Who am I? DB's bio

drainbamage

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Well, I was asked to write up a little bio about myself because of a growout that’s going on, figured might as well post it here- that way y’all can choose to ignore or listen to my rants as you wish :tongue: .

Alright, first off- Name is Brian, born and raised in Southern California.

I’m the guy on the right- and yes it was a lumberjack themed bachelor party for my brother (the guy next to me, who’s about 6’3 normally but has had a bit too much to drink already.)
Lumberjackin.jpg


At 16, had some troubles with high school and threw myself into work. First job was at a Petsmart where I was employed as the guy who lifted heavy stuff. Working full time but living at home and having a lot of spare time because of the issues with school, decided I needed a hobby instead of doing something smart like saving for a car or something stupid like drugs or alcohol. So my brother had left an old 35 gallon hex in the garage, and so even though I had never been interested in the tanks he had and had vowed to never set one up, well, set one up. Started with typical freshwater community stuff, and then my collecting binge started. Got into collecting various catfish and plecos, and before too long (and 5 additional setups later of course) decided that I was competent enough to get into saltwater-haven’t looked back since.

Got a job at one of the bigger LFS/pet stores when I was 18 as the guy who lifted heavy stuff and scraped algae, and after about a year took over managing the fish department. At the time also got into herptiles, and expanded my collection habit there. In the 2 bedroom apartment I shared with my brother we had: 100 gallon poison dart frog/pygmy leaf chameleon vivarium, 125 with a Japanese dragon moray and a couple other moray’s, and a tree frog tank all out in the front room. In my bedroom, had: 80 gallon mixed reef, four or five trio’s of leapord gecko’s breeding, a gorgeous Nose Be Panther Chameleon with three girls for him to breed with (separate cages of course,) an Egyptian Death Stalker scorpion (always been into venomous animals-except snakes for some reason,) a baker’s rack filled with 2 gallon tanks for breeding killifish (still not sure why I got into them,) a half dozen poison dart vivariums with different varieties, a cat, and a massive humidity problem. Sadly I wasn’t into photography at the time and don’t really have any pictures of any of the stuff, just a poster my bro made up for the sushi party we threw when I brought the dragon moray home (and yes, I made sure we had both unagi and onagi on hand.)

But here’s a pic of the cat if anyone’s interested
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Left the LFS and went to a local high-end plant nursery, where I got a job as the guy who lifted heavy stuff. After about a year and a half, became manager and got real into a few specific varieties of plants as well as grafting, and still carry over a lot of that knowledge on growing into reefkeeping. Getting into college and the managerial duties took up a lot of time, and gradually began to piece out my collections, eventually ending up with only the 125 with the moray, and the cat (cat had gotten fatter, otherwise no change there.) After awhile, even the eel just didn’t hold my interest (specifically the two 35 gallon trash cans in the living room of my one bedroom apt, for RO water and salt mixing, and the floods that came along with it,) and got him out as well.

Fast forward a little and I’ve gone from nurturing and taking care of plants to chopping them up at a lumber yard where I got a job as the guy who lifted heavy stuff (got bored being the manager at a nursery, seemed my job was to watch plants grow.) While there I started talking to a guy by the screen name of Bio-Nut who found out I was a recovering reefing addict, who then promptly started doing all he could to get me re-hooked on that sweet salty stuff. Brother dumped me a red sea max 34 gallon he got from work and suddenly I was back into reefing. When I had first gotten into the hobby PC’s had just come out and were the latest thing, but the guy I originally learned from was anti-SPS, and I always had presumed that I couldn’t keep SPS under the PCs. Decided that if I was going to get back into reefing, I was going to do it the way I wanted to for a change regardless of what I had been told by naysayers (hence my thread https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/new-hobby-sw-beginner-forum/56736-dont-scared-hype.html ) So tore apart the RSM and turned it into what I wanted, a tank that I could basically go to the LFS and buy anything I wanted and not have to worry if I had an appropriate setup for it. Upgraded to a teklight and a tunze skimmer, and then just kept adding to it. I’ll give the details later on.

