Salty_Northerner
Valuable Member
Hello everyone, I'm Brad and I'm back into the reef hobby. It's been many years, like 16 years since I broke my tank down.
Back in the day I had a beautiful reef tank going, I loved every bit of time I was able to spend tending to the tank. This is going back to not having a computer, cell phones really didn't have internet ect. yeah I'm old
but still kicking it and that's what counts!
I tore my tank down because of a move from one city to another, and tried to set everything up but within a year the system crashed. I don't know why but it did, I'm thinking it was the water I was using but it is what it is. Also I was running an Icecap ballast with VHO florescent and finding replacement tubes were extremely hard and exhausting.
Knowledge was hard and I did learn alot from a shop back in the day called Under The Ocean, they had a shop in Winnipeg MB but had to shut down. I then resorted to Reef keeping magazines for more knowledge and yes they were quite helpful.
I used Instant Ocean salt and also Seachem products which I had great success. Now I'm using Instant ocean reef salt and the tried and tested Seachem additives which I still believe is a great product. So far my tank is thriving and all in about 6 weeks.
My wife asked me, why don't you get back into your reef tank hobby and I said to her... Hunny do you know how old the system is and how much it'll cost to get it back into tip top shape??
Anyways not long after I thought I'd get on the web and see what they had for AIO systems and WOW I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Anyways I down sized from the stored away 60g to the new Fluval 13.5 Sea AIO system. At first it was a struggle cycling the tank, all because I did a huge mistake and used Distilled H20.
Once I found a water shop in town that has great RODI water and started doing water changes the cycle ramped up like crazy. Now I'm seeing stability!
In about 3 weeks running the nano tank I ditched the media filter Fluval included and opted into the In Tank chamber 2 insert. I use my own choice of media and the tank is rocking.
Some might ask why chamber 2 and not the #1 drop in. I am a firm believer in Protein skimmers and picked up the drop in Fluval skimmer, which I soon tossed into the parts bin. Useless skimmer that had constant issues leaking and such, it was just a bad manufactured one I received. Anyways I found the Bubble Magus mini Q and what a great skimmer!
Sorry for the long intro as I can tend to babble on
Anyways just wanted to say Hi and I'm looking forward to hanging with you fellow reefers.
Back in the day I had a beautiful reef tank going, I loved every bit of time I was able to spend tending to the tank. This is going back to not having a computer, cell phones really didn't have internet ect. yeah I'm old
but still kicking it and that's what counts!I tore my tank down because of a move from one city to another, and tried to set everything up but within a year the system crashed. I don't know why but it did, I'm thinking it was the water I was using but it is what it is. Also I was running an Icecap ballast with VHO florescent and finding replacement tubes were extremely hard and exhausting.
Knowledge was hard and I did learn alot from a shop back in the day called Under The Ocean, they had a shop in Winnipeg MB but had to shut down. I then resorted to Reef keeping magazines for more knowledge and yes they were quite helpful.
I used Instant Ocean salt and also Seachem products which I had great success. Now I'm using Instant ocean reef salt and the tried and tested Seachem additives which I still believe is a great product. So far my tank is thriving and all in about 6 weeks.
My wife asked me, why don't you get back into your reef tank hobby and I said to her... Hunny do you know how old the system is and how much it'll cost to get it back into tip top shape??
Anyways not long after I thought I'd get on the web and see what they had for AIO systems and WOW I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Anyways I down sized from the stored away 60g to the new Fluval 13.5 Sea AIO system. At first it was a struggle cycling the tank, all because I did a huge mistake and used Distilled H20.
Once I found a water shop in town that has great RODI water and started doing water changes the cycle ramped up like crazy. Now I'm seeing stability!
In about 3 weeks running the nano tank I ditched the media filter Fluval included and opted into the In Tank chamber 2 insert. I use my own choice of media and the tank is rocking.
Some might ask why chamber 2 and not the #1 drop in. I am a firm believer in Protein skimmers and picked up the drop in Fluval skimmer, which I soon tossed into the parts bin. Useless skimmer that had constant issues leaking and such, it was just a bad manufactured one I received. Anyways I found the Bubble Magus mini Q and what a great skimmer!
Sorry for the long intro as I can tend to babble on
Anyways just wanted to say Hi and I'm looking forward to hanging with you fellow reefers.
