lukinrats
Premium Member
THE OLD 90
Well I am relatively new to RC, but I have been on here everyday since sometime in April 2007... I am from Laurel, Ms which is about 60 miles north of the Gulf Coast of Mexico... I have had a saltwater tank since around '02 or '03 (hard to remember)... My first tank was a 55 gallon fish only that I got from my father in law... He had started the tank sometime around '01, and I helped him along the way... He realized that I loved it, and always called me over to help him on maintenance, and to ask me questions since he knew I had been reading much more than he had... later that year he had an Aortic Aneurism (? spelling) , and had bypasses, and a valve repair... needless to say, he could not take care of the thing anymore, and I assumed full responsibility of it... So that year when X-mas came around, he gave me everything he had accumulated... I took care of it in it's new home for another year or so, until the next X-mas... My wife and I were in the LFS buying some stuff, and she saw a 90 gallon that she just loved... so that was my X-mas present... This was for X-mas 2004, and I went and picked it up right after New Year's '05... My plan was to start a reef tank with it. -------------------->
I had been reading for some 2 years or so about keeping a reef tank, and considered myself a real amature... Keep in mind that I thought I was an amature even before I had any experience keeping a reef whatsoever, but still I had absorbed quite a bit of knowledge on the subject... So anyway, I set up the tank, and transferred the 55 into it... I had purchased a minimal amount of Fiji live rock (which I still hate to this day) when I picked up the new 90G... If I remember right my wife was having some company over a few days after it was all transferred from the 55 to the 90, so she wanted it to look good... I complied and this is what it looked like at that point (early 2005)
So there it is!!! My new 90 gallon great hope... Notice that I had some huge damsels in there... they were in the 55 and I had to transfer them so that they did not die... Also you see the few pieces of dreadful Fiji Live Rock... the rest of it was just dead rock that came out of the 55 FO... the anemones were put in there to make it look PRETTY, as my wife requested... they did very well for a while (soon you will know why they did not do well)... Also I had decided that I could not fit a sump, so I put 3 Fluval 404 canister filters w/ only carbon in them, and 2 Aquaclear power heads... This was to be my circulation, and to be honest it would have been sufficient for the corals that I planned to keep, although the power heads were ugly... So the company my wife was having came, and then the planned live rock order took place... I knew that I would need time to get the rock in there, and that it would probably be a mess, so I waited till no one was coming over... I caught the damsels and took them to the LFS for credit (the one pictured on the far right is still there today in the 300 gallon just as you walk in the door)... I ordered live rock from TBS... It arrived the next day, and I put it in... I was very pleased with it, and here is a picture of the tank at that point
So I had it set up, and had even put a few corals in there... I thought it was coming along nicely, and wanted to give it some time to establish, and grow corraline, etc... so I just left it alone except for maintenance, and watched as it just turned into a beautiful tank... THIS MAY BE BORING MOST OF YOU, BUT STAY WITH ME
THEN DISASTER STRUCK... I STRESS THE WORD DISASTER
HURRICANE KATRINA
I know what some people may think when I say this was a disaster for the tank... How was it a disaster for you? You dont live on the coast or New Orleans... Just to give you an example of the devistation... There were 180 something counties in MS affected by Katrina... Obviously the top 3 were coastal counties, but at #4 was Jones County, MS... This is the county that we live in... When the Cane got to Laurel it was still a category 3 w/ 120 mile per hour winds... It absolutely was the worst thing I had ever seen in my life (29 years at the time)... We were without power for a total of 20 days... I purchased an 8000 watt generator when I realized the thing was going to hit the coast as a CAT 5... Even though it was a pretty good generator... I could only run the tank maybe 2 hours a day, and I tried to keep a heater running when needed... So the power came back on, and so did the tank... I was happy that I had only lost a shrimp, and 1 wrasse... I thought (this is great), but over time the thing just sort of got worse and worse... all the corraline slowly went away and my GSP faded also.
I know this post is getting really long, so here we are today... We have gotten back to a normal life... the tank also had to survive a move... We moved into a new house in Jan of this year... I set it up and have pretty much only maintained it as we have been getting everything else in order... I just put the rocks in there until I can get to them and aquascape... So here is a current picture of it, and then I will end this post.
