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

[eddieb1983]

New guy

New guy

Hello,

My name is Eddie and I am still green behind the ears with saltwater aquariums. I have a 29g FOWLR tank that is getting better but not there yet. I recently setup a 125g drilled corner flo tank. Right now it has only a couple of pieces of live rock in it. I have an eshoppes wet-dry 200cs. Something is not right with it but I'll save that for another post.

Hello all!

 

[sbash]

New!

New!

I just found this site this week and am new to the hobby. I just ordered a 65 gallon tank to start with, so I am committed now

I am in Ottawa, Canada and have always been interested in getting a marine/coral tank going. I have been reading like crazy for the last few weeks and still have many many questions. But one step at time...

 

[nacilep86]

New

New

Hey everyone, I am new here and I guess fairly new top the hobby. I have been closely involved with a friends tank over the past few years. Although I only started my own aquarium about 6 months ago.

 

[kilentati]

New to the forum not the hobby!! Hellooooo out there

 

[Jenius]

Hello Reef Central. Glad to be here. I am looking to get a saltwater aquarium going. I'm sure I'll have tons of questions.

 

[Bobbruin]

Trying to get back in the saddle!

Trying to get back in the saddle!

My Anne is Bob. I live in Southern California. I had a reef tank many years ago for many years. I loved the hobby and my little 60 gallon reef. It seemed so big. I remember having a canister filter and managing my water parameters by adding nutrients and doing water changes. I had 60 pounds of live rock and some great corals/fish. Ups and downs yet mostly ups. I finally sold the house and the guy insisted that the tank stay as part of the purchase. My wife at the time was not reef friendly. Needless to say, so many years later I went through a divorce, got back on my feet, married a new reef friendly wife and purchased a new house last year that is just crying for a reef! Amazing how the technology has evolved. I have been reading, trolling the LFS to determine where I will purchase products. Found Reef Central and am addicted to learning, reading, and becoming more knowledgable about my new set up. Within a few months I plan to build a custom Craftsman Style Cherrywood Stand for a 6' 180 gallon reef. I am narrowing down my equipment list. Can hardly wait to start anew. I am also in a place now in my life where I can actually do this right, with an amazing set up. Appreciate all the information, the advice and help people give one another! Look forward to becoming more proficient in sending, receiving and posting pics once I get started. :dance:

 

[Leslie Goldberg]

newbie

newbie

Hello. My name is Leslie and I am new to the Hobby. I am also new using a forum and dont really know how to post. I have a 14 gallon Nano cube and purchased live rock and sand and several soft coral and was told to wait a week to add fish which i did and found out later i should have waited weeks to add coral and fish. anyhow all the coral look great. the 2 clown fish, the one "dora"and the 6 line rasse all died of what i think was ick brought in by dora.i also purchased a tiny pair of pistol shrimp and yashi gobby that i saw one time in the tank about a week later and never saw them again. I forgot to mention i also have 4 serpent starfish. the first one i got i just put in the tank, which i was told i could do and never saw him for months until a few weeks ago and he has half his legs. I have an emerald crab,a red reef crab, a pom pom crab and a white crab with large claws. All the crabs are small. 2 large snails, 2 peppermint shrimp, two sexy shrimp, a cleaning shrimp and several small cleaning snails. they are all good. After a few weeks with no fish in the tank i bought 4 more and put them in a holding tank of copper for a week and then put them in the tank. A mandarin, a diamond gobby, a small bl/wh fish that looks like an angel fish and a lawn mower bleeny. I have had these new fish for about two weeks now. i put a bottle of copapods in for the mandarin when i first got them and i feed them frozen fish food. I started noticing the mandarin had similar spots and stringy things on it and was told they rarely get ick. This morning it was dead. All the other fish and creatures look good and corals look good. I have decided I need a larger tank so just ordered a 30 gallon which i will set up and wait a Month before adding anything. for now I am wondering if the fish, etc. I have are ok together. The blenny looks like he has eaten every bit of algae off the rocks. what does he eat when its all gone?? the diamond gobbie is digging caverns under my rocks and causing some cave ins. i think he has to go when i get the new tank. the angel just swims and looks happy. now that i have finished this chapter can anyone give me advice on how many fish to keep in a 30 gallon with soft corals, crabs, shrimp, serpent stars, etc. I love the bleeny and the small angel.is there a limit to how many corals or crustaceans you can have in a tank with fish.
I would like a few larger fish that are unique and hardy. any suggestions?? thanks, leslie

