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

[Sisterlimonpot]

hi all, I'm new to rc and just recently picked up this exciting hobby of saltwater aquariums. learning this site and how to post things so just checking.

[welcome]
Good job. Hope to see a thread of your tank soon. Remember to take lots of pictures

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Hi, my name is kim. I've only had my saltwater tank for 3 months, and this forum concept is completely new to me so a little patience will be greatly appreciated. My question is regarding my emerald cabs. They don't appear to be damaging my corals, but they climb over the top of them all the time. Should I worry that this cuases the corals to close up during the light cycle?

[welcome]
If it is an emerald crab, they are harmless, and yes they'll crawl over anything to get where they're going. Unless you see your corals starting to suffer, I wouldn't be too concerned with it.

 

[HardDog]

Hello Everyone!

I am new here, and to this hobby. I was browsing Craigslist the other day and for some reason decided to look up Aquariums, and came across a few Salt Water set ups and that sparked an interest and away I went researching. I've spent many hours reading different threads, and learning as much as I can before I start this up.

I've always been a firm believer in learning as much as you can before going hands on, and this has been an interesting past few weeks. The more I read about/see these aquariums, the more I want to get one started.

Anyways, I plan on sticking around here for awhile, and when questions arise, I will search for an answer and if nothing shows up, I'll ask away.

 

[imfortney]

alright I guess it's my time

alright I guess it's my time

Hello everyone,

I have been reading everything in the noobie corner and reread most of it. So I decided to start my water. All is going well, I've got 40 gallons in the tank and as im pouring the next 5 in the water hits the center brace and splashes all over! * surveys surroundings * OK, that wasn't bad at all. I fill the hob refugium and hob protein skimmer, no leaks! I get the salt mixed with a powerhead and a 117 gph lil pump. Now its time to figure out this skimmer, i can see that it is missing a vacuum hose in 2 places. Short version, I put a waaay too long piece of air hose on the skimmer return line. The line fell and created a siphon straight to my carpet. I cleaned it up and rigged another cord to hold it over the tank. Refilled the water, sat down for a second and looked back. the hose is down again. so i cut it short and now hangs over the tank.

it runs fine the rest of the night. i sleep for 3 or 4 hours, wake up and immediately go check the tank. It is over flowing from the skimmer collection cup...

So I now have the skimmer working correctly, i think, and not leaking.

now that i have you laughing, where can i get real live sand, and not this stupid coarse fo-LS? what if i put LR in before sand, b/c i can walk 1 block to the ocean.

I have a 46 bow front, coralife light, some strange HOB refugium and HOB skimmer, 11 L/h powerhead, 96 watt 50/50, small PC over refugium, and a broken jebo w/ a 55w blue and 55w 10000k. i took out the bioballs and hob sock filter.

uhhh, i may have mixed brands of salt... im assuming thats ok.

i am in miami beach and would like to meet some more aquarists in the area.

i dont think i have anything else to say atm...

I AM SOOOO EXCITED!! I cant waitfor the water to stabilize so i can get some sand and rocks¡¡¡

Nick

i can't attach pics b/c im on my PS3...

 

[kimberlee]

Thank you yes they are emerald crabs. My corals don't seem to be growing very quickly but other than that they seem okay. I now after reading some threads have a bigger concern about the coral butty angle fish my store recommended.

 

[CHALICEKEEPER]

Hello my name is jason and i am new here. I just want to say hello to everybody i have a 75gal mixed reef with mostly chalices.

 

[kimberlee]

<img src="/images/welcome.gif" width="500" height="62"><br><b><i><big><big>To Reef Central</b></i></big></big>
If it is an emerald crab, they are harmless, and yes they'll crawl over anything to get where they're going. Unless you see your corals starting to suffer, I wouldn't be too concerned with it.

Good to know everyone looks happy

 

[craigshup]

