I've been a high school math teacher in Stafford County, Virginia, since 2002. My first saltwater tank was a 55g with a miniatus grouper in college, circa 1997. Call me clueless. I started up a new tank during my first year of teaching, thanks to RC and my local reef club, WAMAS. That tank was a drilled 42 hex, with a 20L frag tank connected, both feeding into a 100g stock tank that acted as my sump...and took up the entirety of my 1763 built row house 'pantry'. That tank came to house mostly LPS, including a massive elegance, a basketball size frogspawn that I paid $35 for, a breeding pair of GSMs, rbta, a maxima or crocea (can't remember). Anyway 2008 my then fiance (now beautiful wife) purchased our first house. Two broke teachers made reef keeping prohibitive. The tank suffered from the move and never recovered. We had our first child in 2012, next in 2014 and money became tighter still with two kids in daycare, student loans and a mortgage. We've finally become a bit more financially solvent over the last five years. About 9 months ago I told my wife I wanted to start another reef tank and to my surprise, she thought it sounded great. I purchased a waterbox 15g peninsula in early February of this year. Followed by a guy in FB basically giving away this setup:
I took the 30 to school and kept the 2 IM 20s at home. That left me with 5 nanos at home and a 30 at school.
The thirty houses a pair of black storms, two neon cabbages, a maxima, few other softies, a rbta and a red mini carpet. I had a precipitation event recently where my doser siphoned 400ml of part B into the tank. Oops. pH spiked to 9.6. Thanks to my apex I caught it quickly enough. Fridmani made a jump for it. Took his chances on the floor (didn't work out for him). Otherwise everything else was moved home and has done okay with the transition. Working on getting that tank back on track before re-introducing the inhabitants.
Long story brings us to the next adventure. I'm now a certified earth science teacher according to VDOE, which opens up the possibility of oceanography. Not today though. Today I'm working on the new setup.
My buddy gave me a 28 lowboy that he was using to quarantine corals. And I picked up a 20 fiji cube locally. Starting thinking about what I could do...
Rough plan is to setup the 28 lowboy as a Caribbean mangrove biotope. A few black mangroves (Avicennia germinans) on some tall (very subjective....the lowboy is only 10" deep) rockwork to the far left. Sand and rock sloping down to a lagoon housing rock flower anemones (Phymanthus crucifer). Probably come in with ricordea sprinkled in. As far as fish...should I stick true to the biotope? Probably. Will I? I do have three pairs of clowns that are grossly oversized for their current 10g tanks. Pairs of black storms, black extreme snowflakes, and black and white ocellaris. The black and whites (Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce thanks to my 11yo swiftie) are particularly nasty. Taylor is just a miserable clown, attacking anything that looks at her cross, let alone enters her domain. As I'll have 3 tanks setup up at school, including the 30, I will have suitable (within reason) tanks for the 3 pairs of clowns. Let's call the pair that ends up in the biotope invasive and say that some uneducated hobbyist dumped them in the tank. I drilled the lowboy for a Fiji cube overflow and two returns. First time drilling glass. No problems. As it's not a rimless tank, I had to cut away black moulding a bit to account for the overflow and returns.
In the meantime, here's the kicker, Tampa Bay Saltwater @LiverockRocks was having a giveaway here on r2r. Member @Miclmcorallover won, but decided to pass on their good fortune and I happened to win the grand prize in a redraw. This was very exciting as I was planning on a Caribbean biotope anyway. (To boot, my 42 hex that was set up some 20 years ago, was done so with a purchase from TBS!!!). Once the TBS team found out this was for a school system they kicked in more. So my first shipment (of two), arrives on June 24th! Holy time crunch.
20 fiji cube: current plan is a rock tower with some anemones, most likely the entamacea quadricolor variety. One of the pairs of clowns is being hosted by a nice little green variety at home. Not sure what else will end up in that tank. Probably some lps and zoanthids. I've always had a massive soft spot for euphyllias. Particularly frogspawns. Currently I've got a nicrew 150, for either tank and I figure I'll add another nicrew for the other. I'll also have to figure out the lighting for mangroves.
I worked on the stand this week and this is what I came up with:
I wanted the two tanks to be at the same level at the top. I need to square things up a bit but I do dig it. In the meantime, underneath is a trigger emerald 39 sump that i picked up locally (along with an overflow). Both tanks will feed into the sump. Skimmer is a ConeS Q1 that I purchased for 50% off on closeout from BRS. Next will be either a fuge or an ATS depending upon which way I want to go. The return pump is a DC hygger 800gph which should suffice. If it's too small for both tanks, I'll get another and run on separate returns instead of just the one. A lot of this has been out of pocket, though the school did kick in a pretty penny for the apex and trident for data logging purposes. Some of my local reef club members (WAMAS) have been generous, selling items at a discount, but it's till pricey. I've got to get it plumbed and water tested before the 24th and I'm writing this from the road to Hilton Head where I'll be until Thursday!
Needs: heaters and whatever other lighting I'm going with. Sand. Lots of sand. I've got some coming in from TBS, but I know I'll need more especially if I go with the fuge. Water movement. I've got a hygger gyre in the 30 and I do like it. I was thinking about two more, one for each tank. I'm going to apply for an innovative teaching grant in the fall ($1200) but even though I'm fairly sure I'll be awarded one (I was awarded one about 7 years ago for a gardening project), the funds won't be distributed immediately and I'm on a time crunch. We'll get there though. It'll happen.
