Freshwater guy gets salty.

Hello there!
I have been in the freshwater aquarium hobby for about 10 years or so, particularly with planted tanks. I was always fascinated with marine aquariums, and particularly with reef setups but was generally put off by how seemingly complicated it was. I've since taken the plunge and setup a 5 gallon ecopico which was an adventure, but after having it up and going for a couple months now, I think I am getting the hang of things.

So far, I've gotten used to mixing up a reserve of water for changes, already have a 4 stage RO/DI system, refractometer, and I already had most of the necessarily test kits(although after comparing them to known standards they seem to be way off). It's interesting how the general marine and freshwater mindsets diverge, having been teased by most of my friends for testing water params religiously, to it being the norm with reef.
Where the more popular reef test kits are closer to scientific setups(including titrators, etc), and the most commonly used FW test kits are usually off by several orders of magnitude. Also, getting off of tap water, and using RO/DI water exclusively. All these seem like a breath of fresh air, and make what I've been doing in FW seem pretty crude.
I love it!

Anyway, I am looking forward to eventually moving everything from the ecopico into something larger - perhaps a Innovative Marine 8 or 16g. I've also been considering the CADlights 12g setup, as the lighting appears to be a bit better. I am currently keeping star polyps, zoanthids, and a finger leather frag that a friend of mine kicked me down. I also have two sexy shrimp who've already had a mess of shrimplets, which I siphoned off and am having a go at getting past the larval phase(wew.. stressful).

I just wanted to introduce myself, and apologize thoroughly for the barrage of newb posts that I will surely unleash upon this forum(after using the search feature of course ).

 

Welcome to 3reef. Would like to see some pic of all your tanks.

 

Thanks! I can oblige a pic request

Here's a shot of my south american biotope, home to a breeding pair of A. Cacatuoides
and 4 dwarf pencilfish:


Ecopico before I converted it to marine:


Fluval Osaka 41g:




Same tank, switched to a dutch style aquascape:


Some shots of the ecopico(no longer keeping the xenia pictured, due to it spontaneously dying).

 

Ooooo aww, very nice.

Welcome to 3reef.

 

Nice set ups. welcome

 

Welcome. Very nice tanks.I see why you killed the Xenia.Your tank is too clean!!!lol They tend to like a little dirtier water so to speak.

 

I've been told by a few different people that this is the case. Seems like when I finally got my nitrates under control they turned a really dark purple and started dropping the polyps.
Everything else in the tank is doing very well though.
I've been running a Macro-Glo fixture with it's stock 6700K bulb, which I know isn't quite the right temperature for best coral display. I went ahead and pulled the trigger on a 12g CADlights setup tonight, and I will be transferring everything over. I am hoping that the included LED setup is enough. I wish they gave PAR data instead of LUX.

 

Hello and welcome to 3reef

 

very nice. hope you find a home here