Hi BRS folks! My intro post is a few months overdue.
I was introduced to the magical world of reefing in mid-2021 by my friend-turned-husband. (We got married last year at Mystic Aquarium, with curious belugas swimming around and peering at us adorably throughout the ceremony.)
My better half has kept saltwater tanks for over a decade at this point, generally small-ish AIO tanks with fish and inverts. He’s aware that online reefing forums like Reef2Reef exist and are good sources of information, but he never really got into forum surfing. I, on the other hand, am all too happy spending countless hours falling down rabbit holes on the internet, so I spend a lot of time reading posts/articles on sites like Reef2Reef to try to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. (R2R is also how I discovered the existence of BRS.)
We currently have a mature 32-gallon BioCube and plans to start a 200ish-gallon acrylic tank within the next few years (we’re looking to move about an hour north, closer to the Winchester area, so we figured it didn’t make sense to start an enormous tank where we are right now and then have to move it).
My husband started the BioCube in 2020 (during the pandemic), so it was already mature by the time I came into the picture a year later. It’s pretty much a fish-and-inverts-only tank (with one amusing exception). Current inhabitants include:
Based on the R2R posts I’ve read, there are quite a few things we could do to improve our nutrient control and water quality. My husband is open to getting more equipment (e.g., a RO/DI system) and making improvements to the BioCube (e.g., adding a refugium/copepod house to the chambers in the back of the tank and getting an algae scrubber), so I just need to research our options. Asking for your thoughts would probably be better in a separate post, though, so I’ll do that after.
Apologies again for the belated self-introduction, and I look forward to learning from you all!
Edited because I forgot to say that we’re in Plainville, near the MA/RI border.
I was introduced to the magical world of reefing in mid-2021 by my friend-turned-husband. (We got married last year at Mystic Aquarium, with curious belugas swimming around and peering at us adorably throughout the ceremony.)
My better half has kept saltwater tanks for over a decade at this point, generally small-ish AIO tanks with fish and inverts. He’s aware that online reefing forums like Reef2Reef exist and are good sources of information, but he never really got into forum surfing. I, on the other hand, am all too happy spending countless hours falling down rabbit holes on the internet, so I spend a lot of time reading posts/articles on sites like Reef2Reef to try to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. (R2R is also how I discovered the existence of BRS.)
We currently have a mature 32-gallon BioCube and plans to start a 200ish-gallon acrylic tank within the next few years (we’re looking to move about an hour north, closer to the Winchester area, so we figured it didn’t make sense to start an enormous tank where we are right now and then have to move it).
My husband started the BioCube in 2020 (during the pandemic), so it was already mature by the time I came into the picture a year later. It’s pretty much a fish-and-inverts-only tank (with one amusing exception). Current inhabitants include:
- green chromis
- scissor tail dartfish
- zebra barred dartfish
- citron clown goby
- young-ish blue chromis
- young female green mandarin dragonet (obtained from Biota four months ago)
- gold coral banded shrimp
- tuxedo urchin
- pincushion urchin
- lots of snails: nerites, ceriths, banded trochus, tropical turbo, and a few nassarius (1 small, 2 medium, and 1 extra-large)
- ? electric blue hermit crab (we haven’t seen our hermit crab in a concerningly long time…)
- ? strawberry conch (whose disappearance was more recent and puzzling)
- a bunch of emotional support zoas that the tuxedo urchin brought home with him (frag plug and all)
Based on the R2R posts I’ve read, there are quite a few things we could do to improve our nutrient control and water quality. My husband is open to getting more equipment (e.g., a RO/DI system) and making improvements to the BioCube (e.g., adding a refugium/copepod house to the chambers in the back of the tank and getting an algae scrubber), so I just need to research our options. Asking for your thoughts would probably be better in a separate post, though, so I’ll do that after.
Apologies again for the belated self-introduction, and I look forward to learning from you all!
Edited because I forgot to say that we’re in Plainville, near the MA/RI border.