Decided to leave the lumber yard to work in the construction industry, where I got hired on to a crew as the guy who lifted heavy stuff (I found my niche at a young age apparently.) Worked for them (check out archisects.com if you’re interested in their stuff) and these are a few of the projects I was a part of.

Custom Concrete Table
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For this backyard that was also scratch built (including the fireplace)
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Another project I was a piece of was this house that went from a 400sq ft granny flat into a 2200 sq ft family home (all while owners lived in it amazingly)
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School was getting a bit more intense as I got closer to transferring to a four year, so left the construction business and went back to the lumberyard as the hours and workload on the brain (which is at best a low-end device.) Got more into reefing and made the horribly great decision to move in with a fellow reefer. Instead of a voice of reason, we both found excuses to set up just one more tank. Also got myself introduced and into the forums, which eventually led me here to reef2reef. By wisely timing my decision to go back to the lumber yard at the exact time the housing market in San Diego crashed, and then the entire economy collapsed, I found myself with a nice layoff notice. Decided to just throw myself full time into school and got transferred to UCSD to get my aerospace engineering degree. Also set up more tanks and spent a lot of time on the forums learning everything I could (and still can) and getting my collecting habit firmly re-established.

Have hit a few self-erected roadblocks in my academic career, do my best to deal with them and reefing definitely helps me stay sane on more than a few days. So these days I’m not currently lifting heavy stuff (perhaps why I feel so odd so many days of the week,) and just working on expanding my coral collection and getting my education back on track. Pipe dream someday is to have a full-blown coral farm going on in a greenhouse/garage that I can fart around in on the weekends and after a “normal†job, but still tempted to go for it and try and setup a business doing it full-time. Until I figure all that stuff out, at least once a day I can be found looking pretty much like this.

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In short (for those who like the tl;dr forums.) Hi, I’m Brian, I’ve been reefing on and off for a little over a decade keeping reefs as small as a 1 gallon home tank to systems of several thousand gallons for commercial applications. Have no problem admitting that I have a serious collecting addiction and like to have as many varieties of pretty much anything possible, though I’ve realized it’s much easier to collect corals than fish. Love the propagating, trading, and selling side of the hobby as it allows me to justify and keep adding to my collection, feed my creative/green-thumb side, and interact with fellow reefers and chat about the hobby I enjoy.

So hi there :bigsmile:
 
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drainbamage

drainbamage

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Now then – the part the growout folks are probably more interested in-here’s my current setups. All tanks use coralife salt mix with RO/DI from a BRS 5 stage filter.

34 gallon Red Sea Max (the system that got me back into it all :squigglemouth: )
0703052011.jpg


Specs-
Theme: General mixed reef

Lifespan: Been up a bit over 2 years

Lighting: Teklight 4x24 VHO T5 (Geismann bulbs- 2 actinic+, pure actinic, aquablue)

Filtration: Liverock, Tunze 9002 skimmer, Eheim Cannister for carbon and zeovit rocks, doser for ATO using BRS 3 part (alk, calc, mag), vodka dose 5-7mL per day, iodide dose 5mL 2-3 times a week (or when I remember)

Powerheads: Vortech MP10, Korallia 1, Korallia 2 (haven’t plugged it in yet, may get removed if too much flow) and 2 “return†powerheads (along with the heater, the only Red Sea pieces still on the tank)

Fish: Dwarf Lion (see link), Mandarin Dragonet
https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/fish-discussion/48110-frag-rack-security-system.html

Future Plans: If I can ever get the funds, want to drop this tank into a 90 gallon cube, and mount some LEDs surrounding the existing teklight to give a more zonal lit tank. Going to start using Zeovit coralsnow and try and eliminate some of the hair algae issues I get on occasion.

30 gallon (24â€x24â€x12â€) frag tank that I use with my roommate, ScubaJay (though I’ve pretty much taken it entirely over, sorry bud!)
0803052011.jpg


Specs-
Theme: Tank to use for holding frags, either for trading/selling, or for growing out of small frags that have been bought or traded.

