cowabunga-reefer Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 Been looking at this forum for a long time now just lurking. Figured I'd start a thread up to post my progress on this new little journey of mine. This is my first aquarium. I did have two RES turtles in the past though. About a year in a half ago I moved from a southern California beach town where my life revolved around life in the ocean to where I live now in western Pennsylvania. Bringing a little piece of the ocean back into my life with a saltwater reef tank seems like a good way to go for me and a great learning experience. I started out by purchasing a 36 gallon Aqueon bow front kit. I didn't really like the looks of the stands so thought I'd give a shot at building my own. Probably over structured but figured better off on the safe side With all the woodwork done Stand completed with Aquarium seascape Taking the hacksaw and hammer to the dry rock from Aquacave. Pretty much every single person I spoke to at the LFS told me that only dry rock was never going to work, but after seeing members on this sites amazing creations and success I knew this was the way I wanted to go. And some different views of the seascape i designed. I'm pretty happy with it at the moment, but I'll probably change things up a bit or add more rock as I progress. Link to comment
clink51 Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 nice look so far man! i need to build me a stand =( Link to comment
cowabunga-reefer Posted April 27, 2015 Author Share Posted April 27, 2015 Blacked out the back of the tank to hide all of the ugly wires, and equipment. Got a couple fishys, snails, crabs, a zoa,and a watermelon mushroom. I'm supposed to get my soft coral pack from Reefs2Go today! Three stripe damsel and pink spotted shrimp goby waiting for food Link to comment
cowabunga-reefer Posted April 27, 2015 Author Share Posted April 27, 2015 Thanks clink. Yeah it was actually pretty enjoyable building the stand. Gives you the freedom to get things how you want. Especially in my living room all of my furniture is more modern looking and I wasn't able to find any stands that didn't look too out of place. I got too anxious to get my tank started so I cut some corners lol but I'm still happy with it Link to comment
cowabunga-reefer Posted May 16, 2015 Author Share Posted May 16, 2015 I think I made my first big mistake. I feel really horrible about it. Everything was going along well. Water tests were looking good, no ammonia/nitrates/nitrites. Decided I would add another fish and went with a little clown fish (oc). He was so cool just wiggles around full of life. Then two days later, this morning, I went to feed and noticed he was laying on the bottom tilted towards his side breathing heavy. Checked ammonia and it had spiked to .5. So I rushed out and bought this quick cycle stuff that is supposed to lower ammonia. I checked a few hours later and the ammonia did drop. He is looking a little better moving around a bit but still not good. I hope he pulls through and the tank stabilizes quickly.I think the two mistakes were I rushed and should have not added anything else to the tank and that I had been overfeeding. Doing searches some others have done lots of water changes. I kinda feel like that is just going to stress this little guy even more. It's a really bad feeling to know you've screwed up and may be killing a beautiful creature. Will be a long time before I add any other living thing Link to comment
Cencalfishguy56 Posted May 16, 2015 Share Posted May 16, 2015 I think I made my first big mistake. I feel really horrible about it. Everything was going along well. Water tests were looking good, no ammonia/nitrates/nitrites. Decided I would add another fish and went with a little clown fish (oc). He was so cool just wiggles around full of life. Then two days later, this morning, I went to feed and noticed he was laying on the bottom tilted towards his side breathing heavy. Checked ammonia and it had spiked to .5. So I rushed out and bought this quick cycle stuff that is supposed to lower ammonia. I checked a few hours later and the ammonia did drop. He is looking a little better moving around a bit but still not good. I hope he pulls through and the tank stabilizes quickly.I think the two mistakes were I rushed and should have not added anything else to the tank and that I had been overfeeding. Doing searches some others have done lots of water changes. I kinda feel like that is just going to stress this little guy even more. It's a really bad feeling to know you've screwed up and may be killing a beautiful creature. Will be a long time before I add any other living thing Don't stress man happens to everyone when they first start out I've made the same mistake before, you see everything at the LFS and you just want it all and end up rushing it, just add one thing a week and you should be fine, you added a lot of fish at one time but the biggest thing is you are learning from your mistakes! Link to comment
