Hi all.... I'm a first timer for saltwater and have wanted a saltwater tank forever..... well For my 29 B-Day (Today) I finally got it.... It took a little while to convince the wife..... I felt like little Ralph in " A Christmas story" where everyone was telling him you'll shoot you eye out except for me it was more ... your just gonna kill everything.
I got a 12 G Aquapod for a starter tank. I did about a month and a half worth of reading on this site before I went through with everything..... That's how I came across Richard and TBS rock... and after reading everything about the good experiences and seeing all The pictures every one has posted I was set on having a TBS tank.
I ordered my tank for petmountain.com because the were having specials on it. I also got a maxijet 900 and the Hydor FLO Rotating Water Deflector. When my tank arrived (by UPS) I suffered the same fate as many others and received a damaged tank. I contacted petmountain and they shipped me another one right away but it took another week to get here..... Ups came the next day and picked up the damaged one.
Once I jot the 2nd tank and inspected it I contacted Richard right away and ordered the Package. I received the first part 2 days later
and of course it wasn't anything less from anyone else who has ordered the package.
I only have 1 mantis shrimp in there and a couple of Gorilla crabs , one of the is really big. So far I have left them all in there.... I noticed that the mantis shrimp was eating the Lancelets that had died off. As long as hes eating the dead things so they just dont decay in the tank I guess I can leave him in there untill I get the 2nd part of the package..... Is this a safe thing to do ?
At first I had the water deflector attached to the maxijet and mounted to the side of the tank.... and had the stock pump where it usually goes with the maxijet spout attached to the fitting instead of the Y shaped head. It seemed that I was putting the tank into constant hurricane status so I removed the stock pump and replaced the maxijet its spot, took off the water deflector.
Then I started to get the ammonia spike .... Ive been doing my daily water changes, 25-30 %, with the RO-DI saltwater from the LFS, they charge $00.89 a gallon. I removed all the rock and sniffed and removed as much of the stuff that I thought smelled bad as best as I could, now Im kinda worried that I removed to much or not enough because this morning my ammonia levels were back up to the same, somewhere around 2 or 3 ppm.
So today I went to Petco today and got some "bonded filter pads "by Marineland..... I'm assuming its like that floss stuff and a AquaClear filter insert ammonia remover.... thats like a mesh bag containing white pebble resign. I squished down the sponge filter that came with the Aquapod half way , put the aquaclear bag on top of that and then put the bonded filter pad on top of that.... I also filled up the 2nd compartment with more of the bonded mesh pad.
Hopefully with the water changes it will help with the ammonia spike.... I would appreciate any feedback or advice, I love my little reef and want the best for it... and I especially don't want to become the Ralph kid. I will post some pics that I took before I removed the bad smelling stuff and rearranged the pumps.
Richard has been really helpful and I'm sure he is sick of getting constant emails from me everyday ...lol.....
I got a 12 G Aquapod for a starter tank. I did about a month and a half worth of reading on this site before I went through with everything..... That's how I came across Richard and TBS rock... and after reading everything about the good experiences and seeing all The pictures every one has posted I was set on having a TBS tank.
I ordered my tank for petmountain.com because the were having specials on it. I also got a maxijet 900 and the Hydor FLO Rotating Water Deflector. When my tank arrived (by UPS) I suffered the same fate as many others and received a damaged tank. I contacted petmountain and they shipped me another one right away but it took another week to get here..... Ups came the next day and picked up the damaged one.
Once I jot the 2nd tank and inspected it I contacted Richard right away and ordered the Package. I received the first part 2 days later
and of course it wasn't anything less from anyone else who has ordered the package.
I only have 1 mantis shrimp in there and a couple of Gorilla crabs , one of the is really big. So far I have left them all in there.... I noticed that the mantis shrimp was eating the Lancelets that had died off. As long as hes eating the dead things so they just dont decay in the tank I guess I can leave him in there untill I get the 2nd part of the package..... Is this a safe thing to do ?
At first I had the water deflector attached to the maxijet and mounted to the side of the tank.... and had the stock pump where it usually goes with the maxijet spout attached to the fitting instead of the Y shaped head. It seemed that I was putting the tank into constant hurricane status so I removed the stock pump and replaced the maxijet its spot, took off the water deflector.
Then I started to get the ammonia spike .... Ive been doing my daily water changes, 25-30 %, with the RO-DI saltwater from the LFS, they charge $00.89 a gallon. I removed all the rock and sniffed and removed as much of the stuff that I thought smelled bad as best as I could, now Im kinda worried that I removed to much or not enough because this morning my ammonia levels were back up to the same, somewhere around 2 or 3 ppm.
So today I went to Petco today and got some "bonded filter pads "by Marineland..... I'm assuming its like that floss stuff and a AquaClear filter insert ammonia remover.... thats like a mesh bag containing white pebble resign. I squished down the sponge filter that came with the Aquapod half way , put the aquaclear bag on top of that and then put the bonded filter pad on top of that.... I also filled up the 2nd compartment with more of the bonded mesh pad.
Hopefully with the water changes it will help with the ammonia spike.... I would appreciate any feedback or advice, I love my little reef and want the best for it... and I especially don't want to become the Ralph kid. I will post some pics that I took before I removed the bad smelling stuff and rearranged the pumps.
Richard has been really helpful and I'm sure he is sick of getting constant emails from me everyday ...lol.....
