So I decided to throw this together

[jcjstl]

Ok so my son had this 2.5 gallon tank from Wal-Mart. We decided to make it saltwater. I stopped by Marine solutions on my way home from work and bought 3 pounds of rubble and 10 gallons of sw. They where even nice enough to give me some of their sand to seen my fresh sand bed. We are going to let it cycle and then add some low light softies and maybe a couple sexy shrimp... I would love to do a small mantis but not sure if the tank is big enough.... If anyone has some chaeto to spare(I would be happy to pay for it) I would be very grateful as I'm using the little whisper filter that came with this for water movement for now and would love to put some in the filter. So until I get my 55 gallon going this will be my new experiment.

 

[jbrown11352]

Keep the pics coming!

 

[Chaotic Reefer4u]

very nice start...

 

[mr pink floyd]

a mantis can easily bust through acrylic, especially if its thin like that

ive read a thread here of a guy catching one in a small reptile acrylic box in the tank, he walked away for a minute, heard it break through it, and found a hole with no mantis inside...

 

[jcjstl]

Thanks ... I got a bonus of a few snails I hope the live through the cycle ... i would hope my ccyle is really easy as the rock came cured from the lfs and water as well and they gave me some ls

 

[jcjstl]

OK I tested the water 4 hours after first set up .. don't really know it will tell me anything or not yet but my ammonia is currently at .50 and nitrites is at .25

 

[jcjstl]

I think I might have to much rock at least for the aqua scaping .. I tried to start a little with it last night. I gave up I am just going to wait for the cycle to complete then work on it. Then again maybe I should just break these into smaller pieces

 

[jcjstl]

new pictures to follow its cleared up really well ... my ammonia is at 0.0

 

[fantastic4]

Looks fun and great start, please post updates and notes.

Thanks!

Following thread

 

[jcjstl]

OK so this is what the tank looked like yesterday after it cleared up but with the normal bulb.

Ad this is today with the mini daylight full spectrum bulm that i bought in a hurry last night to get the heat down ... i also bought a cheap mini heater from walmart that comes preset at 78 to keep the tempature swing at night down....

I put some flake food in the tank and everything seems to be chugging right along.