New to the forums - Arlington, VA

[Franco]

Hello WAMAS, my name is Franco, and I wanted to say hello! I just began slowly putting together my first SW aquarium this past weekend.

 

I've had a little experience in FW before, but most of experience has been with reptiles to this point (~17 years or so). Most recently, I was working with reticulated pythons and green tree pythons, but I have experience with everything from poison dart frogs to Gila monsters and everything in between. Got out of the reptile hobby about a year ago, and decided to jump into SW.

 

As for my tank, I'm starting out with a 45 gallon, looking to do a reef setup. Looking forward to learning from everyone here and hopefully meeting some other hobbyists in the area!

 

 

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[YHSublime]

Welcome! Do you have your 45 already? Is it setup? 

[Origami]

Welcome to WAMAS, Franco. I hope that you'll enjoy your stay here and am looking forward to hearing more about your tank as it evolves.

 

My son's an avid reptile hobbyist / semi-pro. He's got quite a lot of space in his home devoted to them in his Virginia Beach. The largest, I believe, is a 10' Costa Rican, ball phythons, and a bunch of other snakes. But he's also raising dart frogs, uromastyx, chameleons, (breeding) geckos, and a variety of exotic turtles. He's also into tarantulas and other spiders. He occasionally sources animals at reptile shows and ships some of the spiders to other hobbyists around the country for breeding, ultimately raising a share of the eggs that result. Me, I know very little about them except that he's got a passion for them.

[wildcrazyjoker81]

Welcome to WAMAS and the world of SW aquariums. Due to your tank size, I believe we were chatting on one of the Facebook Groups (Aaron Dina on Facebook) and if so glad you took my advice on joining up here as this is one of the best groups for knowledge and information that I have found in my 15 years in and out of the SW hobby. Please take a minutes to post some specifics about your current setup and if you haven't done so already make sure to become a paid member to gain access to the rest of the forum. I can honestly say the 20 spent on a membership here was recouped within my first few months with this amazing club!

 

Aaron

[Franco]

Hey all, I just recently got the 45 up and running. Bought a tank and stand, and it was supposed to come with all the saltwater essentials, but turns out it was running freshwater and barely had any useful stuff for me. Womp. Bit of a setback, but lesson learned.

 

So for the time being, I'll be running the 45 without a sump. I'm currently renting, so I'm a little bit apprehensive about installing a sump while living here just due to fears about potential overflow. Currently, just running a Emperor 400 on the back as a filter and have a Koralia 750/850 on the way for water circulation. I have 50 pounds of live rock in there. As for lighting, it came with some cruddy LEDs, but I'm considering throwing on an Ocean Revive T247 instead. Thoughts on that?

 

Basically, the plan is to slowly start upgrading equipment as funds allow.

 

And Origami, cool to hear that your son is into reptiles! I've worked with basically everything you mentioned at one point or another. Chameleons are really fun animals - I miss my old panther Cham. If you or he ever has any questions, I'm happy to assist! I spent about a year volunteering at the Virginia Living Museum down in Newport News in their herp room, and definitely learned a lot there working in a zoo environment. They have incredible facilities for their reptiles and aquatics!

 

And nice to see you on here, Aaron! Thanks for the recommendation! I'm a paid member now, and I definitely see why you said it was worth it.

 

 

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