If You Are New to Reef Central, Introduce Yourself Here!

[billielewis3]

Hello everyone Ive been in the hobby for just over a year now. i currently have a 93G cube that's been set up since march of 2012. im in the Navy, stationed in groton CT, im not a part of any reef club, although id like to be. im 24 years old, married for 5 years, i have a 18 month old son, and another baby on the way i look forward to gettin to know everyone here and this is my tank



i designed and built the stand my self
marineland 93G cube
radion xr30w light
mp40
reef octopus SSS 1000 skimmer
BRS duel media reactor
sicce 5 return pump
filter sock
40lbs sand bed
50lbs base rock

fish:
2 clarki clowns
long nose hawk fish
one spot fox face lo
pink face wrasse

coral:
pink acans
duncan
frogspawn
zoas
xianias
trumpet

[ffluvsrn]

Hi sorry for posting here and taking up space, but i tried contacting a member who posted a video on youtube and instructions on here awhile back about a home made pulsating wave maker he built using a 555 ic timer, i wanted to talk with him or for that matter anyone else who can help me with this type of thing, i have a small water pump that i need to pulsate on and the persons handle was XTM if anyone can contact him for me and let him know i would like to talk with him that would be great, if you email or PM me i can give you my email address and phone number, thanks

Tom

[Kerryman]

Hi everyone, I`m new to marine although i had tropical for 12 years. I have a 375 litre tank, 5ft x 19" x 19" with approx 62 kilos of rock and have just set up the lighting. I have the A1 sol led 40/40 lighting system and would like to know from anyone what kind of system to use, ie: Timers, Lighting Percentages, Hours of light, anything that would help me. Also, i dont have any Coral or Fish yet as i`m waiting out the 5 to 6 week cycle i was advised to take by my Aquarium store. I`d like advice on what kind of Coral to get, ones that are easy to look after as i`m new to the hobby, the same applies to the fish. I should mention that i live in Ireland and my Aquarium store is 2 hours away and not all Corals are available here. Thanks for taking time to read this, i look forward to replies and advice, All the Best

Tim

[Kanuck]

Hello everyone, i've been keeping marine fish for over 15 years now. my tank is 190 gallons. i encountered one crash about 12 years ago but luckily i haven't had any issues with my tank since the crash. I've had the same fish in the tank for a few years now except for an Indigo Dottyback purchased a year ago. My oldest fish is a Yellow belly Blue Hippo...he's like my buddy, he lets me touch him when i feed the fish. He's 24cm.
my fish mates

Flame Angel
Bicolor Angel
Coral Beauty Angel
Lemonpeel Angel

Yellow Tang

Mystery Wrasse

Azure Demsels (2)

Orchid Dottyback (3) one pair spawns on a regular basis

Indigo Dottyback

Yellow Wrasse

Gold Band Maroon Clownfish (pair) (wild caught female, 7 yrs old) tank bred male 2 yrs old
they are inseparable spending their time in my Ritteri Anemone

Yellowhead Jawfish (2)
Lawnmower Blenny
Orange Spot Goby

finally a Yellow Belly Blue Hiipo....he's one of favorites probably because i got him when he was a baby and saw him turn into this beautiful big blue fish
looking forward to replies and advice
cheers
Eric

[timb69]

Hey all, Tim here. 43 from the Atlanta GA area, by way of Virginia Beach and Buffalo NY. Married, have one daughter, 22, and a 18 month old grand baby. Ex-navy, F-14 community.


We are VERY new to the hobby, as in, almost a week. Our friends have a 30 gallon tank and my wife was amazed by it. Needless to say, she wanted one. Found a good deal on Craigslist, for a 90 gallon tank, stand, canopy, sump, rock, heater, 2 powerheads, and one little Damsel for $300 bucks.

We made the mistake of taking the water and the sand. We got everything home, tank filled, running, and the water sample we took to the store was atrocious. We bought some chemicals, 45 gallons RO DI water, and did a 1/2 water change. next day, took a sample to another place, and it was still jacked up. Got another 40 gallons RO DI water, and 80lbs of live sand. Went home, scooped out all the sand, and did a 1/2 water change again. Water is really clear, and our test last night was a lot better.

Now the waiting begins, to get the tank stable. Looking to buy an RO system for the house, and a skimmer. A friend at work gave me his old stuff, like a 55 gallon tank, stand, some massive 400 watt Sun Systems ballast and some huge lamps, and a GIANT skimmer. Also about 80 lbs of base rock is it?


