After four months, I am starting my build thread to document my tank progress, and as of late, regression as well. Probably going to start off with a couple posts catching up to the present day.
After seeing the reef tank of a friend of mine, talking about it and minor experience with an outdoor pond and raising salmon fry, I decided to jump headfirst the saltwater game.
Picked myself up a used 55 gallon aquarium with stand, aquaclear 110, heater, 40lbs Carib Sea crushed coral, and 40lbs of dry rock off Amazon. And so began the first of many mistakes. Not rinsing the rock well enough, filling the aquarium with tap water (300 tds!!) and got it to cycling after dechlorinating.
For cycling I bought a 4lb chunk of live rock from my lfs and seeded my tank with old filter media, water and handfuls of sand from my friends tank. Cycle established in a matter of days.
A couple of weeks down the road, my buddy there offers to sell me at a steep discount 40lbs of his liverock due to rearranging his reef, and his old lights, two Mars Aqua 165w black boxes. Not fancy, but plenty enough for my purposes.
Rearranged my rock, so I now had two plastic tubes, 40lbs of crushed Coral and 84lbs of rock arranged to maximize the gaps and caves for fish. Limited due to the width of the tank of course. Fish were in, and all was good.
After seeing the reef tank of a friend of mine, talking about it and minor experience with an outdoor pond and raising salmon fry, I decided to jump headfirst the saltwater game.
Picked myself up a used 55 gallon aquarium with stand, aquaclear 110, heater, 40lbs Carib Sea crushed coral, and 40lbs of dry rock off Amazon. And so began the first of many mistakes. Not rinsing the rock well enough, filling the aquarium with tap water (300 tds!!) and got it to cycling after dechlorinating.
For cycling I bought a 4lb chunk of live rock from my lfs and seeded my tank with old filter media, water and handfuls of sand from my friends tank. Cycle established in a matter of days.
A couple of weeks down the road, my buddy there offers to sell me at a steep discount 40lbs of his liverock due to rearranging his reef, and his old lights, two Mars Aqua 165w black boxes. Not fancy, but plenty enough for my purposes.
Rearranged my rock, so I now had two plastic tubes, 40lbs of crushed Coral and 84lbs of rock arranged to maximize the gaps and caves for fish. Limited due to the width of the tank of course. Fish were in, and all was good.