Lifespan: Been up about 18 months now, has gone through a few changes as I’ve experimented on getting it dialed in, but never dried out in that time span.

Lighting: Teklight 4x24 VHO T5 (Geismann bulbs- 2 actinic+, pure actinic, aquablue)

Filtration: Liverock, Tunze 9002 skimmer, Tunze overflow skimmer/filter box, Eheim Cannister for carbon and zeovit rocks, doser for ATO using BRS 3 part (alk, calc, mag), vodka dose 5-7mL per day, iodide dose 5mL 2-3 times a week (or when I remember). The entire underside of the frag rack used to be a massive mat of Chaeto, but removed due to it collecting detritus that would rot.

Powerheads: Vortech MP10, 3 koralia 1’s, koralia 2

Fish: Sm yellow eyed tang (need to swap for a small sailfin, Kole’s going to get transferred into new setup soon,) small green corris wrasse (used for pest control, may remove as he makes feeding a PITA)

Future Plans: When I get a new setup for lower light stuff running, going to tear this down temporarily and build a 48†tall cabinet for it. Currently tank sits on a 5.5’ tall tool chest, makes viewing for a lot of people difficult, and working on it a step-stool job. Stand will hold a massive sump for maxing water volume, will drill tank and hook it in. Plan on turning it into a ULNS/High Light/High Flow system for purely SPS frags. Will most likely use coralsnow or similar to accomplish some of this.

Zoa Garden that turned into a Chalice Garden
0903052011.jpg


Specs-
Theme: Originally setup for doing a planned zoagarden with a minimalist (Amano) style. Ended up getting addicted to chalices, and the low light nature of the tank worked out for them, so got converted.

Lifespan: A little less than 18 months, can’t keep track of how many tanks I set up anymore :squigglemouth:

Lighting: Current Nova Extreme Pro 4x24†HO T5 (not a VHO as compared against a teklight) (Geismann bulbs- 2 actinic+, pure actinic, aquablue)

Filtration: Live rock, aquaclear 50 running stock media (more for surface disruption than anything else,) TLF reactor with carbon. Dosed same as other tanks, but without the vodka, and a little heavier on the iodide.

Powerheads: Vortech Mp10, Koralia 1

Fish: a pair of blue-striped pipefish who breed about twice a month

Future Plans: This tank is getting torn down and will be replaced with new tank (read bellow,) at some point in the near future. Timeline depends on an impending move and desire to do a few things to the new system before setting it up.

The next system-
(Pic will come when I get around to taking it)

4’x2’x12†acrylic (got it used) with built in overflow at one end. 40 gallon sump will house a skimmer, macro-algae/mangrove chamber with mineral mud, and ideally an ATS of some sort (see bellow to understand why based on how heavily I feed.) Lighting will be a current nova, most likely the 24†one until I gather the funds to upgrade lighting and utilize the entire tank.
Before setting it up, would like to repaint the stand glossy black (there are three colors in my palette, black, white, and stainless) and would like to repaint the tank itself black as well, instead of the blue it currently is. May redo sump as well depending on how ambitious and patient I am, would also like to mount an electrical panel in the stand to clean up the cord chaos that’s normal around my other systems.

Feeding-
Going to put a few pictures up so people can get a rough idea of how I feed. Mostly the growout folks will be most interested in it, but others may want to check it out. Problem with feeding is excess nutrients, causing me to need to do more water changes than I’d like, and creating problems with nuisance algae. Annoyance is outweighed by the results I’m having however, so as of yet I deal with it. I primarily feed H20 Life’s reef caviar to all my corals, with occasional supplementation of cyclopeeze. Also feed some hikari mysis to the pipefish, so many of the chalices get it as an occasional snack as well. If I’ve been keeping up on maintenance and not distracted by other parts of life, I’ll feed 3-7 times a week, other times I’ll go up to a month without feeding. IME the confusion of feeding is beneficial to growth and coloration, but it’s just armchair science for that one.

