sw noob from windsor

[Crispy]

hey guys. thought I would introduce myself. I've been in the fw hobby for 20+ years and just got started in sw a little over a month ago. I currently keep some asian arowana, large clown loaches, and motoro stingrays in my 220g fw tank. I purchased a 180g reef-ready setup w/120g sump and wanted to get my feet wet with a 55g reef before I go full blown.

the 55g sw tank has about 150lbs of cured LR. running a coralife 220 skimmer. just have a pair of black clownfish while I try my hand at some of the 'beginner' corals. I have a duncan coral, hairy mushroom, and some zoos to start off and they seem to be doing well. I'm here to pick your brains and hopefully hookup with local members.

cheers!
Crispy

 

[Crispy]

sorry, forgot the pic... here's when I first set it up...

 

[shipwreck]

Welcome to the Frag Tank.

You pic says this is when you first set it up.  Do you have any recent pics?

 

[Crispy]

I have a short vid.

[youtube]to45TiiDIBE[/youtube]

 

[Crispy]

it's kind of bare-bones at the moment, but now that the tank is finally stable, I'm looking to adding some small frags and slowly removing the cheato.

 

[unibob]

Welcome to the forum

 

[Poseidon]

your going to have a hard time getting alll the chaeto out....
other than that, welcome and good luck with your tank

 

[Crispy]

I was hoping the cheato would suck up nitrates and phosphates while the tank stabilized. it's also a good home for all the little pods and critters. should I get it out sooner than later? or just doing what I'm doing?

 

[shipwreck]

Your hopes are correct that cheato is good for the tank and does take up nutrients and you export them buy removing some of the cheato from the tank and tossing it.  This is pretty standard practice.  However most hobbyists will have a refugium tank separate from the display tank to hold cheato and and maybe some additional live rock.  You can combine the fuge (refugium) with the sump tank as well.  A sump is a tank below the tank to hold equipment like your skimmer, heater, ATO (auto top off) unit, etc.    you have come to the right place.  I would suggest you read lots of the posts in the getting started and other forums to get familiar with what others are doing and then ask lots of questions.  We are all here to help.