Tank Gear:
The story so far:
So, this tank is relatively new, roughly four~ months old. My mother impulse bought the tank after she thought she had thrift shopped a new tank thinking I could use it as a 12-gallon Nano tank. She thought it would be a fun hobby that we could do together. However, as we started to cycle it, she started to realize that it wasn't "œrewarding" enough for her (more on this later).
After the tank cycled for a month and balanced all the nutrients and chemicals and such we bought our fish two yellow tail damsels' fish. Surprisingly both are super peaceful (though one is growing a bit territorial of its living space). Once we were able to keep them alive (we did), my mother and I decided that
We kept them for two weeks before I ended up buying two clownfish, as well as a long tentacle anemone, as well as our fish corals. Those corals were a hammer coral, a candy cane coral and an isolated xenia. All these additions did very well! The candy cane coral starting to grow the fastest. However, towards the end of the second month the tank faced its first real adversity.
During a cleaning I was doing, the old Coralife light broke. Apparently, the light fixture was not properly sealed, and the light was collecting moisture in the fixture killing the light. I tried other light sources, but unfortunately in the week it took Coralife to send a replacement (they upgraded the light for free) the long tentacle anemone died. This one of my mother's favorites so she started to want something to keep her interested when she returned from her vacation. Things did not get easier for the tank after this.
When the new Coralife light was delivered to my house, I was up with my mother at her vacation house. I instructed my dad how to set up the timer, and he set it up. When I returned to the house with the tank two weeks later, to my horror my father accidently set it to have hard white light 17(!!!) hours a day. The tank was covered in green algae, and the hammer coral bleached and was dead. This left the tank with two damsels, two clowns, a xenia, and a living candy cane coral.
Once I fixed the light, and cleaned the tank, I found some GSP bought two frags and put it on the two small frags on a large rock that had absolutely nothing on it. With my mother returning and wanting "œcolor" in the tank, I ended up buying a Royal Gramma Basslet for the tank, which adjusted well and made a home for itself underneath one of my rocks.
When my mother returned home, she still felt the tank was missing something, and so without consulting me went out and bought a small Yellow Tang for the tank. The Tang nearly killed the tank. Bouncing around from side to side almost constantly, it would harass the Basslet, and one of the damsels. It also was killing (we think) any invertebrates that we were putting in the tank (specifically peppermint shrimps we bought for an Aiptasia problem). After about three weeks, I convinced my mother to return the tang, and started trying to fix the tang.
While the tang was in the tank, I moved the Candy Cane Coral to the center of the tank thinking it would do better there. This was a mistake as the extra exposure to the light left it slowly bleaching. Since this mistake though, I moved it to a less lit part of the tank and it is slowly recovering.
Presently, I have been doing two water changes a week to fix the tank. The first one resulted in a cyanobacteria bloom in the tank, which I fixed with more water changes. With the water and the tank balanced again (it is looking pretty good too I think for a new tank). I ended up buying the Aquatop circulation pump to increase water flow. The Tank seems to be doing well so yesterday, I rebought a hammer head and got a brain coral.
My hope is that after a couple weeks in the tank maintaining these two corals, I can get my mother a watchmen goby and pistol shrimp combo to help give color to the tank in hopes of getting my mother more involved. I also hope that in keeping all these things successfully in the tank, I'll be able to have a blood shrimp to the tank, and finally a bubble tip anemone to the tank (I want to get this for my mother for Christmas).
What is the Goal:
I have found keeping this saltwater tank relaxing, and as my job doesn't allow for to many hobbies this is one I want to foster. Eventually I am hoping to buy a 100+ gallon tank and rebuy a Yellow Tang for my mother and turn this tank into a QT tank as well as a coral tank.
Thank you for reading if you made it through it. I hope to post a couple times a month with updates as I think it will be cool to track my progression in this hobby!
