aujosh84
New member
First a little background information: I set up my first saltwater tank my sophomore year in college. 10 gallon tank, some liverock, a clown fish and a damsel. Went well for about a year and a half, then decided to upgrade to a 30 gallon tank. Ich popped up, wiped out my fish, everything went downhill.
A few years later I decided to make the leap again, but learning from my first experience and reading a LOT I was determined to do things the "right" way this time. I found TBS saltwater online, ordered the the package and went from there. Everything went GREAT until it was getting crunch time for finals, job interviews, and moving, then it started going downhill. Gave my rock to my aunt and gave everything else away.
After moving to Florida I couldn't wait to set up a tank, but decided that I wasn't going to do that until I had a more permanent form of resident. We bought our house last year and had been talking about setting up a tank when my aunt called and said that she was done and we could have her tank if we just picked it up.
After a month of drilling, plumbing, and carpentry work we finally got water in the tank. Picked up the first part of our package yesterday and things are really starting to come out!
After 19 hours in the tank we've found:
couple of brittle stars
LOTS of whelks (they gotta go!)
2 red footed snails. They look like whelks, and what I've read has me leaning in that direction. Sad, since they look awesome. One is already in the fuge.
3 porcelain crabs
4 gorilla crabs
2 urchins
1 cup coral
1 half bleached tubastrea head, the polyps are out and happy now though. we'll see how he does
1+ shrimp, either mantis or pistol. We've heard the pops and cracks but haven't seen it yet
Cerith snails
Trochus snails
Hermit crabs
Just checked my parameters and got these:
0 Ammonia
0 Nitrite
20 Nitrate
Is it possible to cycle that fast? We picked it up local and went straight in the tank with it, but wow! I wasn't expecting a reading of 0 this morning. I'll keep an eye on it over the next couple of days.
Pictures coming shortly.
A few years later I decided to make the leap again, but learning from my first experience and reading a LOT I was determined to do things the "right" way this time. I found TBS saltwater online, ordered the the package and went from there. Everything went GREAT until it was getting crunch time for finals, job interviews, and moving, then it started going downhill. Gave my rock to my aunt and gave everything else away.
After moving to Florida I couldn't wait to set up a tank, but decided that I wasn't going to do that until I had a more permanent form of resident. We bought our house last year and had been talking about setting up a tank when my aunt called and said that she was done and we could have her tank if we just picked it up.
After a month of drilling, plumbing, and carpentry work we finally got water in the tank. Picked up the first part of our package yesterday and things are really starting to come out!
After 19 hours in the tank we've found:
couple of brittle stars
LOTS of whelks (they gotta go!)
2 red footed snails. They look like whelks, and what I've read has me leaning in that direction. Sad, since they look awesome. One is already in the fuge.
3 porcelain crabs
4 gorilla crabs
2 urchins
1 cup coral
1 half bleached tubastrea head, the polyps are out and happy now though. we'll see how he does
1+ shrimp, either mantis or pistol. We've heard the pops and cracks but haven't seen it yet
Cerith snails
Trochus snails
Hermit crabs
Just checked my parameters and got these:
0 Ammonia
0 Nitrite
20 Nitrate
Is it possible to cycle that fast? We picked it up local and went straight in the tank with it, but wow! I wasn't expecting a reading of 0 this morning. I'll keep an eye on it over the next couple of days.
Pictures coming shortly.