SO THE TITLE OF THE THREAD IS LUKINRATS OLD AND NEW 90... THIS CONCLUDES THE OLD PART, AND ALL POST FROM HERE FORWARD WILL BE THE NEW 90, AND ALL MY PLANS ETC. WHILE I FINALLY BUILD MY REEF... I HOPE TO MAKE A RECORD OF IT, AND GET SOME HELP FROM ALL THE WONDERFUL KNOWLEDGE HERE ON RC
LATER
Well I am relatively new to RC, but I have been on here everyday since sometime in April 2007... I am from Laurel, Ms which is about 60 miles north of the Gulf Coast of Mexico... I have had a saltwater tank since around '02 or '03 (hard to remember)... My first tank was a 55 gallon fish only that I got from my father in law... He had started the tank sometime around '01, and I helped him along the way... He realized that I loved it, and always called me over to help him on maintenance, and to ask me questions since he knew I had been reading much more than he had... later that year he had an Aortic Aneurism (? spelling) , and had bypasses, and a valve repair... needless to say, he could not take care of the thing anymore, and I assumed full responsibility of it... So that year when X-mas came around, he gave me everything he had accumulated... I took care of it in it's new home for another year or so, until the next X-mas... My wife and I were in the LFS buying some stuff, and she saw a 90 gallon that she just loved... so that was my X-mas present... This was for X-mas 2004, and I went and picked it up right after New Year's '05... My plan was to start a reef tank with it. -------------------->
I had been reading for some 2 years or so about keeping a reef tank, and considered myself a real amature... Keep in mind that I thought I was an amature even before I had any experience keeping a reef whatsoever, but still I had absorbed quite a bit of knowledge on the subject... So anyway, I set up the tank, and transferred the 55 into it... I had purchased a minimal amount of Fiji live rock (which I still hate to this day) when I picked up the new 90G... If I remember right my wife was having some company over a few days after it was all transferred from the 55 to the 90, so she wanted it to look good... I complied and this is what it looked like at that point (early 2005)
So there it is!!! My new 90 gallon great hope... Notice that I had some huge damsels in there... they were in the 55 and I had to transfer them so that they did not die... Also you see the few pieces of dreadful Fiji Live Rock... the rest of it was just dead rock that came out of the 55 FO... the anemones were put in there to make it look PRETTY, as my wife requested... they did very well for a while (soon you will know why they did not do well)... Also I had decided that I could not fit a sump, so I put 3 Fluval 404 canister filters w/ only carbon in them, and 2 Aquaclear power heads... This was to be my circulation, and to be honest it would have been sufficient for the corals that I planned to keep, although the power heads were ugly... So the company my wife was having came, and then the planned live rock order took place... I knew that I would need time to get the rock in there, and that it would probably be a mess, so I waited till no one was coming over... I caught the damsels and took them to the LFS for credit (the one pictured on the far right is still there today in the 300 gallon just as you walk in the door)... I ordered live rock from TBS... It arrived the next day, and I put it in... I was very pleased with it, and here is a picture of the tank at that point
So I had it set up, and had even put a few corals in there... I thought it was coming along nicely, and wanted to give it some time to establish, and grow corraline, etc... so I just left it alone except for maintenance, and watched as it just turned into a beautiful tank... THIS MAY BE BORING MOST OF YOU, BUT STAY WITH ME
THEN DISASTER STRUCK... I STRESS THE WORD DISASTER
HURRICANE KATRINA
I know what some people may think when I say this was a disaster for the tank... How was it a disaster for you? You dont live on the coast or New Orleans... Just to give you an example of the devistation... There were 180 something counties in MS affected by Katrina... Obviously the top 3 were coastal counties, but at #4 was Jones County, MS... This is the county that we live in... When the Cane got to Laurel it was still a category 3 w/ 120 mile per hour winds... It absolutely was the worst thing I had ever seen in my life (29 years at the time)... We were without power for a total of 20 days... I purchased an 8000 watt generator when I realized the thing was going to hit the coast as a CAT 5... Even though it was a pretty good generator... I could only run the tank maybe 2 hours a day, and I tried to keep a heater running when needed... So the power came back on, and so did the tank... I was happy that I had only lost a shrimp, and 1 wrasse... I thought (this is great), but over time the thing just sort of got worse and worse... all the corraline slowly went away and my GSP faded also.
I know this post is getting really long, so here we are today... We have gotten back to a normal life... the tank also had to survive a move... We moved into a new house in Jan of this year... I set it up and have pretty much only maintained it as we have been getting everything else in order... I just put the rocks in there until I can get to them and aquascape... So here is a current picture of it, and then I will end this post.
SO THE TITLE OF THE THREAD IS LUKINRATS OLD AND NEW 90... THIS CONCLUDES THE OLD PART, AND ALL POST FROM HERE FORWARD WILL BE THE NEW 90, AND ALL MY PLANS ETC. WHILE I FINALLY BUILD MY REEF... I HOPE TO MAKE A RECORD OF IT, AND GET SOME HELP FROM ALL THE WONDERFUL KNOWLEDGE HERE ON RC
LATER
