Well, it was a loooonnngg time coming together originally. Right after I bought the tank new, my wife started having all kinds of health issues (at the ripe old age of about 37) and I was constantly debating back and forth on whether I should even start the thing up. It sat dry in my basement for exactly one year from when I bought it on New Year's Eve. I finally, in around Nov, just got the urge and started putting pieces of PVC together and testing out how my new plumbing skills were coming along. Once the ball was rolling, I couldn't really stop it. I decided to set a goal of New Year's Day to fire it up and transfer stock from my 26g bowfront I had at the time. Because I used my own rock, some established LR I got from a local guy, and base rock, I didn't have a cycle, though I had the usual new tank issues with a little cyano and algae. Tank started out mainly LPS and softy. I switched lights the following october and took down a separate refugium I had been running because my chaeto kept dying off. After doing these things, I suddenly developed a very nasty bright green turf algae that covered the lower half of my rocks, killing off some of my corals in the process. It took several months of PATIENCE, changing to homemade food instead of flakes, and adding a PO4 reactor that finally took down the algae. After that, the tank looked ok, but I wanted to go SPS, which I started to try. Initial results were "ok", but kalk drips were not keeping things stable and the corals were not happy. I finally took the plunge and installed a new Ca reactor last fall and this has really made the difference in my coral growth, along with the fact that I think my corals like my homemade food, and the current they're getting from my Tunze 6060's that I bought used to replace the Seio 1500 beasts I had in there before. Right now, I do water changes once a month of about 30 gallons or so, and watch my test values. Ca reactor keeps things stable though, but I have to watch Mg. Also have to keep the PHOSaR replaced regularly. I went from 250w SE 12k reeflux to Ushio 10k's to my current Reeflux 10k's. Skimmer is the same I started with, while being somewhat undersized for my tank, it does a good job. My sump is in the room behind my tank sitting on concrete, and this combined with my open top canopy prevents me from having any considerable heat issues. After some serious storms last summer knocking out our power, I went out and bought a generator for future emergencies to keep everything alive. An ACjr controller keeps everything in sync for me. That's about it for now. Let me know if they're any more questions.