Hi everybody
My name is Craig, I am new to RC. I have a 90 gal and a 35 gal.I have read old posts for about 13 years about tbsaltwater.com I am patient so I kept my purple figi rock with a few corals and fish for the 13 yrs. waiting for the right moment to get a package from Richard at tbsaltwater.com I finally ordered it a few weeks ago and OMG I love it!! I picked it up fri.13th. I got home unpacked it put it in a kiddy pool of salt water so I could get a better look at it and get a few critter off that I didn't want in my tank (welks, grilla crabs etc.) then I was able to put the rocks in my tank faster without having them out of the water over a couple sec. to help sponges etc. I left some of the bottom figi in for base rock (that's all LFS rock is good for any way even after 13 years!) I bought critters for 90 gal. package and 50 lbs.of live rock from Richard at tbsaltwater.com to hide the figi rock as best I could and give a better look after all these yrs. I have part 1 of the 35 gal. package in the 35 gal. tank also. I love it all and wish I had bought it 13 yrs. ago when I first started. The 35 gal. will be 100% TBS even the sea horses If Richard wasn't on vacation I would burn him up in e-mails bragging on what he sent me HEHEHE IF you look at his web sight I got about everything in the photos. Except the fish,brain and the copapod. WOW what else can I say as you can tell I am 1 happy camper!! I forgot to tell you that it is now day five and no ammonia in the 90 gal. at all and it only went to .25 in the 35 gal and came back down yesterday(complete new start up on this one) All the rock still looks great. Some body tell Richard how happy I am when he gets back .

 

[craigshup]

How do you post pictures here?

 

[craigshup]

Critters ?

Critters ?

What kind of crab is this and is it reef safe?

 

[Hydrozebraz]

Hello!
My name is Alex
I have been keeping my tank(at home) for a year now, sadly it was originally not a reef tank. I bought a stars and strips and webbed burrfish as soon as I got my tank because I enjoyed them all to much! I since decided after my Stars and Strips Puffer killed two of my Foxface's and my Vlamingi tang that I would take the foray into a reef. I have a 90 surfline with an Orbit dual compact fluorescent light and other than the puffers I have two False Perculas and two black Perculas, Starry Blenny and hopefully a Hepatus tang soon.
I am the Assistant Manager of a local pet store and in my years have been in charge of taking care of the reef at several of the stores I worked at all varying from 180-340. My adventure now is building up my own. I sadly only have a canister filter and was going to look around for some help on building my own refugium. Anyhow, hello!

 

[Hydrozebraz]

What kind of crab is this and is it reef safe?

Looks like an Emerald Crab.

 

[mirciulik]

Hello!
My name is Mircea, I am from Romania. I started a reef tank a year ago, and found this forum just a few month ago. I'm thinking about opening a topic with my tank, a short story and the problems that I'm having lately.
If it's ok, could someone point me to the right area of the forum, please ?
Thank You!

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Hi, I am Jenn. I have visited this sight countless times and finally decided to join. I have been in the freshwater hobby for about 5 yrs. We decided after the vacation several months back to start saltwater. It is so great, even now when the is hardly anything in the tank- I can look at it and find something new every time. Well worth the expense.

[welcome]
If you haven't already, get yourself a red light and scan the tank at night, it's a whole other world!!!

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Hello Everyone!
I am fairly new to RC although I have spent several hours over the past week or so researching past posts, forums, etc in order to make my first saltwater tank more successful than not. You all have been so helpful to me so far! Thanks alot!

Im working with a 20gal tank so far hermit crabs only a few worms that hitchhiked on my LR from LFS, and hopefully a fish or two soon once my Nitrates get figured out. My tank has been cycling going on 7-8 weeks now.

[welcome]
your nitrates are the end result of your cycle, fish don't mind nitrates, as long as the ammonia is 0 then you can go ahead and add a fish or 2.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Hello, my name is Heidi and after having a fresh water aquarium for two years and with the advice of my mom I am thinking of getting into salt water aquariums. I recently bought a thirty gallon tank at a yard sell of ten dollars which was used as a nursery tank when my moms two female platys turned out to be pregnant. The babies have vacated the tank for new homes.
I am using the book "Saltwater Aquariums make A Great Hobby" by John Tullock. Yesterday I added up all of the equipment I would need to get started, including the first animals I would like to put once started, and came to $329.45. I decided I should wait until I have a little more money saved because I only have a part time job and I am paying back student loans. I have decided to continue to gather information about my proposed hobby while I wait.
This is the collection of animals that I wish to put in my tank, which I hope will be well balanced. A fire fish, a pair of clown fish, a Scarlet Skink Cleaner Shrimp, a Bumble Bee Snail, and a Margarita Snail.

[welcome]
Check craigslist for used equipment I bet that will knock the price down drastically.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Hi :wave:

My name is Louise, i'm 30 years old and live in Bedford.

My husband bought my trgion 190 as an early 30th birthday present. It was already set up with marine fish in and we thought it would be easy to keep as it was all ready. Boy were we wrong!!!!

The tank came with the fuval canister filter that the tank came with as it's only filtration and the following fish:

1 x regal tang
1 x yellow tang
2 x percula clown fish
2 x yellow tail damsels


We bought some hermits, a fire shrimp, a couple of gobies and a star fish pretty soon after we got it to help keep the tank clean but we had some issues with high nitrates.

