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Hello from Miami County!


Scott C
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Hi, I'm Scott - from Troy.  I've been raising freshwater companions for 22 years, and recently dove into salt/reef builds... about 2 years ago. 

I'm 6 weeks into a new build - Fluval M90. Used some seeded sand and rock from my old BioCube 29 that was up and running about 18 months.  Nothing attached to the rock yet - all of my frags are still on the racks pending the stability of this new tank. 

I'm excited to have found a reefing community that is somewhat local, I don't have many friends that are into this expensive and emotionally punishing hobby!

Happy reefing!

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Yeah, I still have a 60 gallon freshwater going. Running a Marineland c360 canister filter and a 24w UV on it. 5 cherry barbs, 1 red eye tetra, 1 australian rainbow, 5 peppered corys, 1 emerald cory, 1 female albino bristlenose pleco, 1 green phantom pleco, 2 chinese algae eaters, and the star of the show is Charlie (Brown) - my chocolate pleco... he's an adopted rescue.

Yeah, the cube was a tough way to start into salt, but it wasn't the cube's fault.  I lurked in the R2R forums for years preparing for the jump, as much as one could.  Folks in this hobby, at least the loudest ones, seemed to swear by "their way" - and were really closed minded to anything outside of what had historically worked for them.  The manager at my LFS disagreed on nearly every point with my brother in law who used to cultivate and sell coral in his own right. A good friend of mine lost his salt tank to a bristleworm apocolypse...but swore that bristleworms were a good thing? To UV in the tank, or not to UV?  My first live rocks in the cube became nitrate heaven - they were TOO good at holding nutrients... even with ridiculous water changes, I never saw nitrates under 10 in that tank - or my new one when I moved that rock. I was spending 30 minutes every night trying to clean off and out the live rock. 

What I'm getting to is this - it took me awhile to trust myself to try something new in this hobby.  Swapping to 40lbs of CaribSea liferock... being okay with a skimmer that works but isn't exactly a RedSea...  risking all of my livestock (I've lost a male dragonet blenny and a nassarius snail) for a larger grain dry substrate - knowing I was going to have another cycle to weather. The ups and downs in this hobby, at least for me, take a somewhat physical toll.  So. Many. Variables.  I don't know if any of that made any sense, but the pieces are there...

 

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The small ones like to hide - Charlie definitely rules that tank.

3 minutes ago, Muttley000 said:

I used to love plecos in my freshwater days.  That was 20+ years ago, I'm sure there are tons of cool new ones avaliable now!

 

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Nice! 

You total make sense. There are so many variables, and not one tank is the same. So no one can say there is only one way to success. My recommendation would be to keep it simple. There are so many extras out there CO2 reactoes, CO2 scrubbers, dosers, roller mats, UV, .... The list goes on and on. Everything has its place, but the more simple your setup is, the easier it will be to maintain and keep everything happy. 

Research, research, research! Always make sure to read up on all livestock before adding it to the tank. Sounds like you have been doing this, which is very good. This may save you some headaches in the future. Don't beat yourself up about the dragonet. They are a hard fish to keep, unless it is accustomed to eating frozen. 

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