I will be trying out the blog format to document my reef aquaria.

A little bit about me, I have been keeping freshwater aquaria for 7 years, mostly cichlids were my passion, especially from Lake Tanganyka, but when my wife gave me the go ahead in 8/03 to try out a saltwater aquarium, i dove in head first. I started with a 55 gallon tank, slowly adding live rock bits at a time. Over the course of a year and lots of reading, books and online, I added some basic soft corals, zoanthids, leathers and mushrooms, and a condylactis anemone. I added a 55 gallon tank underneath to serve as a refugium. I became a fan of Deep Sand Beds, going so far as to participate in Dr. Ron Shimek's online course in sand bed ecology which was lots of fun (and work) and I learned quite a bit.
I upgraded to a 150 gallon tank moving all over, which I ran for 6 months with nothing but lights, rock and sand then started transferring livestock. This tank ran for a year and I decided to move a tank upstairs from the basement since i wasn't enjoying as much. So the contents were transerred to a 120 gallon reef ready tank over 5 hours without a cycle and this tank is what is now my main reef.

[b]120 Gallon Reef:[/b] see my website: Reef Tank
Tank: 120 Gallon All Glass Reef ready, dual corner overflows/Mahogany stand/canopy
Lighting: PFO fixture: 2x 250watt 10K metal halides and 2x 96 watt actinic PC; Halides on 9-6/8:30-6:30 , PC actinics on 7am-9pm; then moonlighting with single LED
Sump: Tidepool filled with liverock, running coarse filtration and carbon
Live Rock: ~160 pounds in tank/sump
Substrate: 3-5" DSB seeded with Bill's Reef/IPSF and others every 4-5 months to keep diverse and powerful filter
Skimmer: MRC-1 (myreefcreations.com)
Water Flow: return via 2 lockline tubing, 1 tunze turbelle pump
Salt: Instant Ocean, salinity at 1.025 Water: RO/DI by AquaFx unit; 15 gallon weekly water changes, 4 gallon per week of FW topoff (currently manually)
Parameters: Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate at 0; Calcium 350-450, Alkalinity at 9mg/L - not using calcium addition yet as holds steady with water changes, watching closely tho; Temp: 74-78
Controller: Digital Aquatics Reef Keeper - controls lighting, prevents overheating of tank, and has a powerhead on a wave cycle
Backup: DPC battery backup - runs one return pump for 3 hours if power fails, automatically, considering adding another in series


I also have a 36 gallon seahorse tank with 5 young adult breeding H.erectus horses in a lagoonal type tank, a 6 gallon eclipse nano with 10 gallon sump.

I am looking to starting a seperate tank for just my anemones so they and my corals in the 120 will be less stressed out.