I do want to say Bay Area Reefers are a great bunch of people! I just got a Kenya Tree large frag from NanoCrazed and he recommended I start a journal so here goes.
I had a nice coral reef in my 180 gallon seven feet long, by 30" tall and 20" wide tank with canopy for many years. Those were the days when everyone used a canopy, and the bomb was halides or power compact fluorescents. Then during a vacation I came back to find the entire tank top water line having a layer of flake food, the tank water looking like a murky muddy color. Apparently my pet sitter got sick and had a new person take care of our pets and she thought the fish were starving and began to feed, feed, feed! I should have took a pictures as you folks would be shocked.
Most of the coral died except for some mushrooms. I never did frequent water changes, more like once every 90 days and everything was fine. Now with a baron landscape of rocks, sand and almost no coral, my interest was diminished. I let things go and even the mushrooms died off as well as the last of the fish. I kept the tank in operation for a long time and recently about 4 months ago I did 4 or so major water changes, updated my lighting to 3 - NICREW 150W LED's, added two 4k gyre pumps and worked on restoring all of the mechanicals, etc. to ensure the tank systems were in good shape,
After a while I then joined Bay Area Reefers and dipped my toe back in adding some frags, and free donate corals after becoming a supporting member. I am pleased to see that the tank is looking nice, although still way more rocks than corals but I am ok taking it slow. I got a free clown and 6 line rasp from Mister_chui, thanks! and I added a clown buddy and recently added a school of 11 blue/green black axil chromis and they are doing well giving nice motion in the tank. Thanks to AditO I got some nice bird next frags doing great, Zero Gravitas gave me a nice rock with GPS in trade of a large live rock from my tank, gvdcdvm gave me some kenyan tree frags also doing well, A Aaron gave me some wonderful forest fire mini doing great! and giving some nice color to the tank, Ioncewaslegend helped me get out of the stone age with a free refractor, Srt4eric helped me rejuvenate my old sand with a 20lb bag of live sand, and I bought a few inexpensive mushrooms from iceman.
I need to get an orange filter or something so I can take some pictures that represent how the tank really looks now so that will happen at some point... I am also going to look at my basement and see if there are things I can Pay Forward as I love that concept and the kindness everyone has shown to me both in free things and sharing knowledge. I just gave away an old 48" LED I had no use for, still trying to give away my pair of Power Compacts and will keep looking to see if I can Pay it Forward as much as possible...
I had a nice coral reef in my 180 gallon seven feet long, by 30" tall and 20" wide tank with canopy for many years. Those were the days when everyone used a canopy, and the bomb was halides or power compact fluorescents. Then during a vacation I came back to find the entire tank top water line having a layer of flake food, the tank water looking like a murky muddy color. Apparently my pet sitter got sick and had a new person take care of our pets and she thought the fish were starving and began to feed, feed, feed! I should have took a pictures as you folks would be shocked.
Most of the coral died except for some mushrooms. I never did frequent water changes, more like once every 90 days and everything was fine. Now with a baron landscape of rocks, sand and almost no coral, my interest was diminished. I let things go and even the mushrooms died off as well as the last of the fish. I kept the tank in operation for a long time and recently about 4 months ago I did 4 or so major water changes, updated my lighting to 3 - NICREW 150W LED's, added two 4k gyre pumps and worked on restoring all of the mechanicals, etc. to ensure the tank systems were in good shape,
After a while I then joined Bay Area Reefers and dipped my toe back in adding some frags, and free donate corals after becoming a supporting member. I am pleased to see that the tank is looking nice, although still way more rocks than corals but I am ok taking it slow. I got a free clown and 6 line rasp from Mister_chui, thanks! and I added a clown buddy and recently added a school of 11 blue/green black axil chromis and they are doing well giving nice motion in the tank. Thanks to AditO I got some nice bird next frags doing great, Zero Gravitas gave me a nice rock with GPS in trade of a large live rock from my tank, gvdcdvm gave me some kenyan tree frags also doing well, A Aaron gave me some wonderful forest fire mini doing great! and giving some nice color to the tank, Ioncewaslegend helped me get out of the stone age with a free refractor, Srt4eric helped me rejuvenate my old sand with a 20lb bag of live sand, and I bought a few inexpensive mushrooms from iceman.
I need to get an orange filter or something so I can take some pictures that represent how the tank really looks now so that will happen at some point... I am also going to look at my basement and see if there are things I can Pay Forward as I love that concept and the kindness everyone has shown to me both in free things and sharing knowledge. I just gave away an old 48" LED I had no use for, still trying to give away my pair of Power Compacts and will keep looking to see if I can Pay it Forward as much as possible...
