55g Reef Journal (pics)

[mes1234]

Okay so I just got part of my new tank today. It took me a while to decide, but after a couple of days ago I decided I would go all out and do a reef tank the right way. I have a nano cube with a reef, but I am still very new to the marine life. I sold off a couple of my freshwater planted aquarium to help pay for this project. Bare with me, but it might take me a couple of weeks to complete the basic setup. I should have salt water and some live rock in by the end of the weekend. Here are some starter pics of what I picked up today. I also have a beautiful oak canopy I'm picking up on Saturday. Here are the pieces of equipment I have so far.
-55 gallon aquarium
-Oak stand and canopy
-Marineland C-360 canister filter
-260 watts of compact fluorescent light, 10k bulbs, 2 blue 2 white bulbs
-15 pounds of live rock from my nano, an inch of live sand which will be mixed with non live sand (pet store owner told me to put a small layer of regular ocean sand down, and a top layer of live sand and eventually all of it will be live)
-mated pair of clown fish that will come from the nano
-cleaner shrimp
Items I will have in less then a week
-UV sterilizer
-protein skimmer
(He has many brands to chose from so I will ask him his opinion on which would best work for me. We are good friends so he wont chose a expensive brand on purpose if it doesn't fit well with my setup)
**That is my start and I have a LONG way to go. I started this thread in hopes for advice, but not people telling me negative things. I can handle criticism, but please don't be rude.**

 

[mes1234]

I wanted to add something that a lot of people don't add on the journal. I know, myself, that I like to see the actual people building their projects so you can really get a grasp of that individuals life and visuals just really help get into that persons project. So here is a picture of me on a different build. I am 23 years old, and a nursing student a local state University. Hence why I sell my current builds to help pay for this. College students don't have a load of money, so I just make by with what I have and selling stuff on craigslist. I also make enough money at my job to support the builds. paycheck by paycheck I take chunks out to buy new stuff. I have about $600 to spend right now on this build, and that's after the current equipment I have already. So minus $140 for live rock I am getting from a local hobbyist, I should have plenty to get a nice skimmer and sterilizer, and of course fish and invertebrates once I feel comfortable with the water stability. Every paycheck I will be buying soft corals so after a couple of months, I should have a beautiful reef. I would actually love to buy some frags off members here eventually, so PM me if you have some beauties. I would like to show you my craftmanship by a after picture of this 125 i bought a while back.

 

[mlefessler]

Looks like you're off to a decent start. I like the idea of each paycheck a portion is already claimed by your hobby (I'm a college student myself and will take this route to heart).

I went from freshwater to saltwater....rather quickly. And now I've got a total of 5 tanks in my house, ranging from freshwater to brackish to reef. And out of all five of them, my saltwater tank has successfully turned me into a psycho crazy addict, I swear. Crazy! I should start charging people to come over and see my "aquarium". =P

Looking forward to seeing your progress. =)

 

[mes1234]

Here is a picture at 10pm when I have new braces on the stand and I cleaned the tank. I added about 13 gallons of salt water mix, and im brewing up some more RO water. I should have the tank half way full tomorrow and add live sand and rock once the water is heated enough. I will also add the canister filter, but the filter has cycled media so I am keeping it alive until I do the switch. I can't quite turn on the heater yet, not enough water in the tank. By tomorrow I can add the filter and heater.

 

[mes1234]

Last post

Well I noticed that no one really commented on anything so this will be my last update. Kind of pointless to update a post only I look at lol.

 

[Slappy*McFish]

Well, the thread is still kind of new and there wasn't much to comment on yet. Keep the updates coming...especially since you finally got the tank up and running with LR. The next few months should be the most interesting, anyway.
Looks like a great start and I like the extra space in the tank without over filling it with LR. My 75g is set up very similar.
One thing you may like to try is to break up the live rock pile into 2 separate 'islands' with one of them being slightly larger than the other. Just try it and see which you like better. You can always put everything back but I think it would give your relatively narrow 55g the illusion of more depth.

 

[dtd87]

That's unfortunate, I just saw this and though it was cool, you should've seen the 36 I bought was about as dirty as that 125. Maybe a little worse but a smaller tank none the less.

 

[Amphiprion]

Keep the updates coming. I've been checking it daily. Just because there aren't always comments does not mean that nobody is looking, fwiw.

 

[mlefessler]

Agreed - so far, 111 views! =)

 

[the wizard]

It looks like you are off to a good start.

I do like the idea of breaking the LR up to two islands. That could look kind of cool. But, then, I like rock formations that are out of the norm of what you see in most aquariums. (helps to make your own more unique)