so here starts my new reef journal. hope everybody has fun looking at all the pictures. :]
to get everybody up to speed: my first attempt at reef-keeping was back in college from may 2004 to april 2006 (most of 2004 was spent researching and saving money, so i really didn’t get started until december 2004). i kept mostly softies, but i did have a nice frogspawn and a couple of sps pieces. since i was in college, the entire operation was low-cost from the get-go. most of my corals were give-away frags from LARC meetings and the only real piece of equipment i had was a protein skimmer. but i made it work. even with weak PC lighting, my corals thrived. in that year and a half, i learned alot about the hobby but never had an opportunity to go to the next level. that is, until i was offered a job in houston after graduation. long story short, it inspired me to restart my tank.
and this blog will be a journal of that restart. i’ve kept all the equipment from before, except my lights, and will be using my new “grown-up money” :] to use the lessons i learned as a budget reefer and make this a success. i plan to focus on SPS corals with some LPS thrown in for good measure (80/20 split). for fish, i’m looking into getting a school(5) of bartlett’s anthias and a purple tang, among others.
here are my current specs:
- Equipment
- 75g Perfecto Tank (48″x18″x20″) w/ custom stand and canopy
- 29g tall sump (30″x12″x19″)
- ASM G2 protein skimmer
- 2 x 250w 14k+ Phoenix MH bulbs
- 2 x Reef Optix III Plus pendants
- Blue Wave VII HQI ballast
- 2 x MaxiJet 1200 powerhead
- Typhooon III RO/DI unit from AirWaterIce.com
- Dual switch auto-topoff system w/ RO/DI solenoid from AutoTopOff.com
- Livestock
- 120lbs of Carib-sea Oolite sand
- 90lbs LR
