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[Chuck Spyropulos]

Hello Members!

Please post a little about yourself and your reef/marine system here so that we can all get to know you better!


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[Chuck Spyropulos]

I have been reefing since 1999 when I set up my first tank, a 300 gallon mixed reef tank. Around 2 years ago the system was converted from an "under the tank" type water filtration/movement system to a remote fishroom in my garage that includes a 150 gallon sump, 50 gallon refugium and a 30 gallon frag tank. My equipment includes a Tenecor 300 gallon acrylic tank, ASM-G6 skimmer, MRC 2-chamber calcium reactor, Sequence Hammerhead main return pump, 4 Tunze 6100 pumps for flow, DIY automatic top-off system, DIY automatic X-10 controlled water change system, Aquadyne Octopus 3000 Controller and DIY internet control/monitoring system. I use a deep sand bed (DSB) with live rock for natural filtration in addition to heavy skimming.

I only have fish, anemones, and a few LPS in my tank now since I had some problems over the last year including acro-eating flatworms....you do not want to get these pests in your system.... and an ozone overdose .

My whole system has been acro free for a few months and I plan to start restocking acros in June/July. In the meantime I have re-aquascaped my tank, designed and built custom acrylic overflows and plan to install new Luminarc III reflectors to try and maximize lighting reaching my tank in order to cut my electrical costs by eliminating 2 of my old MH lamps.

I also enjoy scuba diving, golf, snowboarding, and playing pool on my new pool table.

If anyone needs any acrylic work done, I would be glad to help them out. I have a table saw with an "acrylic friendly" blade and a router, plus the necessary glue and equipment.

[xrobbx03]

Well lets see here I am a 20 year old Mechanical Engineering student currently attending Wentworth Institute of Technology. Besides going to school i work 2 part time jobs. One for Stop and Shop and another for a cleaning service that works out Banquet halls in the local area.

I started reefing a little over 6 months now. Im still a newbie but learning more each day. My current tank is a 38g all glass tank. For equipment i have a CPR Bak-Pak Skimmer along with an Aquaclear HOB filter which i use to run media when needed. I just got a new lighting setup by Odyessa which is 2x175 MH and 2x65 Actinic PC, which i took the chance where many say they are not good but the new 2006 model seems to be pretty well built and i havent had any problems at all with it. My live stock consists of 2 percs, 3 blue/green chromis, a blood shrimp, anda queen conch also with a fairly large cleanup crew consisting of a variety of snails and hermits. I am new to the coral scene but starting to add more when i get the chance. Currently i have 10-12 zoo polyps, a GBTA, a flowerpot, and pearl bubble coral.

[ceige]

OK here is my spiel...

I have kept “water” now for close to 20 years. I have had FOWLR for 4 years before I went to reef about 3 years ago (the rest was fresh). I have recently sold off most of my equipment for my 125gal to downsize to a 75 gal. I love the DIY aspect of this addiction and will be doing a lot of it for my new tank. I currently am running a 29 gal temp tank with 20gal sump and a 30 gal display with a 29 gal sump. I have two rubbermaid totes in the basement right now "cooking" about 100 lbs of LR in preperation for the new tank. I just sold off my caps and SPS corals as I am moving to a softy/lps tank. On my new 75 I will VHO and MH. I will use a MRC-1 skimmer with a MAG12 feed, a MSB and have a bout 130lbs of rock to clean the water. I am still working on my custom sump; my return is a Panworld 100px-x. I will run two Seio 620’s low down in the tank attached with magnetic holders. My drill bits are on the way from Hong Konglace and as soon as they get here I will be drilling everything and then starting my custom horizontal overflow. Needless to say I am excited to get this rolling.

I am married with two kids and one more on the way....keeps my very busy. I am trying to recoup my civil war era house to it full potential. All this often gets in the way of tank progress but I am moving hard on the 75 now so I can keep my “hands wet”. I am in IT and can (time permitting) help anyone with that aspect of life just let me know.

I belong to other online groups but I am excited bout this group. I think there is a chance for us to form a group of folks who just want to get together and tank tanks and share experiences….

[xrobbx03]

I know there are more members than just the three who have posted. Please leave some information about yourselves. Dont be Shy.

[JenC]

Hi I have been reefing for about 2 years and have had a few different tanks but now I have 46 gallon bow (due to space) i I have all soft corals and just recently bought a hood for my bow with halides.. Have not put that on yet.. afraid of the electric bill... I also have a hang on the back fuge... and that about it... very simple... I have 2 mated Maroon clowns... they were my first fish, yellow wrase, midas blenny, 1 damsel that is left from my first cyle of my first tank and a CBB... That is my favorite fish.
I have recently bought a condo in Billerica and work in a nursing home in Lexington as the home coordinator..

[Phillip I]

I had a tank for 18 months now. Just live rock and some mushrooms. It's a 55 gallon tank. I want to upgrade lights and get more demanding coral. Many things to learn before I make any changes.

[SMS]

Well i have had 115G setup in the past then got in to FOWLR and now planning 37G Column/Cube setup

[ceige]

Anyone else care to share?

[dz6t]

I am a Chemist and working for a bio-tech company. I started reefing about 2.5 years ago with a 20 gallon long with a Nemo and a small frag of zoos in it. Now I have three reef tanks (used to have 6).

