A little slice of ocean, please?

[acidbaby]

I set up my first reef in 1999 and sold my last tank in February, 2015. I divorced in 2009 and became a bit nomadic in 2015; reefkeeping is not a hobby for the transient.

So, a neighbor started selling and giving away stuff and left a 65 on his lawn along with a bunch of furniture. I could tell he was doing what I had done in 2015 and lightening his load and moving. It must have been a turtle tank as the glass in the top 1\4 looks like calcified hell. My girlfriend and I carried a LONG block home, it was fun. This tank wasn't built with a cross brace, the glass is 3/8" thick.

I found an old plexiglass refugium, about 5 gallons and my buddy, Joe gave me a sump he was no longer using. I actually picked up a 1/15th HP Chiller at a pawnshop for 5 DOLLARS! A JBJ Arctica. I bought a used CPR BakPak 2, some of this stuff I bought before we found the tank. This is going to be a cool budget/ghetto reef.

The rest I bought new. A Mars Aqua 300W LED. A Mag 9.5 return and a rio 1000 feeding the refugium. Aqueon stand, CPR CS150 overflow and a Jebao 4 port doser. I'm not going to do kalk this time. I also got a 5 stage water maker that removes chloramines.

Today I filled the tank (after a few days of running with tap water to plumb and level everything) and put in like 40-50 lbs of Live Rock (maybe 10lbs were dry)

Weird thing is, the water is so much colder without MHover the tank! Very nice to have a clean build and know what I want, unhindered by legacy equipment I couldn't let go!

[Alfrareef]

Great. Welcome back.