nwrogers
Got gorgs?
I thought it would be fun to relive the history of my 65 gallon fish tank and document the progression going forward. I bought my first saltwater fish tank in August of 2002. It came with an Amiracle sump with bio balls, a sea clone skimmer, crushed coral sand bed, lava rock, some power heads, and a few pieces of live rock. It wasn’t long before my wife and I became interested in reef critters and by 2003 I began trying (that is the key word) to build a reef. Looking back I can only find one photo of the tank. I can see in the photo a sebae anemone, a ricordea, and an anemone crab.
After struggling for almost two years one of my co-workers introduced me to URS and reef central. That was huge for me because it helped me to finally be able to not only keep corals alive but make them happy enough that they would grow. I found a photo from November of 2005. You can see in this photo that I bought a lot more live rock and corals. Most of the corals were bought from other reef keepers in the southern tier.
A year later in 2006 the contents of my 65 gallon tank were moved to a larger 150 gallon tank so they would have more room to grow. The tank was still very much a mixed reef at this point but that would change over the next two years.
At this point I finally started to get the hang of reef keeping and the corals began to really grow at a faster pace. Here is another photo taken a little less than 2 ½ months later.
And 9 months later they were still growing!
This was the last photo I took of the 150 gallon tank before I consolidated everything back into my 65 gallon tank. The photo was taken in September of 2008.
Here is a photo of the new 65 about 6 months after it had the contents of the 150 put in it. This photo was taken in June of 2009.
After having kept an SPS dominated tank for a few years I decided it was time for a “new canvas”
and that brings us up to today. I am back to more or less the same mixed reef I was building 5 years ago. Some of the corals, the Yellow Fiji Leather, Porites, etc. are the same corals that were in the photo above from 2005 and some are brand new. The filtration and other equipment has been upgraded but the dimensions of the tank are the same.
I hope to keep this thread up to date with the progress of my tank, more pictures to come…
After struggling for almost two years one of my co-workers introduced me to URS and reef central. That was huge for me because it helped me to finally be able to not only keep corals alive but make them happy enough that they would grow. I found a photo from November of 2005. You can see in this photo that I bought a lot more live rock and corals. Most of the corals were bought from other reef keepers in the southern tier.
A year later in 2006 the contents of my 65 gallon tank were moved to a larger 150 gallon tank so they would have more room to grow. The tank was still very much a mixed reef at this point but that would change over the next two years.
At this point I finally started to get the hang of reef keeping and the corals began to really grow at a faster pace. Here is another photo taken a little less than 2 ½ months later.
And 9 months later they were still growing!
This was the last photo I took of the 150 gallon tank before I consolidated everything back into my 65 gallon tank. The photo was taken in September of 2008.
Here is a photo of the new 65 about 6 months after it had the contents of the 150 put in it. This photo was taken in June of 2009.
After having kept an SPS dominated tank for a few years I decided it was time for a “new canvas”
and that brings us up to today. I am back to more or less the same mixed reef I was building 5 years ago. Some of the corals, the Yellow Fiji Leather, Porites, etc. are the same corals that were in the photo above from 2005 and some are brand new. The filtration and other equipment has been upgraded but the dimensions of the tank are the same.
I hope to keep this thread up to date with the progress of my tank, more pictures to come…
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probably!
