Restarting my love/hate relationship with Reefing after 15 years

[Indeva]

15 years ago I had a fabulous 75 gallon LPS tank. Back then it seemed entire colonies cost $75 and I hardly had to test water parameters. My wife bought me a 32 Biocube for my birthday. It's been a trying 4 months, but the tank is finally settling in. I've done a lot of lurking on this forum until now. I'll start a build thread, not that there's much to brag about. The biggest problem I've run into is amphipods. Started this tank with dry rock, dipped everything before hand, but they still made it in. Had to put all of the zoas onto a frag rack because those pods would swarm them on the rocks to the point that they never opened and started to die. A fresh water dip of all the rocks really put a dent on the amphipod population. A week ago I put in a very small YCW. Gave him a 90 minute drip, but haven't seen him in week. My firefish likes to go on 3-4 day vacations, so hopefully the YCW will immerge.

Long term goal is to do a mixed tank with SPS on the top of the arch. Running Steve's LED at 26% total power right now as I nurse the zoas back to life. Hopefully I can grow this tank to point of needing to upgrade.

Parameters:
Temp 77.0
Salinity 1.025
PH 8.2
Nitrate 3 ppm
Phosphate 9 ppb
Alk 155 ppm
Calc 420 ppm
Mag 1240 ppm
I quit testing ammonia and nitrites.

 

[Peace River]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!!!

 

[Poof No Eyebrows]

Welcome back

 

[PeterC99]

Welcome to R2R!

Good luck with 32 Biocube! Looks like you are off to a great start!

 

[DDenny]

Welcome to Reef2Reef and the tanks looking good

 

[Billldg]

Welcome to R2R!!!

 

[KJ]

Welcome to R2R!!!

 

[Jimbhoy13]

Welcome to R2R and back to the salty world. Lots of knowledgeable and helpful people here who will support and advise you when needed.

 

[P-Dub]

WELCOME!!! You have a great wife there, a keeper for sure! Thanks for sharing!

 

[vetteguy53081]

 

[fishface NJ]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[MERKEY]

Hello and welcome to R2R!

 

[Fred2482]

Welcome!

 

[G Santana]

Welcome to R2R

 

[Salty Rambler]

Welcome to R2R and back to the hobby! Great looking aquascape!

 

[|Frank|]

welcome to R2R!!

 

[tbrown]

15 years ago I had a fabulous 75 gallon LPS tank. Back then it seemed entire colonies cost $75 and I hardly had to test water parameters. My wife bought me a 32 Biocube for my birthday. It's been a trying 4 months, but the tank is finally settling in. I've done a lot of lurking on this forum until now. I'll start a build thread, not that there's much to brag about. The biggest problem I've run into is amphipods. Started this tank with dry rock, dipped everything before hand, but they still made it in. Had to put all of the zoas onto a frag rack because those pods would swarm them on the rocks to the point that they never opened and started to die. A fresh water dip of all the rocks really put a dent on the amphipod population. A week ago I put in a very small YCW. Gave him a 90 minute drip, but haven't seen him in week. My firefish likes to go on 3-4 day vacations, so hopefully the YCW will immerge.

Long term goal is to do a mixed tank with SPS on the top of the arch. Running Steve's LED at 26% total power right now as I nurse the zoas back to life. Hopefully I can grow this tank to point of needing to upgrade.

Parameters:
Temp 77.0
Salinity 1.025
PH 8.2
Nitrate 3 ppm
Phosphate 9 ppb
Alk 155 ppm
Calc 420 ppm
Mag 1240 ppm
I quit testing ammonia and nitrites.

Welcome back! Hopefully everything turns out with the fish. A lot has changed in the past 15 years so be ready to ask questions. There are a ton of knowledgeable and friendly people on here that are ready to help.

 

[BaysEndReef]

Welcome to R2R!! Always here to help!!

 

[MartinM]

Hey, veteran of 25 years here, recently back after ~7 years away. Lots has changed, but none of it necessary. My overview of before/after:

1) LEDs are fun, but have limitations. I still like MH/T5 the best, but also use single-lens LEDs (Kessil, Red Sea, Volx)

2) Dosing pumps are great, but like everything else, eventually they’ll fail, so have redundancy in case they fail ‘on’

3) There’s all kinds of awesome new liquid foods from Reef Nutrition and others, if you set some of that up on auto dosing you’ll end up with an amazing amount of life and possibly even plankton in your tank (I did!). Growth for some species, IME, is a LOT faster (Goniopora went from nearly impossible to increasing 50% in size per month, in my case).

4) There are a ton skimmer designs, but for anyone that knows how skimmers actually work, it’s all just gimmicks. I don’t even use skimmers, not even on my clam/SPS tanks. I recommend you don’t get caught up in that hype If you use one.

Have fun!

 

[SPR1968]

Hi and welcome to Reef2Reef!