 

[Mickyfree]

Inherited Tank , need help im in way over my head

Inherited Tank , need help im in way over my head

Hey Team,
Great web site you have here solid stuff. I have just spent hour's reading and have discovered im in the ****. I have know idea what im doing and am going backwards rapidly. I don't know how big my tank is (I can do some arithmetic later on) I have no clue what a skimmer is maybe the net I used to scoop out my victims. Witch are now either hiding dead or been stolen I haven't seen a fish in weeks. It had stunning corals and bright things and critters with tentacles on the rocks but they now have fallen off the rocks or look like there squashed . I also have this purple algae **** that's just everywhere im pretty sure it's not supposed to be there. On the up-side I have a crab kinda snail looking thing might be a snail actually, he seems to be alive or drifting but positive I think.
There is also this Rig that looks like a fan in there blowing things around.
Im really Keen to make this work it was calming and pretty now it looks like rocks with purple and one lonely crab-snail. My musses thinks I have done all this on purpose and is set to call the rspca on me, and the kids think the fish have gone on holidays be back soon .
Im living on the edge here and would love a point in the right direction .
The bloke who gave me the tank decided that clearly this bloke needs fish turned up with tanks buckets rocks lights timers madly put it together gave me a Novel on being a Top fish guy said "shell be right mate" and took off it been all down hill from there.
Also I have read on here the gang talking about water change's ? How often should this happen and where should I buy the salt water ? Or do I take a couple of buckets to the beach?
Sorry about the rant folks I have been on the beer whilst trying to solve this crises .

Nick
(Future proud owner of fish)

 

[daft]

Hi

Hi

Hello! My name is Phil and I am new to the reef world. My step brother decided that taking care of his tank was to much work. Soooo yesterday we transported the tank and all of the water to my house. Don't worry though! I have been researching reefing on and off for about 2 years. I know what it takes to maintain a successful tank and I do take it very seriously. I actually told him before he got the tank what he will need to invest and how much work is involved. However, he didn't quite believe me for some reason or another. Any who.. The tank is an Innovative Marine Nuvo 38g (pretty sexy) It is a reasonable size for someone who has never done any hands on work. I do have a bit of freshwater experience so I'm not going in completely blind. I originally planned on starting with at least a 55 but hey so far I am in love with this tank and in all reality is probably a better option.

Whats with the tank? It came with the IM skimmer and reactor. Atm there are bio pellets in the reactor which I may switch to carbon/gfo in the future. The skimmer seems to be working quite well. It was cleaned before transport and is now collecting quite a bit of crap =). There is around 25 lbs of live rock so I feel the need to get more of that. As far as livestock goes there are only 2 orange clowns. clean up consists of about 5 hermits (blue/red) an emerald and I believe only 1 sand sifter snail is left. Excuse my lingo especially for this coming up. There are 4 coral so far 1 lps that looks like a bubble tip anemone, 1 sps that looks like tree branches, a mushroom and idk what the other is haha. Pictures will come.

Why I am here? Getting into the world of saltwater tanks is obviously no joke for the beginner. The tank was started with live rock which I insisted on starting with dead. Well with that comes hitchhikers some of which I have no idea what is going on. Fortunately he has been doing regular water changes and there are currently no nitrates. There are however, a bunch of aiptasia I am going to get a few peppermint shrimp in hopes of them feeding on it.