Anyway, being new, I am wondering, what kind of RO filter system to get? I really son't have the room under the sink to mount one (that comes with a 4 gallon tank and faucet). What is a good brand to get, that I can hook up to a garden hose? My kitchen faucet is the fancy kind that a fitting can't be installed, as well as the bathroom sinks.

I have seen MANY on ebay, but not sure what to get.

[Straightguy]

Hi all. I've never had a saltwater tank, but I have, in the past, had several freshwater tanks (one planted and two community tanks). I don't currently have any tanks, but my girlfriend wants to get one, and I feel the reef fever setting in. I will be looking for guidance from this community.

Thanks,

Catalin

[boopedvue]

Hello All- My name is Jan and I am from Pittsburgh. I have been reading and researching reef tanks for several weeks and the more I read the more overwhelmed I get. Setting up a reef tank is something I really want to do. I would prefer to do a small tank (6-12 gallons) but some people have told me they aren't forgiving and much harder to maintain. It has been suggested that as a newbie I don't go any smaller than a 28 gallon tank and the nano tank was highly suggested because its an all in one. I am afraid of biting off more than I can chew. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Jan

[rkarr]

Hello all,

I was given a free tank and was told it was easy! Actually, I like the challenge! Supper cool hobby. I made the mistake of overfeeding and am getting some red algae on my sand. Any advice?

V/R

Karr

[mginani]

Hi Everyone, just wanted to introduce myself. Just starting now. I have a 90 gallon, 48" wide by 18" deep. Just put RODI water in and added rock. Planning on starting with fish and adding coral later. I am sure I will have many questions. Thanks in advance for your help,.

[Stacy brown]

Hi my name Stacy I'm a Autobody tec in lloydminster alberta Canada. Started out with fresh water tank for a year and a half then got into salt water for the last year and a half. I have a 70gal tank with 55 gal sump just got 2 ai vega's and apex jr controller love the hobby but need help some times good to know there is somebody out the to lend a hand. (I.e. need a good thread on apex controller timer set up)

[JulieS]

Hi all,

My husband and I used to keep reef tanks in the 90s (a 200, a 75, a 10 . . . with a no-coral 55 serving as our quarantine tank) until a little over a decade ago when we experienced Reef-ageddon. (We were on an out-of-state trip when the power went off, and every tank sat in the dark basement for three straight days with no skimming/circulation/heat. And yes, it was gruesome.)

Anyway, all our equipment has sat, sealed up in the basement, for the last decade after that scarring experience until two months ago when we acquired a local guy's two-year-old 20-gallon nano-reef as he was moving 1,500 miles away. As it had been a bit neglected (has a serious aiptasia problem, is overcrowded and growing bad algae, and had no skimmer whatsoever), I became interested in resurrecting our bigger tanks initially to have a place to move some of the livestock out of the nano while I worked on it.

So here I am . . . sorting through old equipment to see what is still viable, my old knowledge to see what's still valid, and old rock/sand to see what can be cleaned up enough to be reused. We've been slowly working on the 75-gallon first over the last couple of months, and it's currently just sitting there with saltwater circulating around some of the old rock/sand. We're hoping to hook it up to its sump/refugium tomorrow and kick on the lights, both top and bottom, before we add some macro.

But feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the reef keeping changes of the last decade,

Julie

[Allthereef]

Hello! My name is John, I'm a 28 year old human services worker and part time cook hailing from western ma. I've been building and selling dart frog vivariums for around 10 years now. I recently (two months ago) inherited a 30g reef tank that was in sorry sorry shape. There was some crappy looking LR, crushed coral gravel as the substrate, a too-small two bulb 48watt t5 light, the filter was two HOB whispers, a way too huge CUC mainly consisting of hermit crabs, an anenome, some damsels, a snowflake eel, some polyps, some defeated looking zoas, and a hilariously bad algae problem.

well, since then, i've built a 15g sump with a remote dsb and tumbling chaeto and purple tang heaven algae, got the water flow up to around 350 gph, bought an over-size proteinskimmer, threw a ton of crabs in the dsb, did some reading, pulled them out again, i've donated the eel, ditched the HOB filters, bought some more LR (not enough- -never enough), done enough water changes to sink the titanic (and perhaps finance bringing it back up), got the algae problem under some facade of control, and gone hungry this month.

My next projects are-
buy a new light, or suplementing the old one with this-
http://www.ebay.com/itm/390494805007 -advice?
and replace all the old awful substrate with some nice sand.
get a third job
bother you all for crazy amounts of advice.

So, in a word, Howdy!

