Spencer92012
Reefing newb
Hello!
I am new to Reefkeeping in the sense that this is my first personal collection. If you count my experience working at my town's local Petco, then it's actually eight months experience, compared to two months personal.
In my time on the job, I have cared for both freshwater, saltwater, and a few brackish fish at the store. I also have experience with aquatic turtles, pond koi, and aquatic and terrestrial plants.
I will readily admit that I have had mixed success at work, especially with inverts, but it has gotten much better with time. I have cared for a limited selection of saltwater fish, mainly damsels, tangs, smaller triggers (although, at work, we have an undulated orange-striped trigger who was supposed to be a Humu Rectangle), clownfish, smaller dottybacks, smaller wrasses, pygmy angels, cardinal fish, Blennies, and snowflake moray eels.
As far as inverts are concerned, we started with anemones, small hermit crabs, turbo and astrean snails, and larger cleaner shrimps, but we've begun branching out into soft coral polyps, squamosa clams, smaller shrimps, crabs, feather dusters, and the VERY occasional small-polyped stony coral.
At home, I have two ocellaris clowns (naturally), a skunk cleaner shrimp, clove polyps, and several turbo snails, as well as my fair share of hitchhikers. I've done a lot of research but despite that, I am still learning new things (my most recent example being that I should've soaked my live rock in coralRX to avoid unwelcome hitchhikers).
Basically, I just wanted to introduce myself and ask for suggestions on invert and fish purchases, ID'ing hitchhikers, and absorb any info that I can pass along to my customers and friends who are taking the leap with me into FOWLR, Reef and Nano Reef Saltwater systems.
I am new to Reefkeeping in the sense that this is my first personal collection. If you count my experience working at my town's local Petco, then it's actually eight months experience, compared to two months personal.
In my time on the job, I have cared for both freshwater, saltwater, and a few brackish fish at the store. I also have experience with aquatic turtles, pond koi, and aquatic and terrestrial plants.
I will readily admit that I have had mixed success at work, especially with inverts, but it has gotten much better with time. I have cared for a limited selection of saltwater fish, mainly damsels, tangs, smaller triggers (although, at work, we have an undulated orange-striped trigger who was supposed to be a Humu Rectangle), clownfish, smaller dottybacks, smaller wrasses, pygmy angels, cardinal fish, Blennies, and snowflake moray eels.
As far as inverts are concerned, we started with anemones, small hermit crabs, turbo and astrean snails, and larger cleaner shrimps, but we've begun branching out into soft coral polyps, squamosa clams, smaller shrimps, crabs, feather dusters, and the VERY occasional small-polyped stony coral.
At home, I have two ocellaris clowns (naturally), a skunk cleaner shrimp, clove polyps, and several turbo snails, as well as my fair share of hitchhikers. I've done a lot of research but despite that, I am still learning new things (my most recent example being that I should've soaked my live rock in coralRX to avoid unwelcome hitchhikers).
Basically, I just wanted to introduce myself and ask for suggestions on invert and fish purchases, ID'ing hitchhikers, and absorb any info that I can pass along to my customers and friends who are taking the leap with me into FOWLR, Reef and Nano Reef Saltwater systems.