Method:
Thaw out the food, if it’s a food with small particulates like the mysis, I’ll try and rinse off the cloudy water as best as I can. All pumps in tank get turned off, use a small plastic pipette and place globs of food on each corals mouth/mouths. After about 4-5 minutes, I’ll go back and siphon up any food that was rejected on the first feeding, and reapply. Typically corals eat the food second time around. After a few times of this, corals learn to eat when the foods put on them, and I don’t have as many that I have to go back and re-feed. If I keep to a schedule of time, corals will open mouths at that time, even a week after a feeding. Most all the chalices will open their mouths within minutes of pumps being turned off, even if food hasn’t been put in the tank yet.
Pics: (not the nicest shots, just wanted to snap some of the feeding so please excuse the blurriness and whatnot, also, some of the chalice pics are old from before I eliminated the planeria population, so excuse the brown turds :tongue: )

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Captain Nemo

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Awesome write up brian! now that I know your lifestory and back ground we shall use it to get free frags from you!! Bwhahahaha!!! joking...
 

Wy Renegade

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Nice Bio Brian; I'd say welcome, but you've been around too long for that. Hope your growout works out for you.
 

fsu1dolfan

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Brian excellent writeup man. Great to know a little bit (lol) about you. I worked at a local pet store too when i was in high school...i blame my addicition on that first job. I think i spent more than i made working there!! LOL
 

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Great job on the bio and your chalices look great!

CJ
 
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drainbamage

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Awesome write up brian! now that I know your lifestory and back ground we shall use it to get free frags from you!! Bwhahahaha!!! joking...

Hah...I know it's a bit long winded, I blame my Irish ancestors for my inability to tell a short story. My gf absolutely hates when I tell jokes, cause after 10 minutes she thinks it's a real story and doesn't catch the punchline. You'll notice I distinctly left out my address though, and made a point to bump my frag rack security system thread :tongue:

Nice Bio Brian; I'd say welcome, but you've been around too long for that. Hope your growout works out for you.

Thanks! Wasn't quite sure where to put this as I wasn't saying high for the first time, but seemed the best place. Please move it to a more appropriate area if you'd like.

Brian excellent writeup man. Great to know a little bit (lol) about you. I worked at a local pet store too when i was in high school...i blame my addicition on that first job. I think i spent more than i made working there!! LOL

heh...yea, again, I blame the Irish for the length. And yea, I know a drug addiction would have been a bad idea, but I'm curious at times if it would have been cheaper and less frustrating at times.

Nice write up. Good luck on the grow out.

Thanks! I'll make a point to stop by your massive live-in tank next time I get out to the vegas area.

Great job on the bio and your chalices look great!

CJ

Thanks! One thing I want to point out is several of the chalices are actually half-owned by my roomate, Scubajay, and the super orange one (The Colossus of Rhodes) is actually his. Had it in my tank just to force it to grow out a bit under my feeding regimen, but it now resides happily in his 100 gallon setup. He also has a 55 gallon corner tank setup in the apt as well, so currently 5 reefs and counting in the 2 bedroom apartment...
 

fsu1dolfan

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heh...yea, again, I blame the Irish for the length. And yea, I know a drug addiction would have been a bad idea, but I'm curious at times if it would have been cheaper and less frustrating at times.

OMG that was by far the funniest thing ever...never would have thought a drug addiction as better but all things considered maybe it is LOL
 

Dave3112

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Great write up! I have full confidence in your abilities to grow out these corals! I can't wait until you get them in your tank and get some pictures up!
 

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Hey Brian, great write up!

What is it that you are feeding your Chalice's?

Brian excellent writeup man. Great to know a little bit (lol) about you. I worked at a local pet store too when i was in high school...i blame my addicition on that first job. I think i spent more than i made working there!! LOL

LOL I used to work at my LFS too and had the same problem...
 

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Great bio!

