Hello,
My name is Seth. I am 20 years old and have actually been on R2R for a while but have never made a tank post or really said anything about my tanks. I currently have a Waterbox 100.3. This is my 5th tank and I hope to keep it for a long time. I have been in the hobby for 3 years now. I know that's a lot of tanks for a three year period, all have been upgrades. I have learned so much in these years through all of these tanks. I have been mostly by myself and am pretty shy when it comes to asking for help. I don't know anyone that has a saltwater tank and have been on this journey alone and as a guest looking on most reef forums. I'd like to tell my stories of each tank if you would like to waste away some time and hear me ramble. This is just a quick summary.
I started my reefing journey the start of my senior year of high school. I had almost no money and ended up with buying a biocube 16 for my first tank. I thought it was the absolute best tank and I only wanted a AIO tank. From the start I was watching BRStv on YouTube and they helped me tremendously. Also from the beginning I was a set on using a RODI filter to pump my own water. I purchased a very cheap RODI filter from amazon. I remember the night that I started pumping my water I was using an old large bin for Christmas decorations and a refractometer that was used for brewing beer so I couldn't figure out the right measurement for salinity due to the measurement only being in BRIX %. I set this tank up in a day and although this tank was never good looking by any means it was the birth of what my knowledge and experience is now. My first fish like everyone, were two ocellaris clowns. These two guys really took one for the team and were strong all the way until they both died after a water change I did. I was a loyal LED fan even mostly due to the cost. I has having major algae issue and took off the lid and bought a $60.00 light from amazon. This light was very cheap and the corals I had never grew and mostly died sadly. They major thing I learned from this tank was patience. I really rushed everything and paid the price.
My next tank was a nuvo 20. This tank was very pretty and I really liked the shape of it. This is when I really started to learn how to keep fish and keep them healthy. I was struggling with keeping corals due to my poor light choices. I used my cheap led I bought for the biocube on this tank and decided to buy a Current USA light that wasn't that much better. I started keeping LPS and softies ALIVE but not growing. I keep both these tanks for about 6 months. Again I still had a lot to learn about patience. One thing I really started to learn about with this tank was fish aggression and how to keep coral. I stocked this tank with a royal gramma, two new clowns, and a jester goby. The jester goby was bullied pretty hard and ended up jumpin' out of the tank, and I found him crispy on the floor. My biggest struggle again was to keep coral. I was very focused on water quality, mainly nutrients. I never really focused on Alk, Ca, and Mg because of my water changes. I still had coral dyeing slowly. It was with this tank that I decided to pull the trigger and get an AI prime. This was a turning point for me because this was the most expensive light I had purchased, by far best quality, and could actually grow coral. Like many I had no idea what the put the settings to with the prime and just slid the bars to what my eyes thought was pretty. Again coral were not doing well. I just had one and bought another. I watched Youtube videos about it and changed my light setting to actually keep coral. I started to see growth with this tank which was an amazing thing for me to see.
Next one was a nuvo 40. I Bought this one and transferred all my coral and fish into this tank. This was my first larger transition and I did it all in one night. It was so stressful and would not recommend switching a whole tank at once unless its a small tank and both are set up. I was freaking out the whole time because when I took the coral out of the tank into a bin with water, heater and powerhead it looked like they lost all the color. Little did I know it was just because I was lookin' at them under my bedroom lights and not blue or violet light. I transitioned and everything was smooth for while I had two AI primes over this tank and my LFS owner hated LEDs and said I need to use T5s. I took his advice and bought a little 24" t5 fixture at the back of the tank and had the primes over the middle. This period I learned how important lighting is. In my opinion it is equally or more important as water quality. I ended up buying a Aquatic life t5 fixture and used my two primes in the middle. After this purchase I saw a significant improvement. My corals had good color but growth was slow, but at least they were growing and I was headed into the right direction. My big fish purchase in this time was my two maroon clowns. I started to keep anemones as well, although I was very hesitant to keep these creatures. I had heard a lot of opinions on how hard they are to keep and, "you need metal halides". I ended up wanting to have a BTA only tank for my clowns. I bought every BTA I could find and put it in the tank. During this time I bought a used tank from the classifieds which was my first drilled tank with a sump.