I am a coral person instead of a fish person. Most of my fish came from other people who got out of hobby. I believe in the future of this hobby is aqua-cultured corals instead of wild harvested.

The three tanks I have are:
75 gallon SPS/clams/LPS tank
90 gallon sofe coral tank
54 gallon Sofe coral/LPS tank.

All tanks are lit by 250w HQI MH with 14K Pheonix bulbs.
All skimmers are coralife super skimmer.
Seio for flow.
HOB filters for running chemical media.

[snick1734]

I, Nicole, am a vet tech. My husband works for a moving company. We are both in our mid-late 20's. We set up our first saltwater tank in March of this year when we bought our first home. We went to Dong's house and bought a lot of his live rock. Our first tank is a 58 gal with a 20L sump. A ASM G1X skimmer and a guiet one 4400 return pump. 4 maxi jet 1200 for flow. 1 250 w 10 XM MH and 2 03actinic VHO. We have several softies(zoas, mushrooms, frogspawn, hammer), sun coral, 1 squamosa, 2 Crocea's, 3 lyretail anthias, 1 Coral Beauty, 1 pearly Jaw, 1 true perc, 1 Starry dragonet, 1 lawn mower blennie, 1 bubble tip anenome. For SPS we have 2 caps (orange and green), milliporas, spongodes, acros, digi's. poccilipora. We also have Acan lord and open brain.
We just set up a 38 gal with a 20 gal sump. We are trying to figure out lighting for this tank. We plan on keeping all of our softies and LPS in this tank and keeping our SPS in the 58gal. I was thinking of going with a VHO set up or maybe T5's but I am not sure. This tank has been cycling for 4 weeks now and looks to be almost done. We used a lot of live rock from our other tank and other systems. Right now we have flourecent lights over the 38 gal. I just moved most of my zoa colonies over as well as our leather coral and a feather duster. We will see how that goes. I plan on moving the pearly jaw from the other tank and putting it in this tank. I am also hoping that our BTA splits as it is now a good 9-10 " across. When it does I want to move one of them into the 38. I plan on getting a pair of Black onyx clowns for this tank as well. I am going to rum an aqua c urchin and a mag 3 for a return. that is all for now. Thanks for reading.

[ceige]

wow sounds nice. Black Onyx clowns are very nice. best of luck with tank #2

[snick1734]

Update: We had a minor set back when we went away in November (in the 38), My petsitter was not sure what to look for and we were gone for 14 days. When we came back most of my zoas, feather duster, mushrooms, leather and other corals were melting covered in hair algea and a major cyano outbreak. Temps had fallen to 72 and all params were good except for ca-30. After a few water changes and slowly raising the temp and moving a lot of stuff to the 58 gallon and nursing everything back to health. I lost 2 peppermint shrimp and all my clean up crew. My bicolor blennie and pearly jaw were doing fine though. After great nursing care no more hair algea or cyano finally as of yesterday. I have since added my 2 black clowns and a pseudochromis. All of my corals have been moved back over and we also moved the acans and open brain over as well. Everything is doing well and opened up. The toadstool rotted in the center but is making a great recovery. I also lost my Kenya tree that we fragged off of the one in the 58 gal. That is all for now when I get some good decent pics I will post a link or post them here. Take care and thanks for reading. I also decided to go with a Nova extreame T5 fixture for lighting! We also upgraded our lights in the 58 by going with a 15k XM 250 and we bought 2 Tunze nano streams for the 58 as well. I want to get one for my 38 now. Nicole

[Chuck Spyropulos]

Sorry to hear about your mishap....seems like vacation is tough on us reefers. Glad to hear that you save stuff....great job on your part!

When you get the nano-streams. please let us know how you like them.
They really look cool on all the online shops.

Originally Posted by snick1734

Update: We had a minor set back when we went away in November (in the 38), My petsitter was not sure what to look for and we were gone for 14 days. When we came back most of my zoas, feather duster, mushrooms, leather and other corals were melting covered in hair algea and a major cyano outbreak. Temps had fallen to 72 and all params were good except for ca-30. After a few water changes and slowly raising the temp and moving a lot of stuff to the 58 gallon and nursing everything back to health. I lost 2 peppermint shrimp and all my clean up crew. My bicolor blennie and pearly jaw were doing fine though. After great nursing care no more hair algea or cyano finally as of yesterday. I have since added my 2 black clowns and a pseudochromis. All of my corals have been moved back over and we also moved the acans and open brain over as well. Everything is doing well and opened up. The toadstool rotted in the center but is making a great recovery. I also lost my Kenya tree that we fragged off of the one in the 58 gal. That is all for now when I get some good decent pics I will post a link or post them here. Take care and thanks for reading. I also decided to go with a Nova extreame T5 fixture for lighting! We also upgraded our lights in the 58 by going with a 15k XM 250 and we bought 2 Tunze nano streams for the 58 as well. I want to get one for my 38 now. Nicole

[snick1734]

We have had the nano streams for about 6 weeks and so far are very impressed with them. We had a mild cyano problem that we could not get under control and after a few days of having 2 of them in the 58 it was all cleared up!