Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

Hi Guy’s & Gal’s,
I’m of course a newb to the site, but I’ve had a little experience a few years ago in saltwater and I miss it terribly…My first experience with saltwater was with a 55 gallon mostly FO tank, with some LR, a few anemones and a little coral given to me by a friend that was moving…I was living in an apartment and things were good for over a year til’ I came in one day from work to discover half my livestock deceased and a mysterious film had developed over the surface of the water in my tank. Even after a complete emergency water change all my fish ending up crossing over to the hereafter in a couple of day’s…It was heart-breaking. After further investigation, I contributed this to the evil new pest-control guy…After a lengthy ordeal with the complex and its sub-contractor; they compensated me for the loss. It was too late I was still too hurt to reestablish…
After a 6 year hiatus I am diving back into it, the difference’s being I am now going to try for a reef-tank. It’s going to take a while to get there, but after 6yrs and 4yr old son later, I’ve learned patience…I actually haven’t even setup my tank yet, but have done quite a bit of reading and online research to get it right the first time since I am not a rich man and cannot afford many mistakes…I’ve got most of what I need to get going, a 75g glass tank, 4-55w power-compact retro light(2 blue/2 white, plan on dual 250-400w MH retro in near future), a magnum 350 for now( to cycle with really, still looking on good deal on wet/dry and prefilter, then canister will go to a refugium), powerhead’s, heater, salt, test kit, sand for substrate…I still need my stand/canopy which is being built, a skimmer (looking around) and some LR.
What I am writing the Gutenberg about is to ask if any of you guys have some substrate for sale or a filter that you are about to replace so I can try to cut some time off my cycling(not sure if I’m going for fish or shrimp cocktail method). I should be able to begin within a week or two and I’m really excited to get a jump on it, really, I’m as giddy as a school girl…I also look forward to talking, meeting and trading with you all in the future. Thanks for reading all this…L8R's

good to have you onboard....welcome

Welcome, it sure is nice to have new people join (and even better to have them participate). If you are even in Mobile I can get you a cup or two of livesand. I am about 5 minutes from downtown Mobile. Just let me know. After talking to a few people that have been out of the hobby for a while and then got back in I would say that reading and researching is the best things that you can do. A lot has changed in the past 6 years (a lot in the past 2 years too). I am not familiar with the canister filters, I know they use them in freshwater. How is your tank set up? Does it have overflows? What are you using for a sump? Also 250w halides should be plenty unless you are planning on getting a deep (more that 24 inches deep) tank in the future.

Scott

Greetings evermann, and welcome to the MBRK forum.

I too came back into the reef keeping scene after several years off. As scott said , alot has changed. Some of the more drastic changes that have come about IMO are:

1. Now MANY people believe a good DSB (deep sand bed) is a good thing. Recommendaitons vary from 3-6 inches. Back in my day we went bare bottom!

2. Many of the sand dwellers that I spent hours removing are considered "reef friendly" now. Example - bristle worms.

3. Filtration and sump setup theories have gone from wet/dry and bio balls to submersed "wet" sump with live rock. Most wet drys on reefs are now converted to this setup. Seperate lighted refugium areas with good algaes and sand have been found to be benificial too.

4. Cycling with live rock and live sand only has been shown to be a highly effective and benificial method ( as opposed to the hand full of damsels of years gone past).

5. Lighting enhancements such as Metal Halides and VHO and Power compact combos make keeping stonies alot easier.

6. R/O DI water ....was a practice back then...is a mantra now!

7. Wave makers and surge devices.... So many cool ones out there to keep the water flowing. Can do away with the inside tank powerheads (anenome eaters).

8. MBRK. A great group of folks to help out with any questions or problems you may have.

I'm sure you know most of that ....but I felt like typin' (actually snuck away from doing some housework) I think we have moved every piece of furniture in our house....twice today.

I'm not sure where you are at in Spanish Fort, but I'm in Bay Minette, and would be glad to scoop up some sand, hand over a filter, some rubble or something to help w/ the cycle. If you are going to cycle w/ live rock you won't need it though. You said you wanted a reef tank, so I am assuming you're going with a goodly amount of live rock.
Hint: Don't buy your live rock at one of the Local Fish Stores... you will need something around 100lbs for a 75 gallon I guess.. it would be pretty darned expensive at the local rates.

Definately don't buy liverock from B&B. I have seen base rock that looked much better. If you are cycling and don't mind some non-coralline encrusted rock, you can do like I did. I got 40 lbs of base rock and about 20 lbs of live rock. Rich has base rock for $2 a pound and it will cure as the tank cycles. It will take a while to get a good growth of coralline though. The amount you want also depends on what kind you get. Some is more or less dense than the others. Brandon got some good looking LR from East Coast Clams. The cheapest way is to find someone close that is braking down a tank. Just make sure it has not been neglected because LR can leach stuff like PO4 if it was high in the tank it came from.

HTH,
Scott

I have a protein skimmer (barely used) that I would consider selling. It is a wee bit too small fro my system now.

I will double check with hubby on the price if you are interested.

Welcome to the board!

Elizabeth

im in daphne, i got lots of live sand....lemme know......anythiung you need, i can get..cheap

Same here if you need anything that i have i can let it go cheap. I think Salt N Lime covered everything i was going to say. Only thing i saw that concerned me is when you said wet/dry filter. For certain do not leave the bio balls in there, could be detrimental from what i have learned. I am sure that you would be welcome to come over and look at people's tanks to get a good idea of what to do, and to talk.

BTW Welcome to our message board.

Wow, it was great to hear from everyone, and thanks 4 the info, and as I said b4, I look forward to meeting u all, since the conversation has changed from a meet and greet to questions about specifics, I'll move this to the general reefkeeping category...so

http://www.mbrk.com/viewtopic.php?t=331