This tank was where I grew the most. It was a 42 gallon tank and I don't even know if it had a brand name but I learned so much from this tank. Having a sump was such an amazing tool for filtration. I was so used to AIO tanks and frustration grew immensely due to filtration. My Nuvo 40 was starting to degrade because of my lack of filtration. The BTA's would randomly die and I had no clue why. I decided to switch everything over to the 42 from my Nuvo 40. This was a much better transition of tanks due to having both up and going before. I loved the ability to have more water volume and filtration area to work with. This tank taught me how to keep a refugium, solidified how important lighting was, and how to tame fish aggression with heavy feeding, also a bit of cord management. I had the same t5 hybrid fixture but with a Hydra 26 and two Kessil A80's. This is when I started to get some confidence to buy some sps. I successfully grew some acro's and monti's and they looked really good. I had a tank swing with alk and it killed all my acros. I luckily just had three or four little colonies, but it was a huge blow to my confidence. I didn't buy any more sticks with this tank after that experience. I started using Kalkwasser in my ATO and only ran a big refugium for nutrient export. I just started to keep things as simple as I could and use what had worked for me in the past and carry it on into the future.
I now have a waterbox 100.3. I just switched everything over from my 42 and sold my 42. I moved everything over in about a week. I'm still getting used to this tank but it is by far my favorite tank I have had. I have had all of my tanks in my bedroom which I am just realizing now. I am not sure why but I never considered having them anywhere else. I hope if you have come this far that something resonated with you or helped you in somehow. I would just like to tell any younger reefers out there that you are the future of this industry and to stay strong in this hobby if you can. It is so rewarding and something that you can hold close to your heart, I know I hold it close to mine.
Thanks for reading.
Seth
My name is Seth. I am 20 years old and have actually been on R2R for a while but have never made a tank post or really said anything about my tanks. I currently have a Waterbox 100.3. This is my 5th tank and I hope to keep it for a long time. I have been in the hobby for 3 years now. I know that's a lot of tanks for a three year period, all have been upgrades. I have learned so much in these years through all of these tanks. I have been mostly by myself and am pretty shy when it comes to asking for help. I don't know anyone that has a saltwater tank and have been on this journey alone and as a guest looking on most reef forums. I'd like to tell my stories of each tank if you would like to waste away some time and hear me ramble. This is just a quick summary.
I started my reefing journey the start of my senior year of high school. I had almost no money and ended up with buying a biocube 16 for my first tank. I thought it was the absolute best tank and I only wanted a AIO tank. From the start I was watching BRStv on YouTube and they helped me tremendously. Also from the beginning I was a set on using a RODI filter to pump my own water. I purchased a very cheap RODI filter from amazon. I remember the night that I started pumping my water I was using an old large bin for Christmas decorations and a refractometer that was used for brewing beer so I couldn't figure out the right measurement for salinity due to the measurement only being in BRIX %. I set this tank up in a day and although this tank was never good looking by any means it was the birth of what my knowledge and experience is now. My first fish like everyone, were two ocellaris clowns. These two guys really took one for the team and were strong all the way until they both died after a water change I did. I was a loyal LED fan even mostly due to the cost. I has having major algae issue and took off the lid and bought a $60.00 light from amazon. This light was very cheap and the corals I had never grew and mostly died sadly. They major thing I learned from this tank was patience. I really rushed everything and paid the price.