Sorry for the crude typing.. BUT! my plan is to not kill anything! I know better than to make any drastic changes at once. I know my clean up crew needs some work so that is my #1 priority.

I'll try and get to the point. I could use all of your advice and opinions because once you actually get an established tank you realize all of the crazy stuff that is going on. I am a noob. I do mostly know the basics but there is so much involved. I look forward to the community for it is such an awesome hobby. I will definitely need all of your help but in return I can share all of my own personal experiences and success.

Thank you for listening to me ramble! I will be posting pictures soon of some weird stuff i got going on!

 

[Nikita6711]

I gotta say I agree completely. I finally have everything I need to start cycling and just amongst my tank, sump/refugium, and my peripherials, I'm at a total of $2500. And quite frankly that cost is me buying the bare minimum without officially cutting corners and buying crap equipment. It's a lot of fun, but saltwater is a totally different animal than fresh.

I know exactly what you mean! I try so hard to save money but I refuse to cut corners and buy junk, because it ends up costing you more in the end, I learned this lesson because I was trying to save money on a skimmer by buying the one they had on the shelf at petco ( this was when I was brand new to the hobby and setting up my first tank).. about a month later the skimmer that I spent 90$ on crapped out on me, and I had to buy a new one which was 150$, which is still going strong today, but in hindsight I should have just shelled out the extra 60$ and I wouldn't have had the issue in the first place. Like they say, hindsight is always 20/20... another lesson I learned is that I could have saved a ton of $ by just buying a complete reef ready system.. but when you look at the price it can be a bit overwhelming at first, however after buying everything separately, and then adding up the cost, I would have saved money on a complete system. However now I am getting into the DIY stuff which is a lot of fun, I now have a DIY skimmer, overflow, sump and fuge, and my tank is doing great!

 

[VIN5ANITY]

Hi fellow reef peeps, so Im still kinda new to the reef world and saltwater world so any advice would be great, I have a 55gal setup

 

[VIN5ANITY]

Hi RC im vinny and started with a 26gal bow front and 2yrs ago and I just converted my 55gal cichlid tank into a saltwater reef tank it has a 20gal sump with bio balls for now and im thinking of making it into a refugium but not sure yet

 

[adamNdonna]

New 55 tank - need help, please!!

New 55 tank - need help, please!!

Set up my 55 gallon saltwater on Thursday 3/06/14. I added 50 lbs of live rock and 3 bag of live sand. I also bought a reef octopus 1000 protein skimmer and 2 power heads. I have also used Stability since day one following instructions on the bottle. I tested yesterday and today 3/9 with pretty much same results. PH 8.2, Nitrites 0, Nitrates 0 and Ammonia 0. Is this normal? Am I safe to add clean up crew? Almost forgot salinity is at 1.022! HELP, please!!

 

[AoiroKibou]

I am new..... Hello

I am new..... Hello

I am new to the fourm and to saltwater tanks. Hello :reading:

 

[UNCsalt]

Hello all...I am a newbie to saltwater but I have had experience with freshwater for years. I have had SA cichlids, African cichlids Lake malawi etc..
I am currently raising and breeding Discus. Have always wanted to get into salt and got my tank setup about first of Jan. 2014. Its a 90 gallon closed loop system with 40 gallon sump refuge, carbon and GFO reactor, miracle mud, chaeto, etc..fish consist of sailfin tang, tomini tang, blenny, 2 perc clowns, 6 line wrasse, neon dotty, pj cardinal, swallowtail angel, snails, etc..
corals LPS, xenia, wellso brain, hammers, frogspawn, kenya tree, mushrooms, toadstool and GSP. Lighting is 5 evil par 38 on nano arms (tank is rimmless)
I look forward to getting knowledge and experience from this forum to help guide me. Thanks....

 

[Mcolon]

HI everyone.

HI everyone.