wrassegauche17 Posted May 16, 2015 Share Posted May 16, 2015 waterchange is best thing you can do for the fish if hes swimming in ammonia and he should recover quickly after waterchange. Link to comment
cowabunga-reefer Posted May 16, 2015 Author Share Posted May 16, 2015 Thanks for the words guys. I have good news! Wiggles The Great made it! I got the water params in check and he is doing really well now. Swimming all around and darting after food. I need to just really keep an eye on things and keep the water stable. The strange thing is the damsel I have was really like supportive to the clown through all of it. Wouldn't bother the clown at all but would hover near hi!m. Now they are swimming side by side all day Cencalfishguy, your right. I go in the store and see all this stuff and its so temping to just get new fish. I gotta chill out for several weeks now and just keep things where they are. Link to comment
cowabunga-reefer Posted February 18, 2016 Author Share Posted February 18, 2016 I have not updated this in a loooong long time. I had some serious issues with the tank. I am used to doing things 'my way', and tend to think I can do things differently than anyone else and get good results. In some aspects of my life this works out really well. It did not work out very well for reef keeping. I was trying to be cheap and not buy a protein skimmer and that was pretty much the biggest mistake that could be made. My tank completely crashed twice. First cyno break out was pretty bad but I was able to treat it with chemicals and get things back to stable. Then I went out west for an MS cycling event and was gone for 10 days. I returned to a disaster...red hair algae, thick carpets of green hair, bubble algae. Ended up yanking everything out, cleaning all the rock and letting it dry out, leaving the tank bare bottom with only a few rocks for a month. Bought an EShopps protein skimmer, upgraded my lights to 5 30" t5ho, and began dosing. Things have completely turned around. All the coral is growing quickly and has great color. I buy everything as the smallest possible frag, single head, so what may not look like much has actually been significant growth. Disaster picture Link to comment
cowabunga-reefer Posted February 18, 2016 Author Share Posted February 18, 2016 Pictures from today Link to comment
Sk8n Reefer Posted February 18, 2016 Share Posted February 18, 2016 Tanks looking good- that rock with the shrooms is nice! Link to comment
Cencalfishguy56 Posted February 18, 2016 Share Posted February 18, 2016 Pictures from todayLooks good man glad it's worked out after the crashes Link to comment
cowabunga-reefer Posted February 18, 2016 Author Share Posted February 18, 2016 Thanks, its cool to see stuff actually growing instead of just surviving as it had been in the past Ordered some coral from an online store and should get it this week. Pretty excited! -yellow scroll -tri color ric -neon green hammer -purple whip -yellow gorgonia Link to comment
cowabunga-reefer Posted February 22, 2016 Author Share Posted February 22, 2016 Finally after two weeks I got my shipment in today from Aquarium Depot in Florida. A box full of $80 worth of smelly dead stuff ?? Never ordering from there again! Link to comment
jbrfish Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Finally after two weeks I got my shipment in today from Aquarium Depot in Florida. A box full of $80 worth of smelly dead stuff Never ordering from there again! Sorry to hear the shipment went down, I have received good healthy corals ordered from KP Aquatics also located in FLorida. Link to comment
vlangel Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Hey Grim, so you are in the Burgh too. Our Steelers and Pens are not doing us as proud as we'd like but the Pirates didn't do too bad. I am liking what you are doing with the tank, although I am sorry about today's shipment. I order shrimp from FL all the time and never have a problem. I also have the Aqueon 36g bowfront. I did not have the skills to build my own stand however so I just have the stand that comes with it. Link to comment
