[ncdiablo]

Thank you for having me as a member of your online community. I am hoping down the road I can be a useful member and I am happy to be part of a community to share the joys, triumphs, mistakes, and pitfalls that come with having an aquarium. I thought I would share a little bit about background and my goals. Sorry if this is long winded.

I got into saltwater around the time when I was 15 years old. I was mainly interested in invertabrates and small fish. I loved tiny gobies, shrimp, crabs, worms I could get my hands on. Unfortunately back in the early 80's my 55 gallon tanks had undergravel filters, poor lighting and well not the best results. My father still has the bad taste in his mouth when I mention SW he always mentions watching things slowly waste away. Needless to say I stopped having aquariums after a few years.

Many, many, many, many years later with the my son just about to turn a year old I convinced my wife to get a 30 gallon fresh water tank. He had such a good time looking at the fish at our state aquarium that she was fairly easily convinced.

Each trip to the fish store brought me past gorgeous reef tanks and to my amazement nano reef tanks. Things that just seemed absolutely impossible to me. So for the past 5 months I have been casually researching and feeding what has now become an obsession. I have finally convinced my wife that I "NEED" a Saltwater tank and I "NEED" to make a reef tank and how this will be valuable to my son and it will be a bonding time for the two of us through the years. So last night I bought my tank and stand.

The tanks is an Oceanic hex front 120 gallon tank. It measures 72"x 16.5" x 25". Due to the center having 18" of glass at the top I have decided to arrange the eventual live rock in a bay style arrangement with the center more open for swimming and for possible lower light level need invertabrates.

This tank will be a Reef with some reef friendly fish. I am hoping to create a thread that will show the steps as I move along over the next few months. I plan to move relatively slowly with this and I want to do things correctly.

If anyone is in North Carolina or close to NC let me know.

Thanks again looking forward to chatting with you,

Steven

[dfurbee]

Welcome to RB Steven

[RyanG]

Welcome to RB Steven!

[CyberJester]

Welcome to RB!!

[aquamanX]

welcome! to RB

[reefnoob1991]

OH MY GOD! I live in SC...for the love of god thank you...noone else is ever near me!

[kh6sat]

Welcome to RD!

[ncdiablo]

Hey there ReefNoob1991. I have been looking around in several magazines and hadn't seen any reefclubs for NC, SC or VA and was thinking about trying to get something like that going down the road. To do swaps and show pics of tanks and set ups and such. Glad to see a fellow carolinian.

[reefnoob1991]

The only guy around here is a hick who I can't understand and talks with a toothpick and has 5 kids a wife and 6 tanks and won't give me any frags.......Wh ere do you live in NC..I live in Simpsonville (greenville area if easier )

[blind1993]

hey atleast now u have somone near u reefnoob maybe u can help him set up a tank.

[reefnoob1991]

Lol...shoot that's like a 2 hour drive.

[ncdiablo]

I live in Raleigh NC. It's all good on setting up the tank. I'm excited about putting this thing together by myself (except for getting that puppy up on the tank stand..... now that I need another set of hands). I will start a thread showing pics of what's going on as soon as I can get started on it this week. It's an oceanic hex front 120g tank. Can't wait to get going. Still researching gear for it. Researching live rock right now so I can make a decision on it too. Oh and lighting. Research, research, research......

[reefnoob1991]

Well when u get it full blown we'll have to trade frags!

[CyberJester]

Welcome to RB!!!

[lynnvangsnes]

Welcome Diablo! you'll find that SW tanks maintenance has changed since then. Forget under gravel filters. I remember those days too.