Has this tank really only taken 3 months to get this far?
I am completely new to marine aquatics but the collection of freshwater tanks in the house at the same time crept up to three at one point.
I have been lucky enough to dive in Indonesia, Malaysia & The Canary Islands & recently got back into SCUBA diving so I thought I'd have a dabble and got myself a Biocube 14 a few weeks ago. The original goal was to do a small attractive freshwater species tank - not too complicated.
However, I was encouraged that with the Biocube, a reef tank was manageable. I was determined to be progressive with it and sensible. I've been checking on the Internet and far from looking natural, so many reef projects seem to be a smorgasboard of different things stuck next to each other with little resemblence to what lives next to each other in the Ocean.
Having found this thread I am so impressed with what you have created. I need to read it over a few more times to see if it is something that I can get close to with my project. It would really impress the wife who was very sceptical seeing another tank appear at the house, having waved goodbye to the last freshwater tanks about 4 years ago.
Over the last 3 weeks, I have cycled the tank with 15 pounds of live Fiji rock and set it up with with lots of intracate nooks crannies and overhangs, set up a reasonably deep live sand bed with 20lb of CaribSea live
Aragonite & been reading everything I can get my hands on to learn up on in books from Amazon and trawling the web the subject.
Being an engineer by trade and enjoying details, I have been testing and controlling SHG (very accurately), monitoring temperature,
PH & alkalinity
Nitrate,
Ammonia & gently adding Calcium from a starting point of 300ppm.
Now for the confession section...the Reef shop is less than 2 miles from my house so in 5 trips...
1st trip. Tank, stand and accessories;
2nd.
Live Rock, Water & Sand
3nd trip for Livestock additions:-
Small Catalina Goby;
5 Blue legged Hermit crabs;
Skunk Cleaner shrimp;
4th trip.
Yellow Feather Duster
Added two corals - I forget the type of both but one of which I need to find a method of securing better to the
live rock without disrupting the tank inmates.
5th & latest trip to the Aquatics shop for some salt yesterday resulted in:-
Small False Percula Clownfish;
(Tiny) Sexy shrimp;
Amazon book collection (in addition to various related Diving books & guides I already own) has become :-
Reef Aquarium Fishes - Scott W. Michael
The Nano-Reef Handbook - CR Brightwell
Natural Reef Aquariums - John H Tullock
Oceanic Wilderness - Roger Steene (exceptionally good book)
We are heading out for a few days in the FL Keys next week when I hope I can get in a couple of dives, hopefully avoiding too many more ideas.
I've looked at the local aquatics shop and the availability of Zoanthids doesn't come close to what you have in your tank. Any advice to offer towards my own project, what to watch and be careful of would be gratefully recieved - so impressed with your tank. I did start out with the all the very best of intentions in mind but you know how these things quickly get out of hand...
Sorry if I've dived in on this post for beginner advice but your project tank seems a fantastic target to aim for.
Thanks.