In the meantime, Skyler @ReefLegends from ReefLegends has been helping get some cultures going. I won another contest here on r2r (srsly, I don't win anything) and Skyler has helped me since getting a chlorella and tetraselmis chui culture going and I've just started some pod cultures (plan to add a mandarin to the 30 and feed him all the pods he'd ever want).
Pod stations (L->R)
Tigriopus californicus
Tisbe biminiensis
2 x Apocyclops panamensis
That's where we stand. On Friday I hope to get plumbing and stand sealing taken care of. More later!
..
I took the 30 to school and kept the 2 IM 20s at home. That left me with 5 nanos at home and a 30 at school.
The thirty houses a pair of black storms, two neon cabbages, a maxima, few other softies, a rbta and a red mini carpet. I had a precipitation event recently where my doser siphoned 400ml of part B into the tank. Oops. pH spiked to 9.6. Thanks to my apex I caught it quickly enough. Fridmani made a jump for it. Took his chances on the floor (didn't work out for him). Otherwise everything else was moved home and has done okay with the transition. Working on getting that tank back on track before re-introducing the inhabitants.
Long story brings us to the next adventure. I'm now a certified earth science teacher according to VDOE, which opens up the possibility of oceanography. Not today though. Today I'm working on the new setup.
My buddy gave me a 28 lowboy that he was using to quarantine corals. And I picked up a 20 fiji cube locally. Starting thinking about what I could do...
Rough plan is to setup the 28 lowboy as a Caribbean mangrove biotope. A few black mangroves (Avicennia germinans) on some tall (very subjective....the lowboy is only 10" deep) rockwork to the far left. Sand and rock sloping down to a lagoon housing rock flower anemones (Phymanthus crucifer). Probably come in with ricordea sprinkled in. As far as fish...should I stick true to the biotope? Probably. Will I? I do have three pairs of clowns that are grossly oversized for their current 10g tanks. Pairs of black storms, black extreme snowflakes, and black and white ocellaris. The black and whites (Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce thanks to my 11yo swiftie) are particularly nasty. Taylor is just a miserable clown, attacking anything that looks at her cross, let alone enters her domain. As I'll have 3 tanks setup up at school, including the 30, I will have suitable (within reason) tanks for the 3 pairs of clowns. Let's call the pair that ends up in the biotope invasive and say that some uneducated hobbyist dumped them in the tank. I drilled the lowboy for a Fiji cube overflow and two returns. First time drilling glass. No problems. As it's not a rimless tank, I had to cut away black moulding a bit to account for the overflow and returns.
In the meantime, here's the kicker, Tampa Bay Saltwater @LiverockRocks was having a giveaway here on r2r. Member @Miclmcorallover won, but decided to pass on their good fortune and I happened to win the grand prize in a redraw. This was very exciting as I was planning on a Caribbean biotope anyway. (To boot, my 42 hex that was set up some 20 years ago, was done so with a purchase from TBS!!!). Once the TBS team found out this was for a school system they kicked in more. So my first shipment (of two), arrives on June 24th! Holy time crunch.
20 fiji cube: current plan is a rock tower with some anemones, most likely the entamacea quadricolor variety. One of the pairs of clowns is being hosted by a nice little green variety at home. Not sure what else will end up in that tank. Probably some lps and zoanthids. I've always had a massive soft spot for euphyllias. Particularly frogspawns. Currently I've got a nicrew 150, for either tank and I figure I'll add another nicrew for the other. I'll also have to figure out the lighting for mangroves.
I worked on the stand this week and this is what I came up with:
I wanted the two tanks to be at the same level at the top. I need to square things up a bit but I do dig it. In the meantime, underneath is a trigger emerald 39 sump that i picked up locally (along with an overflow). Both tanks will feed into the sump. Skimmer is a ConeS Q1 that I purchased for 50% off on closeout from BRS. Next will be either a fuge or an ATS depending upon which way I want to go. The return pump is a DC hygger 800gph which should suffice. If it's too small for both tanks, I'll get another and run on separate returns instead of just the one. A lot of this has been out of pocket, though the school did kick in a pretty penny for the apex and trident for data logging purposes. Some of my local reef club members (WAMAS) have been generous, selling items at a discount, but it's till pricey. I've got to get it plumbed and water tested before the 24th and I'm writing this from the road to Hilton Head where I'll be until Thursday!
Needs: heaters and whatever other lighting I'm going with. Sand. Lots of sand. I've got some coming in from TBS, but I know I'll need more especially if I go with the fuge. Water movement. I've got a hygger gyre in the 30 and I do like it. I was thinking about two more, one for each tank. I'm going to apply for an innovative teaching grant in the fall ($1200) but even though I'm fairly sure I'll be awarded one (I was awarded one about 7 years ago for a gardening project), the funds won't be distributed immediately and I'm on a time crunch. We'll get there though. It'll happen.
In the meantime, Skyler @ReefLegends from ReefLegends has been helping get some cultures going. I won another contest here on r2r (srsly, I don't win anything) and Skyler has helped me since getting a chlorella and tetraselmis chui culture going and I've just started some pod cultures (plan to add a mandarin to the 30 and feed him all the pods he'd ever want).
Pod stations (L->R)
Tigriopus californicus
Tisbe biminiensis
2 x Apocyclops panamensis
That's where we stand. On Friday I hope to get plumbing and stand sealing taken care of. More later!
..
! You and your wife clearly have a passion, thanks for sharing.