My next tank was a nuvo 20. This tank was very pretty and I really liked the shape of it. This is when I really started to learn how to keep fish and keep them healthy. I was struggling with keeping corals due to my poor light choices. I used my cheap led I bought for the biocube on this tank and decided to buy a Current USA light that wasn't that much better. I started keeping LPS and softies ALIVE but not growing. I keep both these tanks for about 6 months. Again I still had a lot to learn about patience. One thing I really started to learn about with this tank was fish aggression and how to keep coral. I stocked this tank with a royal gramma, two new clowns, and a jester goby. The jester goby was bullied pretty hard and ended up jumpin' out of the tank, and I found him crispy on the floor. My biggest struggle again was to keep coral. I was very focused on water quality, mainly nutrients. I never really focused on Alk, Ca, and Mg because of my water changes. I still had coral dyeing slowly. It was with this tank that I decided to pull the trigger and get an AI prime. This was a turning point for me because this was the most expensive light I had purchased, by far best quality, and could actually grow coral. Like many I had no idea what the put the settings to with the prime and just slid the bars to what my eyes thought was pretty. Again coral were not doing well. I just had one and bought another. I watched Youtube videos about it and changed my light setting to actually keep coral. I started to see growth with this tank which was an amazing thing for me to see.
Next one was a nuvo 40. I Bought this one and transferred all my coral and fish into this tank. This was my first larger transition and I did it all in one night. It was so stressful and would not recommend switching a whole tank at once unless its a small tank and both are set up. I was freaking out the whole time because when I took the coral out of the tank into a bin with water, heater and powerhead it looked like they lost all the color. Little did I know it was just because I was lookin' at them under my bedroom lights and not blue or violet light. I transitioned and everything was smooth for while I had two AI primes over this tank and my LFS owner hated LEDs and said I need to use T5s. I took his advice and bought a little 24" t5 fixture at the back of the tank and had the primes over the middle. This period I learned how important lighting is. In my opinion it is equally or more important as water quality. I ended up buying a Aquatic life t5 fixture and used my two primes in the middle. After this purchase I saw a significant improvement. My corals had good color but growth was slow, but at least they were growing and I was headed into the right direction. My big fish purchase in this time was my two maroon clowns. I started to keep anemones as well, although I was very hesitant to keep these creatures. I had heard a lot of opinions on how hard they are to keep and, "you need metal halides". I ended up wanting to have a BTA only tank for my clowns. I bought every BTA I could find and put it in the tank. During this time I bought a used tank from the classifieds which was my first drilled tank with a sump.
This tank was where I grew the most. It was a 42 gallon tank and I don't even know if it had a brand name but I learned so much from this tank. Having a sump was such an amazing tool for filtration. I was so used to AIO tanks and frustration grew immensely due to filtration. My Nuvo 40 was starting to degrade because of my lack of filtration. The BTA's would randomly die and I had no clue why. I decided to switch everything over to the 42 from my Nuvo 40. This was a much better transition of tanks due to having both up and going before. I loved the ability to have more water volume and filtration area to work with. This tank taught me how to keep a refugium, solidified how important lighting was, and how to tame fish aggression with heavy feeding, also a bit of cord management. I had the same t5 hybrid fixture but with a Hydra 26 and two Kessil A80's. This is when I started to get some confidence to buy some sps. I successfully grew some acro's and monti's and they looked really good. I had a tank swing with alk and it killed all my acros. I luckily just had three or four little colonies, but it was a huge blow to my confidence. I didn't buy any more sticks with this tank after that experience. I started using Kalkwasser in my ATO and only ran a big refugium for nutrient export. I just started to keep things as simple as I could and use what had worked for me in the past and carry it on into the future.
I now have a waterbox 100.3. I just switched everything over from my 42 and sold my 42. I moved everything over in about a week. I'm still getting used to this tank but it is by far my favorite tank I have had. I have had all of my tanks in my bedroom which I am just realizing now. I am not sure why but I never considered having them anywhere else. I hope if you have come this far that something resonated with you or helped you in somehow. I would just like to tell any younger reefers out there that you are the future of this industry and to stay strong in this hobby if you can. It is so rewarding and something that you can hold close to your heart, I know I hold it close to mine.
Thanks for reading.
Seth
