So it's been over 10 years and decided to jump back into the game. My home town of Binghamton, NY finally has a decent reef shop and I've been seeing some of my old reef mates getting back into the hobby. I see that the industry has greatly progressed to be more ecologically friendly (e.g., man made rock, lots of aquaculture corals and fish etc.) and the equipment is much more energy efficient and sophisticated, allowing for good reef husbandry in relatively small displays. Whereas I used to keep much larger tanks and sumps, I decided to go with an Innovative Marine 50 gallon AIO fusion. The rear sump area is larger enough to contain a chemical media rack, skimmer and refugium, requiring that I nix the filter sock. I am running two AI Prime lights. The tank was established right after Christmas utilizing all man made dry rock. I started cycling the rock for over a month in a large Brute container with Dr Tims and then Microbacter 7 while awaiting tank delivery. My hope and intent was to see if by carefully establishing a bacteria and copepod population, I could avoid the dreaded "ugly stage". After setting up the tank, I kept the lights off for about two weeks with only a bonded pair of "Gladiator" Ocellaris. And now only two months later I have added a variety of softies, zoos, LPS and even some spa corals. Thus far, all looks good and thus far (knock on wood) very little signs of problem algae. I am starting to dose kalkwasser and do weekly water changes which will gradually be changed to bi-weekly, and then monthly as the system matures. I am very happy to be back into this hobby/lifestyle. I have a challenging job as a private practice clinical psychologist and it is wonderful to relax at the end of the day by playing with the reef tank!