I was wondering how does the rsm look with the lid off,does the exposed skimmer and stuff in the back look bad,or not noticable?

I have a rsm250,and want to take the lid of due to fairly rapid water evaporation. But im not sure how the end result would look....
 
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drainbamage

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Hey Brian, great write up!

What is it that you are feeding your Chalice's?


I f anyone knows their contact info, I need to seriously get in touch with H20 Life and see about a sponsorship for as often as I push their product, lol.

It's H20 Life's Reef Caviar-some small fish eggs. They defrost in moments, have no excess residue that needs to get rinsed off, sink like a rock, and are very soft and squishy, so the chalices just love gobbling them up. Plus they seem to be packed with protein as I've gotten pretty good growth results from them.
 
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drainbamage

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Great bio!

Thanks! Anyone want me to start interviewing the reef2reef team and do bio's on them? hah...I'm sorta kidding, but if anyone was interested I'd be willing to give it a shot.

I was wondering how does the rsm look with the lid off,does the exposed skimmer and stuff in the back look bad,or not noticable?

I have a rsm250,and want to take the lid of due to fairly rapid water evaporation. But im not sure how the end result would look....

For me I don't mind it one bit, with the teklight already sitting on top of the tank I'd already give up on the "clean" self-contained look. Yes, the tunze is visible poking out, and the back plastic panel is still there, but I've actually used that panel to run some of the cords along. So just personal taste- the lid comes off without having to do any cutting to it (just has plastic pins holding it in place) so try popping it off and see what you think.
 

clowns101

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Bro-you must have one brave soul in you to be drunk and have a friend carry an axe around with you guys,haha!I know I wouldnt do it!

Nice bio!
 
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drainbamage

drainbamage

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Bro-you must have one brave soul in you to be drunk and have a friend carry an axe around with you guys,haha!I know I wouldnt do it!

Nice bio!


Well, there were also a few cowboys and a solitary pirate to keep him in line, hah. Funniest (as in only part of the night I remember) was when Will Ferrel actually showed up to the bar we started at. Funny because noone got a picture of him, we were all more interested in having a good time with my brother. I have a few shots of my brother drinking from a magnum of some good brew, where Will Ferrel is basically standing about 2 feet directly behind me.
 

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Thanks! Anyone want me to start interviewing the reef2reef team and do bio's on them? hah...I'm sorta kidding, but if anyone was interested I'd be willing to give it a shot.

LOL sounds good to me!

Well, there were also a few cowboys and a solitary pirate to keep him in line, hah. Funniest (as in only part of the night I remember) was when Will Ferrel actually showed up to the bar we started at. Funny because noone got a picture of him, we were all more interested in having a good time with my brother. I have a few shots of my brother drinking from a magnum of some good brew, where Will Ferrel is basically standing about 2 feet directly behind me.

Pic's or it didn't happen:tongue:
 
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drainbamage

drainbamage

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Pic's or it didn't happen:tongue:

Sheesh...wasn't my write-up long enough as it is?

Well here's Will's megaphone, he was doing a bar crawl for a cancer research charity

% <- GPS

WillpowerMegaphone.jpg


The aforementioned Magnum of good brew (somehow a second one got opened as well)

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Being consumed (note mini-groomsman in the photo :tongue: )

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Oh, and random shot of the 30 gallon frag tank and how it stands. Can't help but laugh that I'm using an aquarium stand (it fits a 20L/29) to hold the camera for taking pictures of an aquarium.

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fsu1dolfan

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I f anyone knows their contact info, I need to seriously get in touch with H20 Life and see about a sponsorship for as often as I push their product, lol.

It's H20 Life's Reef Caviar-some small fish eggs. They defrost in moments, have no excess residue that needs to get rinsed off, sink like a rock, and are very soft and squishy, so the chalices just love gobbling them up. Plus they seem to be packed with protein as I've gotten pretty good growth results from them.

Do your fish eat it too or is the mainly a coral feed product?? I might have to check this out!!
 
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