I’ve had aquariums of one kind or another off and on since college. About 3 years ago my family and I decided to try a marine aquarium. I’ve had friends that had reef aquariums around 10 years ago. They told me at the time that reef aquariums were very difficult, requiring a lot of patience and very close attention to the water. So 3 years ago I decided I wouldn’t build a reef tank, but I would instead go with just marine fish and see how it goes.
The marine tank went well for about a year. But I had made a couple of mistakes in the beginning that eventually caught up with me. The biggest mistake was the fact that I had chosen to use a lot of flat sandstone instead of live rock. It looked kind of neat at first, and gave the fish lots of places to hide. And best of all, it was very cheap! We got about 30 pounds of sandstone for free, as opposed to about $5.00 per pound for live rock. But, the sandstone did absolutely nothing as a biological filter. At about the 1 year mark I started to see a lot of green algae all over everything. The sandstone turned out to be impossible to clean. I kept the tank going for another six months or so as a dingy green mess, until I finally gave up and shut it down. It made its way into the garage and sat there for a long time.
About 6 months ago, my wife and I decided that we really missed the aquarium, and decided to start it up again. We found a different place in the house to display the aquarium – a place that turns out to be much easier for maintenance. I cleaned up the mess, threw away all of the old sand, sandstone and decorations. I set up the aquarium again in the house, on the fancy new stand we bought for it, and began putting the filtration equipment back together. I put in new sand – about 4 inches deep, one tiny little live rock I had from before, and a pile of empty seashells (mistake #1, but more on that later). I filled the aquarium back up with saltwater, turned on all of the filtration equipment, and waited patiently for about 4 months.
But Glen, why the blog?
As I post this, we’ve been starting the process of putting fish in the tank and planning a reef for about a month. Last weekend, as I sat researching lighting, I complained to my wife that all of the reef web sites I could find were either obviously trying to sell something, or were woefully out of date. I found very few sites that were non partial and talked about current technology. Even the store employees for different fish stores were suggesting widely varying lighting solutions. My wife pops up and says “You should write a blog, then!” Having set up and hosted at least half a dozen web sites for other groups, including a web site for my sons’ Boy Scout troop, and helping with my parent’s church website, I decided she was right – it was time I made a website for myself.
My plan is to post details of our conversion from marine to reef from near the beginning. In the next few days I’ll be writing details of the month of August, 2009, when we really started getting busy getting the aquarium ready for fish. We also decided to attempt a reef during this time. I figure I’ll make all sorts of fun mistakes along the way for your enjoyment. Hopefully in a year or too this document will be a collection of what to do and what not to do for people that are interested in starting a reef of their own.