3Reef Newbie

Hi,

I'm Kenn Sanchez. I have been involved since Feb 18, 2012. As you can tell I am new to the hobby. I own two tanks. Actually, my wife has owned a 20 gallon FW tank for over 6 months. I own a SW tank since the date above. It's a 55 gallon FOWLR but I have been leaning toward a reef. I have most of the tank setup to be a reef.

My inhabitants are: 2 Clownfish, 2 Bangaii Cardinalfish, 1 Firefish, 1 Yellow Goby Watchman,1 Mithrax (Emerald) Crab, 2 Cerith Snails, 1 Nassarius Snail.

As I mentioned, I am leaning towards a reef tank. I have purple, white, and red algae popping up everywhere in my tank. I also have some Nitrifying algae growing in there that is brown (which comes and goes periodically).

I hope this helps as my intro. If anyone has any questions about my tanks, feel free to ask but, so that you know...You may need to talk to me in Layman terms so that I can learn the trade along with learning the lingo.

Thanks all

 

Welcome to 3reef! Sounds like your off to a good start. What type of lighting do you have?
Post some pics.

 

I have standard florescent lighting but as soon as I am ready, I am planning to upgrade my lighting for a reef environment. Here is a recent pic:



I'll post some more later.

Thx

 

Is that your 20 or 55 gal?

 

Looks good , I would change out the rock. Reefcleaners.org has some really nice dry rock.
Are you going t5 for the lighting?

 

This is my 55g and i'm thinking about possibly the t5s.

 

Welcome to 3reef.

 

If you're going for a reef tank I would change out the rock and take out all the fake plants. You can get some good "dry" rock from Reefcleaners.com (or possibly you're local fish store...just make sure it's reef bones and not that lava rock) and than just buy a few pieces of live rock and it will "seed" the rest of your rock and that will become live like the rest in time. A general rule of thumb is 1-1/2lbs. of rock per gallon of tank size but many people have gotten away with a minimalist approach by doing some creative aquascaping so it looks like their tank is full of rock when in actuality they have used much less than the recommended amount. Good luck and Happy Reefkeeping!!!

 

Here is my tank now. I am going to buy another circulation pump to place on the other side to get more circulation. I have great movement now but I would like more. As for the lights, my friend is helping me build some and he's also helping with the construction of a protein skimmer.

 

Thank you