cowabunga-reefer Posted February 23, 2016 Author Share Posted February 23, 2016 Hi vlangle, yeah I was super bummed out yesterday. I was so excited for this shipment! I saw your tanks and they are incredible! Sea horses are so cool! I'm better with working with wood than aquariums lol but it's a learning process. Where do you shop in Pittsburgh for coral? I go to elmers often but they don't have a lot of the more exotic stuff. It's pretty limited there. And places like petco the coral is almost dead or is dead in their tanks. I bought a candy cane from there and it's on a slow recovery The Pens were really starting to turn on there for a bit after they got adjusted to the new coach. Then I don't know what happened. Fleury and that backup goalie have really been struggling Link to comment
vlangel Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Hi vlangle, yeah I was super bummed out yesterday. I was so excited for this shipment! I saw your tanks and they are incredible! Sea horses are so cool! I'm better with working with wood than aquariums lol but it's a learning process. Where do you shop in Pittsburgh for coral? I go to elmers often but they don't have a lot of the more exotic stuff. It's pretty limited there. And places like petco the coral is almost dead or is dead in their tanks. I bought a candy cane from there and it's on a slow recoveryThe Pens were really starting to turn on there for a bit after they got adjusted to the new coach. Then I don't know what happened. Fleury and that backup goalie have really been strugglingYes, I had disappointment yesterday as well when I found out both ponies have bacterial infections. There is always the possibility when working with living creatures of experiencing those painful disappointments.:-( Hopefully this tank holds good things in store for you!I also shop at Elmers but if you look at my coral I really do not have many exotic coral except perhaps the gorgonians. Those I got at Reef Gallery which is north on Rt 19 almost to Zelienople. Its a really nice store, fairly new with a great selection of coral. He does not have many fish, coral seem to be his focus. He has softies, lps and sps. He has frags and he has colonies. Even if you are in the south hills it is probably worth a drive out. He has a web site that you can check out. We have tickets for the Penguin game this Monday! I am hoping for the best. Link to comment
cowabunga-reefer Posted February 24, 2016 Author Share Posted February 24, 2016 Enjoy the game! I've been lucky this year with going. My gf's dad has season tickets. Although every time she goes with someone other than me they lose haha...so I get to go more now thanks for the info. I'll have to check that place out. Link to comment
cowabunga-reefer Posted February 24, 2016 Author Share Posted February 24, 2016 And really sorry to hear about the ponies Best of luck with them. I just watched a video of a male one giving birth to what looked like thousands of babies. Had no idea that's how it worked :? Link to comment
vlangel Posted February 24, 2016 Share Posted February 24, 2016 Ha ha, yes it is kind of crazy how the seahorse world operates. Adam and Eve would dance (mating ritual) all day. Then around dinner time she would deposit her eggs in his pouch. He would then fertilize them there, and incubate them for 19 days. The morning of the 19th day he would deliver 100s of beautiful miniatures of himself and Eve and within hours start dancing all over again. It was amazing if not exhausting! Link to comment
cowabunga-reefer Posted February 26, 2016 Author Share Posted February 26, 2016 Got good news yesterday. AQD is going to reship my entire order on Monday! ? Link to comment
cowabunga-reefer Posted March 9, 2016 Author Share Posted March 9, 2016 Well..ADQ reshipped my entire order and every single item was dead on arrival! Again! But I did get this cool guy on the way home from my doctors appointment. My asthma will not get better this winter. This coral banded shrimp is a BIG one Link to comment
vlangel Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 I love coral banded shrimp. Actually I love pretty much any kind of shrimp, but the coral banded and cleaner shrimp are especially cool. Sorry to hear that the 2nd shipment was also dead. That is a shame! Link to comment
cowabunga-reefer Posted March 22, 2016 Author Share Posted March 22, 2016 Got some new corals! Pretty horrible pictures right now with the iPhone. I'll take some new ones once these coral get a little settled in. Metallic Green Hammer Small Yellow Gorgonia and Purple Whip Medium size Yellow Gorgonia and Yellow Scroll Link to comment
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