Turtilinni
Community Member
I do not know how to write this post in a condensed fashion, I am going to try my best to keep to the relevant information but I hope any readers do not mind a bit of context for this tank as I think it helps explain it's current state. If you do mind, at the end of this post is the all the relevant information you are probably looking for.
When I was a small child as many of you did I kept freshwater fish, but soon got bored by the simplicity of it all. I wanted a challenge and for my 13th birthday, I got a 75-gallon marine aquarium. I know some of you are already cringing reading that, but know that I also have been aware for many years what a jump going from 10-gallon freshwater tanks to 75 gallons of saltwater entailed. It was a mistake no two ways around it, but until now when I am currently 22, I have been working on that very same tank. That is nine years of work I have put into this tank, the majority of which was done as a child with the help of birthday presents, allowances and summer jobs. So you may be thinking after nine years of work, it is not a very good aquarium. Sure I was young working on it, but I fear I should have left this phase of my tank years ago. Some mistakes are beginners that I have gotten over, but others feel like a fundamental misunderstanding of what I am doing on my part. The main issue I have is community, or lack thereof as a young aquarist. I made a post about this little over six months ago and met some lovely people on here, but would love to meet more. The problem I have with community I suppose is the in-person factor. I have been a ghost on this website for years but only started interacting as an adult, and maybe this doesn't make sense but sometimes it feels like no matter how many articles I read, no matter how many questions I get answered, no matter how much I research, that I still can't break a certain knowledge ceiling. This website helps tremendously with this and I think everyone here fosters a lovely community spirit, it is just hard to make those relationships in real life. For nine years I have lurked at every LFS in Alberta my province, joined my local aquarium society and talked to as many people in the hobby as possible. Now this may partially be the tragedy of living in a landlocked province (shoutout to my landlocked aquarists lol) but I continually find I am one of the only people in the saltwater field in my area, and definitely the only one in my age range. Everyone I meet is freshwater! And I love freshwater but as for knowing a single person in my area who owns a saltwater tank? They seemingly do not exist. LFS owners are good but only so much, I am close with the two main saltwater ppl in my city and they are great but they are not friends, they sell you on stuff you do not need all the time. What would be great is somebody to compare tanks with, someone to go to the LFS store with and talk tanks with. I love this hobby very much and intend to keep in it, I just include this part as a continuation of my thoughts on loneliness and this hobby. It can be very solitary which is part of the appeal, but it is also a hobby that takes extreme intelligence and resourcefulness among other things, so finding other people who walk that path is something I think should be a bigger part of the hobby. Anyways, my lonely butt aside I am going to follow this up with a short history of the tank and its inhabitants, followed by the current setup of gear, levels and inhabitants.
At age 13 I got the tank, I have no memory of what brand just that it was on sale, 75 gallons, big as hell, and sturdy enough to have made it this far without issue. For modifications, I first had one of those siphon overflow boxes which was alright but as I got tired of spitting saltwater every once in a while I eventually got a drilled-in overflow box which using a diamond drill tip was the most anxiety-inducing thing I have ever done to the tank. That all pipes down to a 25-gallon sump, now more along the lines of 30-50 though I do not remember an exact number, just that this one was large enough to fit both a skimmer and a refugium. Down in the refugium, I do have a light for down there but I have not run it in years, the single ball of chaeto I bought years ago continues to grow unimpeded with or without the lights so I go without for algae control. Then there is the protein skimmer, currently an Aquavitro but I have gone through a couple. I genuinely think I did not understand the first couple, but water level control was also more of a struggle back then so tuning was also a mess. Now the aquavitro does a solid job for me while fitting in the sump, and also with it are a Trident pump and top-off system connected to a garbage pale of water (new from Home Depot, plastic not metal). In the tank itself early on I was turned onto using reptile temperature control devices with my heaters, and have continued to do that though now I use an inkbird which I do not believe is made specifically for any type of pet. Either way, plugging my heaters into it allows for control of them, saves the batteries, and most importantly it texts me if the heat goes low, which happened once before that system. Other than that for inhabitants I have housed a lot of creatures, most of which have failed miserably. I keep it within the size of the tank, but other than what I have in the tank now the only critters I have successfully taken care of, IE they have lived out their lives in captivity and not died within six months of purchasing, is Foxface rabbitfish, sea hares and urchins, Wrasse, Gobies, Clowns, Blennies, Cardinals, Dartfish and once a Hawkfish. A lot of things outside of that mainly Dragonets and Angels I have never been able to successfully care for. What about coral you may be asking? Well honestly everything I did before I bought my current lights was just flushing money down the toilet, but ever since I have gotten nice lights I still haven't been able to keep a dang thing alive. Well alright, I do have a starburst coral spread out over a clay pot I bought a few years ago, my largest piece by far, and a neon green mushroom coral that has split once. Other than that, algae kills every coral I have. I have little idea how to tune these lights, or what is best for my coral, and I generally oscillate monthly between 6-hour days of low kelvin blue lighting to then higher kelvin white lighting, but every time I add any white light the GHA goes crazy. This is probably all wrong, I just have had trouble getting solid answers on what is best for my tank. I have had the power go out, heaters die, fish jump out, been zapped by the tank, had ich, cyano, GHA, and several other pests and problems. Killed all my livestock in a day from some bogus bacterial product, just about quit the hobby several times. I keep on trucking but this can be a very demoralizing hobby at times.
The Stock:
-Two Ocealaris Clownfish
-One Tailspot Blenny
-Two Bangaii Cardinals
-Two Cleaner Shrimp
-Three Hermit Crabs
-A Tube Worm
-The Starburst Coral on Pot
-The Green Mushroom on the purple rock
The Equipment:
-The nicer lights I was talking about are 2X Radion XR15w G5 Pro's
-Reefwave Wave Bar
-Eshops 50g Sump
-Aquavitro Skimmer
-Neptune Pump
-Top Off System
-Grounding System
-Inkbird Heating Control System
-3X Marineland Heaters
The Levels:
-PH 8.15
-Nitrites 0.1
-Nitrates 5mg
-Ammonia 0.2
-Alkalinity 10.7 DKH
-Phosphates 0.02
-Calcium 500 ppm
-Magnesium 800 ppm
Photos attached, please let me know what you think. Is this terrible for someone as young as I? Have I spent way too long and gotten not nearly far enough? Do you want to talk tanks, have suggestions or ideas, or want to tell me about something I am missing? Please do in the comments, I am in need of any help I can get. I will be checking on this thread, and not giving up on the tank. I have made it this far, I will be continuing, I am just hoping that some help from real experts who also arent LFS owners will be a serious help. Thank you so much in advance for the help, I am very nervous posting here. I do really feel ashamed of my tank, I wish I didn't but I do, so please go easy on it as I know it is in rough shape and I also wish for it to look like the amazing tanks posted on here every day. I am most proud of keeping the same pair of clowns and shrimp alive for the last three years, they are my oldest critters since the last crash.
