I recently (about 3 months ago) started a reef aquarium. Back in the days I lived with my parents my dad used to own a large tropical aquarium, and I remember I was fascinated by it. But that was a lifetime ago...

It started with an itch. That slowly progressed to a curiosity, which ended up in LOTS of research on the Internet. After two weeks of research I decided I was ready to start looking around for a shop to purchase the tank from.

In aquarist's terminology, the Local Fish Shop is abbreviated to LFS. Easier to type (and bash - but that is another story). I searched the net for about 8 different LFS's, which I contacted by phone.

I have been adding all the nitty gritty details to the ReefCon Pro software instead of using this. Guess I need to figure out what I am going to do...

The QT tank is up and running. I added the Percula I think on the 26th and it was doing fine. I added the Purple Tang on the 27th but it got badly stressed within 6 hours - when the nitrites went up to 0.1. So I took both fish out and back in the main aquarium.

Yesterday I bought 10kg of Malaysian LR and added that to the tank. I also added some Vodka and Ammovec biostarter. Hopefully I’ll get the cycling process sped up.

I installed the QT tank today. The new RO/saltwater mix was not enough for both a water change on the main tank and filling up the QT, so the QT is about 90% full of main tank water and I am preparing some new RO/saltwater to add to the QT tank to get the sump full.

It took me 4 hours to catch the Yellow Tang. I decided I am going to give it back to Exotic since they were stressed beyond belief. Eventually after tearing down part of my reef I managed to catch him.

I have started feeding the fish a frozen vegetable diet and new SeaVeggies strips.

Got my QT tank yesterday and between today and tomorrow will be setting it up.

Ok I finally got my Calcium Reactor set up and running (the baking soda did not work). It was quite a mission to find a CO2 gas bottle. It is running at one bubble CO2 per second, and about 2-4 drops of output water per second. Will closely monitor water parameters.

I made a huge mistake initially since I never rinsed the media before use - so I flooded my tank with a cloudy powder. Through experience is the way I’ll learn it seems... Grrr...