Hi New to San Antonio

[SmokeEater]

Moved to Texas from Chicago, IL area. Been tankless for almost a year, been getting itchy to get back in the hobby. I am trying to decide between a nano or a large reef. I had both before packing up the family and moving to a warmer climate.

Which places are a must visit? Where are the best deals for the healthiest livestock? I am planning a shop tour in the week or two, depending on the Mrs. schedule. We are still settling in.

Tom

[Europhyllia]

Hi Tom,
welcome to Texas! If you look to the left of the screen you can see a list of Maast Sponsors - stores you can add to your little shop tour.
I live just outside of town in the SE and it seems to me that a lot of great stores are about an hour away from me on the NW site of San Antonio so I haven't even made it to all of them yet.
I've had a 30g for about a decade and a 120g since this spring... I have to say bigger is better. So many different areas to watch in a 6 foot long tank - I love it!
Once you decide which size you want to go for check out the for sale/trade area. There are sometimes some really good deals on complete set ups.

Hope you will like it here!
Karin

[Bill S]

Welcome to SA. I'll be putting my 215 Brick up for sale in a few weeks.

[4fun]

First welcome to Texas then welcome to MAAST.

What size tank did you have a year ago? And what size tank will you be comfortable with?

[Mr Cob]

Tom, welcome to MAAST and Texas! Glad to have you as a part of our community!

There's lots of great stores in Texas...definitely check out our sponsor's page.

Have any pics of your last tank? We are pic freaks!!! We also have tank tours too!

[SmokeEater]

Thank you for welcome, look forward to meeting some of you.

As I said, I am not sure which way I want to go yet. Once I take the tour of the sponsors and pet stores, I will get a better feel of what I want to do. Some thoughts are larger softy tank, something in the eight foot 200-300 gallon range, with plenty of room for fish or A bonzai type nano or 120 mixed again.

I was keeping two tanks prior to selling them off due to the move.

Tank 1: An 11 year old 120 gallon mixed reef. This tank I had probably for 15 years, one of the first AGA overflow tanks I was able to buy at a factory sale in Milwaukee, WI. Started its life as an Angelfish tank. Turned it into a reef tank after seeing a setup in a pet store in Janesville, WI and caught the bug. Bought a book at the store on saltwater aquariums and converted it within two weeks. Did everything wrong by todays standard but had a lot of success. Used tap water and mixed the salt right before adding it the tank. Had an under sand/gravel filter as well as the wet/dry filter. Super deep sand bed.The first skimmer was a modded sea clone, modded meaning that I added an air pump and stone. My first "coral" was a green carpet anemone, was sold to me as a leather, learned what it really was when I was talking to LFS owner after he asked me why I bought two blue devil damsels every week. I told that my leather coral eats them and it is the only thing it will eat. I sold that anemone with the tank. Some specs on it: 660 watts of VHO lighting, 40 gallon sump with a diy skimmer, Mag 18 return pump, a bunch of maxi jets for circulation. The anemone hosted 8 year old mated pair of percula clowns that were tank raised. I had various success with hard and soft coral, most had been in the tank for years.

I then bought a BioCube 29 as a grow out tank for juvi percs that usually ended in the back chambers. I got tired of fishing them out, so I added sand and live rock and made a zoanthid only tank with firefish as the only other livestock, with the exception of clean up crews.

I am sorry, I cannot find the CD that the pictures are on. We are missing boxes of stuff. Amazing what disappears during a move.

I thought I would be completely out of the hobby never to look back. I was googling different places in SA and came accross the MAAST web site and started to browse around. Seemed like a good bunch of people and there are some really nice looking reefs out there. My wife was looking over my shoulder and she suggested we get a reef going, I guess she missed the tanks as much as I do.

Oh, I am suppose to ask any good family/mom and pop resturants for breakfast in the city? Does not matter where as we like to get around and explore.

Tom