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Originally Posted by CodyW Well here is my first saltwater endeavor, actually it's my girlfriends :p
It's a 30 gallon oceanic hex with stand. A custom hood housing the 2X36W compact fluro kit from ahsupply. We're currently running a 36W actinic and a 36W 10,000K. We'll probably switch to the combo tubes when we get new bulbs. WE have a zoo-med power sweep powerhead and an emperor 202 power filter that will be replaced with a skimmer whenever Fed-ex makes it by the apartment. About 45 lbs of live rock, some mushrooms, assorted damsels, assorted hermits, a conch, a scarlet skunk, a BTA, and some turbo's, maybe a fiddler or two as we bought two, saw three at the same time one day and haven't seen any since. We're getting ready to do a large order from liveaquaria to finish up on some mushrooms, zoas, and a cinnamon clown.
I've been using lugols, very very light kalks, and seachem buffer.
I'm still very new at this so let me know if I am heading in the right direction or completely overlooked anything. The tanks been up for about 6 months and we started with someone else's water. I also recently got a 100gallon setup cause you can't have just one.
Hope you enjoy the pics.
| Very smart move with using someone else's water. That will reduce the time it will take to cycle. Just make sure you have a good filter as a backbone to sustain a healthy ecosystem and prevent any ammonia spikes. Your going reef, you can build a small fuge with a 10g. 
When you dose, make sure you have the necessary tests to ensure you dont overdose or it's dooms day for everyone in the tank. Lugols is very powerful! Because you have zero corals, I would refrain from using too much. Maybe one drop every week or two. Also, easy on the kalk, that will sky rocket the calcium and might buffer the pH too high.
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30g reef tank, CPR CY192 filter w/ DIY plumb running Rio 17HF return, Coralife 3x 9w UV Sterilizer, 3 24W T5-Helios 10K Daylights/3 24W T5-Helios Blue lights, 2 Logysis blue meteor light strobes (moonlights/24 Blue LEDs).
Tiger tail cuke, asst. snails/hermits, asst. feathers, rainbow acan,zoos,shrooms,bubble,galaxea, asst. shrimp, 2 ocellaris,mandarin,zebrasoma xanthurum,pink-spot watchman,red-striped pistol. | 