[paglaum22]

Hi guys, I'm Mike, I have a 2 week old, Red Sea Max 130D and just added corals in it, in the start of week no.2 I added these:

2 clownfish (percula and clarkii)
1 green BTA
5 turbo snails
1 cleaner shrimp
1 fire angel

Although, the guy from where I bought my tank told me I can already add fish after 3 hours of water cycle after I brought him a sample of water and he tested it, unfortunately the 2 fishes that I added died within a week

The list above are alive and healthy until this time...the corals that I added for the past 2 days are pink zoanthid, green Acan king, and green frogspawn coral..

[Seanthefish]

Hello, my name is Sean. Been looking through the site for 8 years before i finally bit the bullet and started my own reef tank. I cannot tell you how useful this site has been for information on any problems i encounter!

[Snowflake88]

Hi my name is Danielle better known as Snowflake. I'm starting my 55 gallon FOWLR tank its been cycling for a week.

[Reefer boy]

I'm new to reef central and I have a couple of projects I'm working on and would like to share them. We're is the best place to start a thread on something like this?

[JohnnyHeavens]

Hey there RC. I've been prowling the site for a while and it's past time to check in and say hi. I've used lost of information from many of you so thank you to those that contribute to the site!

I'm a husband/father, IT guy, soccer coach, and Divemaster/AI in my spare time and I love to come home and check out our tank.

We had fish growing up and my parents ran some nice tanks but I was never engaged in the hobby. Not sure why as I loved the critters and we had some great fish. About 6mo ago my friend gave me his old 45g tank with stand, canopy, and all the requisite basics. We poked around the internet and went marine with about 45lbs or LR and 40lbs of LS. Cycled for about 5 weeks and we've been off and running since.

My oldest daughter is 15 and a big help on the tank. She has a small 2.5g beta/goldfish setup that she has maintained for a couple years but the filter died one weekend while at soccer camp and none of us checked it for her so it died. She wants a new beta but I've been stalling here as I started a 29g nano for her about a month ago. She'll get it as a Christmas present if I can fend off the onslaught of new fish requests. The nano is currently running at my office with a good sized cleaning crew and a couple Vanderbilt chromis. My LFS is graciously hiding/holding a real nice RBTA and a pair of clowns for me until the move.

I am also working on a 150g build around a marineland 36"x36" deep dimension cube that will replace our 45g as our family's main display. (Perhaps for Christmas as well)

Anyhow, hello and thanks again for all your help and insight.

~John

[churt]

Hello all! After almost taking the plunge a dozen times and getting back into this hobby after being out of it for 15 years, I'm finally ready! Have started to put together the pieces of a reef system for my den and am very excited (and overwhelmed) to be following through this time!

Looking forward to all the awesome knowledge and experience that is so generously shared by members of this forum.

[xtinataguba]

hi! Im kirstina, you can call me tin. im really fond of aquariums. i got 5 aquariums at home. but i dont know how to maintain it my self and i have to call for someone to do the job for me. so im glad i found this site, and i hope i will learn a lot from here.

nice meeting you all!!

[FreediverMiami]

Eduardo Martinez (Ed) New to the forum and want to say Hi
I introduce myself opening a post and did not realize this is the correct
area.
6 months into the hobby
300 gal tank FOWLR
Some corals very little
Sump 30 gl
Refg 30 Gl w/ 2" sand bed (maybe need more?)
skimmer
heater
chiller
bio-denitrator ( to be installed this week)
phos. reactor ( to be installed very soon)
calc. reactor ( not sure if I need it)
400 # live rock
1.5" of sand bed ( not sure if I need more
will list all the inhabitants in the next post
looking to learn and
thanks in advance for all the time dedicated to RC
been reading a lot here and learning a lot
Ed

[SWDogg]

Hello RC!
I have been reading your form for 4 months now and have to say it there is a lot of great information on here. I am new to the hobby but have to say it is very addicting. My fiancee and I presently have a 50 gallon tank but are going to move to an 80 gallon I got for free on the internet. I did have to take it apart and am in the process of rebuilding and designing.

Once I get the new tank established we will post pics of the build.

SWDogg

[KelvinChan]

Greetings to all,

I'm kelvin. Fairly new to this hobby. I started up with a 58L (est 15gallons) tank, by my friend 2 months ago. Now I'm design and planning for my new tank. A 270L (est 65 gallons). Hope to get more tips here before I built it to prevent poor design and bad filtration system.

[Johnyrotten]

Hi I'm newly registered, but have been reading here a lot. Thank you all for this bank of knowledge. 6 months in. JBJ-24g. Bare bottom. No corals yet. I might just be too patient. NoImageUploadedByTapatalk1352963401.010801.jpg

[Guntert]

Hello I'm new and can't figure out where your for sale section is

[mike623]

Hi.