Tell us about yourself: 

Well, I bet a lot of people didn’t think this would happen, I know I didn’t ! I will keep this short and simple so you can all get back to the wonderful Reef Frontiers forum that has brought us all together. There is actually two of us, me and caseyb21! We are both young in life and young in reef keeping experience. I work for an awesome company that makes load balancers, the devices that make the internet usable :) Casey works in a very well respected bank. Thankfully our employment status has enabled us to build a reef to experiment with before we move into our first home and build our dream tank.

How did you get involved in the saltwater hobby?

We have always loved admiring saltwater tanks in the store, and have been to many aquariums on the west coast. The real beginning for us however was when we first stepped foot into a little store called Aquatic Dreams :) Admiring Kevin's wonderful store was the catalyst that got us thinking about starting our own. Almost a year or so later we felt we were ready to start! Boy was that optimistic!

Tell us about your tank 

Currently we have:
58g Oceanic R/R with 20g AGA sump.
Sunlight Supply Tek Light 6 bulb fixture
mag 9.5 return
2 seio 820s
2 maxi 1200s
Aqua C Urchin Pro
Reefkeeper2 to keep it all together
BAR kalk stirrer

Livestock:
Foxface
Black Clown
Frogspawn
lots of florida rics, 1 yuma
random SPS but I like our birdsnets :)
lots of different 'rare' zoos
Blue mushrooms
Green mushrooms
Peppermint shrimp
Tiger Pistol shrimp
Tricolor acro
Maze brain coral
Snails, hermits, and other clean up crew type inverts

How did you become involved with Reef Frontiers? 

Again, we have to thank Kevin for introducing us to RF, and boy, we would not have been able to make it this far without you guys. Thanks a whole lot! Special thanks to KevinPo, Krish, DonW, MtnDewMan, returnofsid, fragman, jake65, beemer, twolittlefishies, scooterman, and everyone else. We absolutely love you all!

What is your reef keeping philosophy? 

We are definitely a fan of 'keep it simple', but alas, complicated stuff sneaks its way in. For newbies there is a lot of experimentation involved to get a feel for the ecosystem and its needs. I personally feel that if you get too complicated or involved with the reef it will start to wear down on you and eventually take some of the love you have for the hobby away from you. That is a dangerous thing for newbie reefers and their livestock!

What is your dream tank? 

Dang's tank would be the easy 'dream tank' response to that question haha. His tank is wonderful! Of course as mentioned above we are planning on buying our first home soon, and we have spec'd out a 200g In wall system with a 100g frag tank setup and 200g fuge/sump. I think we will be switching to halides with supplemental t5s to make selected colors pop. I love the t5 look and have had great growth with them, but have always loved the look of halides and it seems like something new and fun to try.

Do you have any advice for others? 

Just keep it simple and safe. We have a responsibility to our tank inhabitants as well as ourselves. If you freak out on your tank all the time, you are going to get burned out really fast, and this hobby is a life choice, you will be dealing with it for many years to come, so take it slow, there is no rush! Don’t ever discount doing research on your own. Everyone has a method or idea that has worked well for them, but you owe it to yourself and the hobby to try things out on your own, and do the research and planning needed to save yourself time, money, and heartbreak when things go wrong. You will never really understand what is going on in your tank unless you get in there and make some mistakes on your own. One last thing: HAVE FUN!