Brand New to Reef keeping

Hi. I do not have a reef of any sort, nor have I ever. Back in March this year, I got a puffer now am housing a figure8 in a 30gallon long and two dwarf puffers- each in 5-gallons. However, I'm really interested in cuttlefish and, even though its not practical to keep them in aquaria, I'm going to come read about temperate reefs. I have some pictures of cuttles I took last week- one of which is on the main page of this site- but can't upload any right now as I'm not on my home computer. I'll be interested to hear how to take care of a temperate reef. For one thing, how do you do water changes on a big tank? Is it automatic? I hear that on some of the BIG tanks, they have one switch to drain and another to fill. I, however, still cart a 5-gallon bucket back and forth.

Welcome to the forum! Yes some people have RO/DI systems that automically bring in water and the system discharges waste water. These systems seem very complex to the beginner reefer. I don't even fully understand how it works.

Yes cuttlefish are very cool. I would have one in a second but they only live 6 months at the most so the real challenge would be learning how to breed them.

Six months? The special I saw said 2 years- but I guess that's in the wild.

Thats what i heard. It's possible that since there natural habitat can be so hard to recreate in the home aquaria that it drastically shortens their lifespan that much.

Pufferfreak wrote:Thats what i heard. It's possible that since there natural habitat can be so hard to recreate in the home aquaria that it drastically shortens their lifespan that much.

That's sad. Even more sad than stunted puffs.

I would imagine that, since cuttles are so intelligent, they need constant mental stimulation.

That could be it. I'm not exactly sure.

Here is a LARGE tank btw. http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1692183

Looks almost like an iguana cage I had built- but this will hold water.

Talk about some money to buy all the equipment, etc! Do you know what that person plans to keep in there?

The thread is 70 something pages long? Let me see if i can find a most recent fts.

Oh wow. That must be awesome to just sit and stare at.

Personally, I'd put a few million F8s in.

Hahaha. You could definitely do a mbu in this tank . If i had a tank this size i would do a temperate reef with a fake rock wall in the corner and a small column over to the left that drops of to the sand bed. If only .

Well yeah, there's that. If you have such a big tank, probably better to use the space with visually appealing decor and lots of fish. (Nothing against MBUs, of course.)

Probably. You could do a nice brackish biotope.