Hi, im pretty much new to the hobby, When I was a young teenager I had a saltwater aquarium and only kept fish in it, as I got older my interests were redirected at my girlfriend, now my wife (LOL) but Ive always loved the hobby, since ive been back into it so much has changed that im just considering myself a Noob, I am learning soooo much. My tank is 75g with a 30g sump underneath, its been set up now a little over 6 months and ive successfully been keeping fish, but now id like to get some corals I just dont know where to really start and I think I will need to up my budget cause my lfs doesnt have that much yet, as they have not been open long. Its a great place otherwise. any how, just wanted to say hi and maybe if you got some advice on where i can get some corals at a decent price please let me know, I will also help take some off your hands if you need to offload some. LOL. Oh, Im in the Twinsburg ohio area.
Happy Reefing to everyone.

Mcolon

 

[Scorpius]

Hello fellow fish aficionados!!! My name is Ted. I'm 27 yrs old. Always had fish tanks my entire life. I have had everything from community tropical fish, Oscar's, to Discus.

I currently have two Red Spotted Severums and one Gold Severum.

I am setting up my first saltwater tank. It's a 25 gal Marineland frameless cube. Currently ordered my BRS 6 stage 75 gal/day ro/di unit and BRS Reef saver Rock. Looking at Vortech MP-10W circulation pump and Kessill 360w or Reefbreeder Photon LED's. Unsure on what HOB protein skimmer to use. Yup, no sump on this one.

My setup will be focused heavily on corals, lps and sps, and secondary on fish.

Looking forward to getting to know everyone and learning the vast knowledge I need to learn. Please be patient with my questions.
Does anyone recommend a good saltwater reference book to help me out?


-Ted

 

[bnyosemite]

I just started this hobby about 4 weeks ago. I've had various freshwater tanks but decided to take the plunge. I thought I'd done lost of research but quickly found I hadn't as I started adding to what I had quickly (thanks to this forum). So far I've set up my 65g display tank with 15g sump with refugium. I started with 60 pounds of rock, mostly live but not fully cured, on large dry rock and one small, but very well cured rock to seed the rest. I've added an ATO system, Ranco temp control, wave controller, RO/DI system with trashcan storage and pumps, a 20g QT tank. I'm waiting for the QT tank to cycle (almost there) but have added a CUC of snails, a few micro hermits and two peppermint shrimp. The DT has cycled and I'm feeding the CUC until I add fish. Eventually I will add coral.

If I'd known how much time I'd invest getting everything set up, wired, etc. I never would have started. But that's a good a good thing. I'm past that and anxious to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

Patience is not one of my virtues. This is hard.

 

[crock921]

Hi reefers!

Im new to the hobby as well, and am trying to learn all of the tips/tricks/best practices before i fill up my tank for the first time. I have run a few medium sized cichlid tanks with good success in the past, but have always wanted a reef tank. Im a diver, but live in the midwest, so in order to satisfy my need for reef, I am finally diving in. I am going to start small with a 29g biocube, but once I get settled an put a year or two in getting that tank under control, I plan on going with a large setup. Until then, thanks for being patient as I work through this complex hobby. I cant wait to get going!

 

[mikmikjg]

Hello all, I've finally decided to stop lurking around in here and say Hi. I guess you could say I am new to the hobby even though I kept a reef tank over 15 years ago. So much has changed in the reef hobby I feel like a noob all over again. I remember being on the cutting edge with Metal Halides and those fancy new power compacts...

Anyway, Im back at it planning a 27 gallon cube tank with an 11 gallon sump to see if I can convince my wife to let me get a 100 long from glasscages eventually. I'm really heavy into automated environmental control (that's sorta what I do for a living) and plan to achieve a low maintenance, relatively high bio load nano without spending lots of money.

Oh yeah - I almost forgot to mention that I am a fairly experienced keeper of herps. Currently I house a trio of Amazon Milk frogs in a controlled rainforest environment (100 gallon exoterra vivarium) with a heavily planted freshwater substrate. I love the fact that all I ever need to do is feed them and clean up occasionally and my 5 year old daughter loves to help! Guess it is time she learns about reefkeeping! :frog: