New (sorta) and thought I would say hi.

[Caesra]

Howdy everyone,

I am relatively new to marine tanks and find myself often visiting this site, so I thought I would finally say hi instead of hiding in the corner reading what everyone else has to say.

To give some background, I have been keeping simple freshwater tanks for over 20 years. I intentionally avoided salt water tanks for those 20 years for reasons I think most of you know =)

This spring I decided I was sick of having a 29g sitting in my basement empty and decided, heck I will just do something simple. Just to learn. Well, that was a bad idea. In nine months my 29g, pull out of the basement tank, has turned into a 400g linked, zonal system. The cost, I stopped counting at 10K. Was causing my blood pressure to rise thinking about it =). Are there any reef keepers anonymous sites out there? lol. When you are planning (in your head) an expansion to the house so you can create a bigger system, you have a problem

Just to give an overview of my system I will try to be brief in my summary. Everything is linked together to form one system.

180g mixed reef DT: DSB, roughly 50 mixed corals along with about 40" of fish.

55g Planted, hosting breeding Bangaii Cardinals, working on second set of babies

29g (this is the starter tank that caused this mess), simple lagoon reef simple coral and hosting 10" of fish and a BTA.

29g Semi-exposed Non-photo tank, no fish...just non-photo corals

20g Fry holding tank, planted..currently waiting for first batch of bangaii fry to hit 3 weeks.

10g Fry tank - with my first batch that seem to be doing well...one week in ..no losses yet *crosses fingers*

35g RDSB Cryptic tank, no livestock of course.

40g Sump/refuge - holding all the money of course =)

Plan to upgrade the 29g starter tank to a 90G SPS dedicated tank after I get my electric bill down with LEDs =). By that time hope to have enough exprience under my belt to start working with Harlequin Filefish.

System is running about 500lbs of sand and 300lbs of LR.


In any event, I wanted to say hi. With only 9 months under my belt and only a few hundred hours of reading, I still consider myself extremely new and have tons of questions still...but I will say this site has helped push me along and continue looking for answers.

Thanks,

C

[MandM]

Welcome! Continue to read but pop in and ask questions too.

[saltyseaman01]

welcome! would love to see some pics or even a tank build sounds like a nice set up

[brycerb]

To Reef Central
Happy reefing, looks like your off to a good start. BTW it didn't happen if you don't have pictures.

[snorvich]

Yes, do not hesitate to ask questions. We are always glad to help.

[Caesra]

Thanks for the welcomes.

I will try to take some decent pics tomorrow. I have taken plenty of photos, but because I can't seem to keep from playing with the system things are always changing.

I never kept a build log, as I simply enjoy implementing what I understand and most things I have done are just ideas off of many other people including people here.

[Dustin1300]

Welcome to RC and I think we need to admit you to tank hoarders

The wife does not yet know it but in the future I'd like to have a mixed reef, predator tank, and seahorse/low-light coral tank!

[Caesra]

Well here are a couple pictures, everything is a bit of a mess from all the recent changes. I always do the project, make a mess, then clean it up and make it look better.

Also, the water is cloudy at the moment because I needed to add about a half inch of sand from dissolving. So still some cloudiness from that.

400g Zonal system side one (180g mixed reef + 55g planted + 29g simple coral tank + 10g fry tank, sump, small fuge and small cryptic under 180g)


400g Zonal system side two (180g mixed reef + 29g non-photo tank + 20g juvinal tank)


29g (simple coral tank..low flow, low light)


55g (Momma and Pappa Bangaii)


10g (Baby Bangaii)


Still my favorite coral, was pretty much dead when I got it.


My employees hated this touch screen computer so I put it to good use controlling the tanks.


And the neglected 150g Freshwater



Anycase, that is my mess. Under the tanks are a bit of a mess atm due to all the recent changes, so no pics there =)

[89Foxbody]

After looking at these pictures, I need to go change my pants.

lol. Looks awesome! I'd love to have something like that some day. The baby Bangaiis are friggin adorable.

[Caesra]

And to think it is all different now. If I could just leave my tanks alone, I would be doing much better =)

[thebkramer]

WELCOME BACK!!!!

How are things going????

[Caesra]

I didn't go anywhere =)

just was looking back at my tank a year ago =) O..the trials and tribulations of knowing nothing =)