This tank was my first serious effort with salt. My senior year in college I decided to run up the credit card a bit. The color photos are the earliest. At that time I had two Eheim canisters on it and a custom flourescent acrylic hood that must of held about six tubes. I didn't really have any coral at the time, but I had an anemone and grew a helluva lot of caulerpa on lava rock and dead coral. Heh, an early refugium I guess. ;)

Later that year I ran up the card a little more and bought an enormous wet/dry filter with DLS. It was ridiculous. I think it was meant for a 120-200. I ordered two 24"x6" cc air stone skimmers as well. They were amazing. They actually worked really well, but were very finicky.

The stand was an open iron stand. One day I went out and got some plywood and cut it into sections to fill the gaps in the stand. I covered the wood with black sheets that I stapled on the inside. I also cut bed foam to shape and lined the interior of the stand for sound insulation. It worked great.

The next year I moved to Chicago and got an apartment with my buddy Rob. The black and white photos are from this time period. We threw his Maroon Clown into the tank. He had had that Clown for over 7 years at the time. We added some live rock and some less aggressive fish. I threw one of the early metal halide fixtures on it. Not sure why I needed to have that at the time. I think I thought it was just cool. Pretty funny when you look at it. I like the duck tape. I also propped it up off the aquarium with blocks of styrofoam. Classy. Later in that year, I made my own sump with plastic sheets that I cut up to size. I reduced the wet/dry area and used bio-bale. I kept the skimmers.

The next year I moved to Manhattan. I left that 40 with a friend who still has it today. In Manhattan I started working at the 'Age Of Aquariums' fish store that used to be on 60th and 2nd. That year I started a real reef tank that you can see in the 'My Reef' section.