mFrame Posted October 21, 2014 Share Posted October 21, 2014 And now an introduction from Ty: Hello ARC, I am honored to have been given the opportunity to participate in the ARC mentor program. Here's just a quick biography of my experiences and what has driven my passion for this amazingly rewarding hobby! I won't tell you of the first time I smelled saltwater, or of the first time I setup a betta tank. I will tell you that I was an absolute nature show nerd (back before the Nature Channel or Discovery Channel existed) and when I saw my first video of a coral reef... I was in love! This passion even drove me to attend Texas A&M University at Galveston to get my major in Marine Biology. That's where the intersection of my dreams versus reality set in and I realized there wasn't much of a career to be had for me in Marine Biology, so I majored in Ocean and Coastal Resources instead and became an environmental scientist. Fast forward to me moving out to California to be a beach bum and during my first Christmas out there in 2003, I went home to spend it with my family back in Texas and my brother sends me back with a 12-gallon nanocube. If he'd had known the obsession he inspired with the one thoughtful gift, he may have gotten me a new sweater instead! I ran that 12-gallon nanocube for the better part of 5 years. Being the tinkerer that I am, I upgraded the fans, added an extra power compact bulb (probably cranking a whole 100 par by that time... wow!), turned the back middle chamber into a refugium by adding chaeto and a refugium light, and proceeded to nail down my water change schedule (I'm sure ARC as a whole is letting out a collective gasp... Ty? Water Change?) to every two weeks, religiously. That nanocube purred like a kitten. And guess what my first coral was? A green fungia plate coral about the size of a dime. Go figure! Then it was time for me to move back to Texas... can't keep a boy away from the south too long! What did I do? Well, drain the water down to 4 inches, strap that nanocube in the passenger seat of my Jeep, and drive almost 22 hours straight right to Austin because it was the middle of the summer and I couldn't risk everything dying in my tank. Yes, I was a nut back then too! I upgraded to a 65-gallon tank once I bought my house and had a little more real estate () to put a bigger tank in. That was quickly replaced with a 125-gallon tank and that's where the tang and SPS obsession began. I met a good guy named Tim Huynh (Wizard) who lived dangerously too close to me. He quickly got me hooked on SPS and I killed my first 4 pieces he gave me. Then he helped me tweak my levels and proceeded to replace the 4 pieces he gave me to try again. Once they started encrusting on the plugs and colored up, I knew right there, I was going to be a SPS junkie for life. Fast forward again to 2014 and I upgraded to a 215-gallon tank. There have been some hiccups with the transition but it looks like everything is running nice and smooth again. I guess experience-wise, I've been running a reef system for 11 years now. I dive into every research article I can get my hands on and as most of you know, I'm a big fan of experimenting on my tank. I'm a big fan of technology as well and enjoy automating everything with my Apex. I also enjoy the testing and tweaking of my water parameters. I hope to be able to contribute to the mentor program and to aid anybody who's willing to lend an ear. I've seen a lot, been through a lot, and hope some of what I've run across can help someone down the road avoid some of my early pitfalls and make sounder decisions regarding their reef tank. Cheers! -Ty 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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