a potential major disease introduced into my DT thanks to fish from a LFS.
Take your time. Research everything you’re interested in.
Best of luck with the endeavor and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
last thing.
Never make impulse purchases of livestock.
