Show me your growth!
- Thread starter HaiFish
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Here's a 1 year almost to the day update.
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kevgib67
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Coming up on two and a half years.
I'm quite new to the hobby too, I have 1 and a half years of experience now, but definitely still a lot to learn.
This is technically my first tank, it was 3 years ago.
Well, I don’t think it looks so bad, but that’s because it wasn’t me building it LOL. I bought it, already established for 7 years, by another hobbyist. I actually had 0 patience, absolutely no knowledge about the reefing world and in a matter of 3 months I got tired of it, and sold it. Tbh I don’t even know why I bought it.
Two years after my first contact with the reef beauty, I fell in love with a pair of clowns in a small LFS here in Italy, and I absolutely had to buy them. Remembering the past experience I decided to take the path of awareness and prepared myself for a reef tank, trying to study as much as possible before spending on anything, livestock included.
This was my new starting point, 10g. (And obv, my super tiny clown couple that still is with me today, added after a long month of cycle)
Spoiler? I thought I knew a lot, but actually my knowledge was quite poor. (I have the feeling it is the same today)
As soon as I started digging in the coral world I found sps. Everyone said they were difficult? Nah, impossible, I bet I Can keep them. Lost bet.
My impatience was still there, but that experience has been a truly fundamental lesson for me. And from that day on, every failure (because yeah, failure happens, much more frequently than what we would like in the beginning) is a lesson learned and acquired the hard way.
After 9 months of positive and negative experiences this was the look of the tank:
I definitely was very satisfied with it, and thought it was time for my first tank upgrade. I went from a 10g to a 30g.
Well, this is the tank today.
It is by far the most difficult challenge I’ve faced up until now in this hobby.
Everyday there’s something new, an algae problem, a poisonous metal contamination that strips half my corals in 2 days, beloved fish jumping, equipment failing,...
There’s some days I do really feel quitting would be the easiest and the most stress relieving solution, but then I go back looking at the hundreds of pics of my tanks taken in my year and a half, and I find the force to keep pushing, because I want back those results I had last month, because my coral lost half the colouration but hey, it looks like it’s grown a little.. This really inspires me.
And finally I found a few days ago this big, beautiful online community, something that where I live doesn’t exist, and I decided to sign in yesterday.
So keep up the good work, try to study as much as possible, and ask help from the seasoned hobbyists, something I feel I will be doing a lot from now on..
I am definitely following along your 10g journey, keep posting the updates!
Before:
After:
After:
Before:
After:
This is beautiful! Can you please answer some questions?
How old is the tank?
What are your par numbers?
What is your average nitrate and phosphate level?
Thanks!
Tank had been up since 2018.
At the peak of light intensity par is in the 400-450 range (8 radion xr30s).
Nitrates are somewhere in the 40-60 range
Phosphates are in the 0.60-0.90 range.
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