What would you do if you had the house to yourself for a year, and suddenly could make as bug a mess as possible?

[Smarkow]

Okay so my wife recently moved to Cincinnati, where she will be working for the next 5 years, but I still have a year left on my contract before I can join her. She loves the hobby and is super supportive, but our 210 display in the living room has been her limit for now.

Recent photo of my setup

So while I will be spending weekends that I am not working in Cinci with my wife, I will have the condo all to myself, other than two roommates, who also love the hobby.

So basically I have ONE year to do whatever crazy tank I want...

Considering:
1) Planted marine tank with lots of inverts
2) NPS tank with deep sand bed and jawfish or garden eels
3) Lagoon with rock flower anemones and LPS
4) Industrial size Phytoplankton culture system and a tank full of filter feeders
5) predator tank with snowflake eel and soft corals on tunzee box wavemakers for sway
6) SPS frag system plumbed in
7) Clown Harem

I love all of these ideas. Help me decide which one to do?

 

[Nick Steele]

I voted marine planted with tons of inverts and a lagoon with RFA and LPS.

But if you can convince the wife to let you keep the tanks going after the move I would go sps or clown harem tank.

What are your plans when the year is up? Keep tank/inhabitants or just sell everything?

 

[Smarkow]

I voted marine planted with tons of inverts and a lagoon with RFA and LPS.

But if you can convince the wife to let you keep the tanks going after the move I would go sps or clown harem tank.

What are your plans when the year is up? Keep tank/inhabitants or just sell everything?

So we actually have our first kiddo on the way (little girl, due in October!). When we were talking about starting a family, one of the things my wife said was that she always wanted the kids to have *some* involvement in the tank. Not as water change bucket carriers
But more seriously she was big on the idea that having the kids see me take care of the tank would show responsibility, respect for nature and life, early introduction to science and building kind of thing. When I was little my parents had a farm in michigan and so my wife has seen how my dad taught me these values, and she wanted me to do the same for our kids. Needless to say I had ZERO objections haha. I’m just like, “okay, so this means lots of fish tanks, right?” And she’s like “Well yeah, in the BASEMENT hahahaha”

So I will make a build thread for this, but I am going to slowly build a new setup in cincinnati, mature the rock, get it stable, etc. Then I will slowly start to move things down a few months before my time in Toledo comes to an end. But in the meantime... I get to make a mess here

So that’s a really long answer to your question, but...
TLDR All tanks and inhabitants will be gradually moved to Cincinnati

 

[Smarkow]

So if I go marine planted, this pico from @inland_reef is one in the Mangrove lover’s thread that I find really inspirational. Anybody have others I should look at?

 

[Damian reef boi]

Lol I chose all of them

 

[Smarkow]

Lol I chose all of them

me too...

 

[Smarkow]

So following this poll, I wonder if two of the leaders could be combined?

@Ron Reefman , you’re the reigning RFA king, how easy would it be to combine RFA and LPS with an otherwise primarily macro tank?

 

[Smarkow]

I had some pretty RFAs a few years back. Lost them in an ATO malfunction :/

 

[Mr_Knightley]

I would absolutely go with the phyto NPS tank, that would be SIIIIIIIIIICK. RFA reefs have been done quite a lot, and though they are cool I like NPS better. My second choice was the planted invert tank, so many things you could do with it!

Good luck deciding! And congratulations on the upcoming new frag!
Good day and God bless you!

 

[Smarkow]

Picked up a 75g marineland.

Getting close to a final decision. Any more ideas/votes?

thanks

 

[GJak]

Get a kiddy pool from Walmart and "borrow" 5 penguins from the local zoo.

 

[NashobaTek]

Get a kiddy pool from Walmart and "borrow" 5 penguins from the local zoo.

Make sure to get the house as cold as you can for the best environment! Lol

 

[Smarkow]

My AC bill gonna be like

 

[Smarkow]

75g on stand. 2x 3/4” returns and drilled for a synergy shadow overflow box

 

[Miller535]

Picked up a 75g marineland.

Getting close to a final decision. Any more ideas/votes?

thanks

Predator all the way. There are so many cool inverts and fish that we can't have in a reef. When I eventually do another tank, it will be predator.

 

[Miller535]

Predator
Predator
Predator

 

[Smarkow]

So for now I’ve decided to go with a combo planted/LPS tank. I think the theme will be “things I can feed” as one of my favorite things to do in this hobby is supplemental feed LPS. The macro will add some color, movement, and nutrient export for the early stages. This tank will be plumbed into my 210 main display so stability should be excellent.

I picked up a cheap 8 bulb t5 fixture on amazon.

What bulbs should I go with for LPS/Macro health?

 

[Smarkow]

Also considering going with black sand for this tank. I had the caribsea black hawaiian sand in my very first tank and loved the pop. I think LPS/RFA on the Black sand bed would look great.

video of old tank, this was 5 years ago and a total disaster of a tank in a lot of ways... but I did love that black sand!

 

[Smarkow]

Predator
Predator
Predator

So the only reason I ended up not going predator tank is that my wife wants me to build one for her in Cinci next fall :/

So I can’t torture her by having one here that she can’t enjoy regularly

 

[GJak]

Guys... Guys... Guys....

Let's slow down here. Wait until bulk reef supply does their BRS investigates video on penguin lighting next week before we get too far into this predator tank build.