New guy! Not so new!

Hi everyone!

I am an huge SW fanatic and am about to rebuild what was once an awesome 135g tank. I had a bad moment about 2 years ago when someone told me a certain medicine was reef safe! yes, a total loss, a broke heart and someone who gave up =( I let the tank go fully since it was 3/4 gone already, cutting of my nose to spite my face.

Well, I learned something, trust in your knowledge and heart and do the MOST research you can before trusting anyone on medications, just don't do it in a reef tank! (for the life of me I cannot remember what I put in my tank, just my clowns, tangs, inverts, and other marine life dying off) My tank was almost full and it was perfectly aged. /sadface

ANYHOW! I recently went to Jamaica and have my heart rekindled, my reef tank will be up again! And this is also why I am here. Gotta love seeing it first hand *mind wanders off back into that Jamaican reef*

So I will keep you all informed and be reading through your posts, adding a few of my own, until I am up and back in action! Then come my pics, I will try to let you guys know what and how I am doing and grab usefull info and hopefully add some =)

SOOOooo.... My reef setup includes, 3 175 watt MH and two large actinics, a 40 gallon side tank for my caulerpas and algaes with a 3 foot power compact (a scrubber if you will for that ultimate clean) and a 30g sump with skimmer. Man it was beautiful, feeding Artemia at night and watching the corals and my white striped cleaner shrimps (Lysmata Amboinensis) go crazy!. . or watching my shrimp try to reproduce, my clowns (Yellow Striped Maroons) pair up, my SPS (Acropora valida, Acropora Florida etc..) growing and my water quality never changing from a perfect balance.

Tomorrow I will be breaking it fully down and cleaning the tanks and my 55g barrel for my RO water and prepairing to do battle! I will keep you guys informed as I go. . . /sigh my wallet is about to become more shallow than my tank

New live rock and new substrate with a dash of live sand to get it going is my next step. The pet shop man is hearing *CHA-CHING*

Good reef keeping guys, see ya soon. :clap:

Nope wasn't copper based, I remember that, think it was actually like a pepper based deal. . :huh:


Anyhow today was my day off, prolly can tell from me posting a few times, but got the tank broke down and substrate in it, pumps, my 30g sump, 30g scrubber, lights, 55g mixing barrel. . everything is clean and am currently making my RO water in the barrel and contacted my local pet shop owner (Lane with brothers pets in KC) and informed him I will be helping him out with that house remodle hes been saving for funny thing is he actually said, "Great, I have missed your money!" rofl

EDIT:
Oh, anyhow i am using the plenum system, something that has worked well for me with my sand bed.



My Substrate:
Egg crate with a strip of egg crate soldered as feet to give it a one inch lift from the bottom and ability to hold rock etc., a screen, 1.5 inches of thicker substrate, (aragonite sand) another sreen, and finnaly a smaller 2-3 inches of substrate.

I have found it does keep clcium, strontium, and magnesium at desired levels even with clams and SPS corals.

More to come!