Tell us about yourself: 

Hi.  My name is Ed Schultz.  I’m 46 and live in Bremerton Washington with my Fiancée Liz… and we will be married next March, after being together for over 5 years.  Okay… so perhaps I’m a slow learner, but at least I do learn!  :)

I was born and raised in Tacoma Washington.  Did some moving around the country (Portland and Tucson) then joined the Navy, and did my 6 years 2 months 14 days (not that I counted… mind you). :)  When I got out of the navy, I had lived in enough states to know that I wanted to move back to Washington, to enjoy the beautiful mix of green and water… and being very prejudice here, the most wonderful place to live in the world in our summer months!  Makes the gray rainy days worth every minute in my book!

How did you get involved in the saltwater hobby?

In line with my work in 1992, I was sent to Hawaii for a “Working-Weekend”.  This is the only time that I have had the pleasure of being in Hawaii.  I arrived on Friday afternoon, and worked until 4am Saturday morning to complete the work I was sent there for… then I had until my return flight Monday to enjoy what little I could of what Hawaii has to offer.

BEAUTIFUL, is all I can say… and it doesn’t even begin to express how wonderful it is there!

In all the typical “tourist” things that I did that weekend, what set a lasting impression on me was Snorkeling in Hanauma Bay.  Swimming over the shallow reef, seeing all the beautiful colored fish… it was like finding a slice of heaven!

I came home from that trip and proceeded to build a custom 150gallon fish only tank.  At that time, Trickle-Filters were “State of the Art”… and the only coral I had was dead, bleached decorative corals for fish to swim around.  This was my 1^st “Piece of the Ocean”.

Tell us about your tank 

I currently have a standard 180gallon plexiglass tank.  It is 6’X2’X2’.  I have gone thru many upgrades with it, and probably will continue upgrading as time goes on.  A guy’s gotta tinker… don’t ya know!  :) 

180gal tank, 90gal sump, 40gal Fuge (in work, being installed week of 22 Oct, 2006), Iwaki WMD40RLXT circulation pump (via SQWD, to Oceans Motions Revolutions on each side), Sequence Hammerhead Closed Loop, ETSS 750 dual injector Skimmer (converted to Beckett Injectors), Japanese Iwaki MD40RLT pump for one Beckett, Velocity T-4 for other, 2-Dual 250watt MH PFO Ballasts, 2-XM 10K, 2-ReefOptic 20K, IceCap 660 w/2 46.5" Super Actinics & 1 46.5" Actinic White, 2-250watt Titanium Heaters, Pacific Coast CL-650 Chiller, DIY Dual-Chamber Calcium Reactor, TwoLittleFishies Phosban Reactor,  ORP Controller and Ozone… and I’m sure many other little things I’m just not thinking of right now.

We bought a new house this summer, and during my move I changed directions in re-setting up my tank.  I had it on a beautiful Oak stand… and after moving everything to my new house, I decided that I needed to mount this tank into the wall of our Family Room.  Not planning ahead for this, and not thinking EVERYTHING thru… I ended up losing all of my corals & clean-up crew because I didn’t think to add heaters in my buckets of Live Rock & Corals (just in with my fish).  I had originally planned on this move happening in just one looooong day, and everything would have been fine had I done that.  But when I decided to rip a whole in the wall… adding headers, building a stand, leveling… ended up taking 3 days before I was able to get everyone back into the tank.  This was just too long with circulation only for my corals and inverts, and the then 60 degree water took its toal on them.

How did you become involved with Reef Frontiers? 

When I returned to the Salt Water hobby, I realized that quite a lot of evolution had occurred since I had been in it before.  The Internet having a wealth of information on it as it does… I found another “Online Forum”, and tried as I could to get information from there.  I wasn’t happy with the constant arguments and just childish bickering… and one day while nosing around there, I found a link to the PSAS website.  From there, I found Reef Frontiers, and couldn’t of been happier!  I still know where that “other” forum is, but when I want information, I come here to Reef Frontiers because of how friendly and helpful everyone is!

What is your reef keeping philosophy? 

My Philosophy is to move SLOWLY.  Until now, I have found that any… and almost EVERY time I have tried to do something quickly, it ends in disaster for me.  Read… Read… then Read some more!  Always try to give those beautiful creatures that are in my care the best possible conditions that I can!  Ask questions, not only online, but of people in my area.  Have a support group near me that are also in the hobby, to have that availability of talking things out with someone personally.  I can’t say enough about how having their input has helped me learn and grow to where I am today in this hobby!

What is your dream tank? 

My “dream” tank would be a 96” length X 48” depth X 30” height - 598gallon tank.  I feel having another 2 foot wider “window” in my Family Room would be a perfect centerpiece (not that a 6’ window isn’t already)… and the added depth at 4’ would offer a flexibility in aquascaping that would be completely amazing!  Of course, this will have to wait until I get my better-half to agree to allow me to extend our garage 12’ further towards the main road… so I’ll have the space to actually accomplish something like this.

Do you have any advice for others? 

The best advice I could give anyone, are things that I have to continuously remind myself about: