ok,
right now i don't have a camera, it was stolen while i was in london. as to coral, I have 13 verities. all are soft except for the frogspawn, and galaxia. I get them cheep, because i have gone to the same LFS my whole life. I remember getting a turtle there for my fifth birthday (she is still doing great). so after years of going there several times a week, one gets privileges. they know my voice on the phone.
alright. I have black sand, and I put a cup of it in the sump of a tank at my LFS for a month before I got started. I then set up my tank with my sand from the stores sump that I made, and set up my rocks. I then fed it every day ever increasing amounts for a few weeks until all levels went to zero. I got my first corals after about two months and still have one of the two (the other was lost when the heater broke and stuck on. it got cooked. I bought a better (more expensive) heater.
until recently I just topped off with tap water every day, and did a one gallon water change two times a week. now that I am at MSU in a dorm I have access to RO water, and have done many water changes because with the move some of my levels have gone way out of whack.
I turned the back middle chamber into a refugium and grow macro algae and despite the general consensus of not using the sponges that come with the tank I use them and rinse daily with old SW.
I upgraded my pump, and put one in the display, so I have an unbelievable amount of water flow. even with all of this I have faced a never ending barrage of algae in the display. I scrape the glass daily, and have noticed my first coralline growth in the last week. the rocks are always a battle with respect to the algae, so I clean them with a toothbrush periodically. I also don't keep the lights on all that much, only 7 hours a day, and that help considerably, but to compensate for the lack of light, I feed them a couple times a week.
I know that this is not the way that most people do it, but it works if you are willing to put in the work, and I seem to do better than most with respect to coral growth. If you have any more questions just ask, or any suggestions to make my life easier.
