Hi guys I just wanted to share how I get into the hobby and what I've done so far. Last year my girlfriend mentioned she really liked fish tanks and me wanting to switch things up from getting her jewelry for every occasion I bought a fish tank for her birthday. However I did 0 research and assumed that it would be as easy as buying salt mixing it with my tap water and throwing fish in the tank and watching them swim around. So it came as a surprise when I was told by the person at the LFS that it would take 1-3 months for the tank to cycle and be ready for fish, still undeterred I bought some live sand a small amount of live rock and was ready to wait. However I still didn't do much research and instead just asked people at my LFS questions, and now I realize I got some bad information. I had two different people at different stores tell me I need additional filters from the standard fitler that my tank came with (because salt water tanks need double of triple filtration according to them) and one even pointed me to a cannister filter that I purchased and now realize is doing as much harm and probably more harm than good. Also when I was told by 3 different people I needed to cycle my tank nobody gave me the correct explanation as to why (allowing my sand and rock time to become live and be the filter). So I just waited and waited for stuff to happen that clearly wasn't going to happen since all I had was store bought live sand that only had bacteria and no animals. So eventually I bought fish and started off with two 3 Stripe Damsels who were doing well in the tank so about 2 weeks later I bought a Yellowtail Blue Damsel, Domino Damsel and a Chocolate Chip Starfish. I quickly found out the two 3 Stripes were way too aggresive and were constantly chasing the other 2 around and nipping at them so I brough them back only to realize the Domino was doing the same to the Yellowtail so he's also gone now.
During this time the Starfish is doing just fine as well as the few Astrea snails I have, the starfish had also eaten a couple of the snails which was fine for me. However about a weak ago in attempt to get the correct depth for my sand bed I bought a 20 pound bag of "live" sand and added it to my tank while everything was still in there and while the yellowtail survived all the Invertebrates ended up dying shortly after the addition.
I've also had 2 False Perculas in my QT tank for the last week (same time I put the sand in) and they are doing fine, no signs of disease and they are eating. So right now I only have the Yellowtail in my 55g with 50 pounds of dry rock and about 5 pounds of rock that is supposed to be live but I don't see any animals on them, but it does look like something is on it, there are red and white growths on the rock don't know if it's algae or what (well I'm pretty sure the red stuff is algae since it wasn't there when I bought them but the white stuff was there), but I don't think it's contaminating the water in any way since I've seen both the snails and starfish eat off them with no problem and when it was just that in the water my readings were normal.
I recently found Reef Central and realized how wrong I've been doing stuff and am going to do an entire tank rebuild. This has now shifted from a birthday present for my girlfriend to my obsession of making the tank as awesome as I possibly can.
During this time the Starfish is doing just fine as well as the few Astrea snails I have, the starfish had also eaten a couple of the snails which was fine for me. However about a weak ago in attempt to get the correct depth for my sand bed I bought a 20 pound bag of "live" sand and added it to my tank while everything was still in there and while the yellowtail survived all the Invertebrates ended up dying shortly after the addition.
I've also had 2 False Perculas in my QT tank for the last week (same time I put the sand in) and they are doing fine, no signs of disease and they are eating. So right now I only have the Yellowtail in my 55g with 50 pounds of dry rock and about 5 pounds of rock that is supposed to be live but I don't see any animals on them, but it does look like something is on it, there are red and white growths on the rock don't know if it's algae or what (well I'm pretty sure the red stuff is algae since it wasn't there when I bought them but the white stuff was there), but I don't think it's contaminating the water in any way since I've seen both the snails and starfish eat off them with no problem and when it was just that in the water my readings were normal.
I recently found Reef Central and realized how wrong I've been doing stuff and am going to do an entire tank rebuild. This has now shifted from a birthday present for my girlfriend to my obsession of making the tank as awesome as I possibly can.
