Welcome....

I decided to get back into fish in May of 99 after a 10 year hiatus. My last experience was with African Cichlids from Lake Malawi. When I move up here to New Hampshire into this now 230+ year old house we never set up the 55 gallon tank again...heck, there didn't seem to be a floor level or strong enough for it.

So while cleaning up my daughter's 10 gallon tropical tank, my wife says to me. "I wouldn't mind having a 10 gallon salt water tank", to which I replied that 10 was too small and we needed to do at least a 30. So I began my internet search for resources for salt water fish, which is where I learned of a "reef" setup. I was immediately intrigued by the concept of "Live Rock" and no undergravel filtration and decided that a reef was what I wanted to do. I found The Reefkeeping Message Board for Beginners (Now called The Reef Tank) and both Doug and Brooke were very helpful. Another great resource are all the folks on the IRC channel #reefs which can be found on server irc.ircstorm.net. After reading the Conscientious Marine Aquarist by Robert Feener, I decided that I wasn't necessarily going to go with SPS corals and the like, I judged them as too difficult and would probably require me to get a chiller. I've decided on fish and hardy inverts. I started out looking to set up a 40 gal breeder tank since my length was limited to 36 inches but after doing a lot of research I decided to get the biggest and best that I could fit in the 36 inch footprint. See my Equipment list to see what I got.

Since I couldn't find any PVC bulkhead fittings locally, I've put the ReefDevil 3 Skimmer, Sen pump, and Shark pump in the sump. I plan to move the skimmer and Sen out at some point in time. There appears to be no temperature rise as a result of having both pumps submerged.

What a pain in the butt it was to get the skimmer going...partly because I didn't know what I was doing, and partly because it's just pain in the butt. As it turned out, I had to raise the skimmer as high as I could in the sump (put a plastic icecube tray under it) and had to aid the outflow of water from it by creating a siphon with some 1" pvc. Even after doing that, I can only run the Sen pump at 75%..which I'm told wont hurt the pump. I haven't cleaned it yet, we'll see how difficult that is with the pump raised.

Unlike the other skimmers, my Reef Devil 3 (RD3) doesn't make tea colored foam, it's white. But as it collects in the overflow jug and turns to water, it creates a tea colored liquid that really stinks...like a swamp. I can see why one would need the ETS overflow and filter but $165 for the two items is a bit steep. I'll wait until I have some extra money to throw around, or until it overflows on my living room floor and my wife makes me get it. Like the instructions state, the RD3 can really create a lot of wet foam which could easily flood your living room while you're at home if it's misadjusted.

I purchased a cheaper test kit with liquid reagents because it does about 50 tests. My primary test kit which uses power only does 10 tests so I plan on using that only once a week while I'm checking the cure/cycling every day with the cheaper one.