First Steps..

Welcome to my blog.

This is an attempt to journal every stage of my attempt to design, install and maintain a reef aquarium. My thinking is that the blog will be a place to show off my progress, to learn from my mistakes, to celebrate my successes and to record the pertinant information of reef keeping. I'm hoping that friends, family and fellow enthuisiasts will find the process interesting and educational. I am always open to comments or advice and ask that it be given freely but respectfully.

That said let me set out the background on why I'm undertaking this adventure. My wonderful wife and I are currently building a new home for our family. It is a house that we designed ourselves and to my mind will be a beautiful Tuscan style hill home. The house is full of wide open spaces and beautiful features. The one issue we had with the original architect's design was the dividing wall that provides some privacy between the foyer and the open plan great room/dining area/kitchen.

We decided that we wanted this wall to contain a centerpiece that would set the tone for the house, something visitors would see immediately they stepped through the front door. The original design called for a see through fireplace to be in this wall but we felt that while it was eyecatching it didn't really meet what we needed and didn't serve any other purpose than artisitic as the wall is too disconnected from the main living area. It didn't set the tone we wanted. We discussed putting art on the walls but wanted to have something that was artistic, visible from both sides of the wall and would bring peace and beauty to the house.

It was the idea of a reef aquarium that we came up with. It seemed the perfect solution, peaceful, artistic, educational and a perfect centerpiece. So now here I am about to embark on a journey to design and create the perfect centerpiece for our home....