We did a fair bit of reading up on the subject and found that not only were half of the fish not suitable for our tank but the filtration wasn't eaither.

We decided that i should ask for money for my birthday and buy live rock, skimmer, powerheads etc to make sure we had sufficient filtration etc and we planned on rehoming the regal once her white spot had gone.

On my birthday we went to our local lfs who advised us how much live rock we would need and we bought it, the protein skimmer and powerheads, we went home and put them in.

The next morning we got up and half of our fish were gasping. We checked the water and we had an ammonia spike (lfs didn't mention that adding a huge amount of live rock in one go would do this). Into the qt the fish went. We only managed to save the clowns and the inverts, everything else died

While the main tank was cycling we decided it would be a good time to make a sump so we did (pain in the back side on a corner tank!!!).

Anyway, the fish etc are back in the tank now and we're starting to get a collection of coral frags so we have a bit of colour in there now. We're going to wait another week or so before adding more fish as we don't want to rush things.

We are also in the process of deciding what to upgrade our lighting to (from t8's) and i plan on doing that in the next few days.

Needless to say the purse is now very very empty!!!

I would like to say though, it was completely worth it!!

[welcome]
Seems like you learned a lot, As for the lights I would suggest t-5 or if your going to be getting SPS corals I would suggest MH for a 190g. Good luck and please start a new thread to show your progress and your hickups.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Hello,
I've had a 55 Gal. FOWLR tank for about 10 years and finally decided to start corals when I upgraded to my now 220 gal tank. I've had it up and running only about a month now, and I currently have just two fish, a yellow tank and an unknown damsel. It's all black with a yellow tail and a small bit of yellow on the back of his dorsal fin. He's about 3 inches or so. I also have just some starting frags of some Frogspawn, some green star Polyps, and I also have the infamous green brittle star in there. I think I'll need to take him out soon, he's a bit much with the coral in there I think.

[welcome]
Some of those brittle stars wreak havoc on corals. Be sure to start a new thread documenting your progress.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Hello Everyone!

I am new here, and to this hobby. I was browsing Craigslist the other day and for some reason decided to look up Aquariums, and came across a few Salt Water set ups and that sparked an interest and away I went researching. I've spent many hours reading different threads, and learning as much as I can before I start this up.

I've always been a firm believer in learning as much as you can before going hands on, and this has been an interesting past few weeks. The more I read about/see these aquariums, the more I want to get one started.

Anyways, I plan on sticking around here for awhile, and when questions arise, I will search for an answer and if nothing shows up, I'll ask away.

[welcome]
Sounds like destiny brought you too this hobby

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Hello everyone,

I have been reading everything in the noobie corner and reread most of it. So I decided to start my water. All is going well, I've got 40 gallons in the tank and as im pouring the next 5 in the water hits the center brace and splashes all over! * surveys surroundings * OK, that wasn't bad at all. I fill the hob refugium and hob protein skimmer, no leaks! I get the salt mixed with a powerhead and a 117 gph lil pump. Now its time to figure out this skimmer, i can see that it is missing a vacuum hose in 2 places. Short version, I put a waaay too long piece of air hose on the skimmer return line. The line fell and created a siphon straight to my carpet. I cleaned it up and rigged another cord to hold it over the tank. Refilled the water, sat down for a second and looked back. the hose is down again. so i cut it short and now hangs over the tank.

it runs fine the rest of the night. i sleep for 3 or 4 hours, wake up and immediately go check the tank. It is over flowing from the skimmer collection cup...

So I now have the skimmer working correctly, i think, and not leaking.

now that i have you laughing, where can i get real live sand, and not this stupid coarse fo-LS? what if i put LR in before sand, b/c i can walk 1 block to the ocean.

I have a 46 bow front, coralife light, some strange HOB refugium and HOB skimmer, 11 L/h powerhead, 96 watt 50/50, small PC over refugium, and a broken jebo w/ a 55w blue and 55w 10000k. i took out the bioballs and hob sock filter.

uhhh, i may have mixed brands of salt... im assuming thats ok.

i am in miami beach and would like to meet some more aquarists in the area.

i dont think i have anything else to say atm...

I AM SOOOO EXCITED!! I cant waitfor the water to stabilize so i can get some sand and rocks¡¡¡

Nick

i can't attach pics b/c im on my PS3...

[welcome]
Seems like you're on your way. If you are getting your live rock or sand from the beach you have to be extremely careful not to add any hitchhikers that you don't want.

As for local floridians check the local clubs there are a few from florida and I bet there's one in Miami.