My journey to serenity

[Minmay]

Hi everyone, thank you to all that stop by and reads my journey. Im not new to aquariums, I've had FW tanks as a child through present. I've always loved SW but probably like everyone else starting out, it felt intimidating. So, I did research, research and then more freaking research for at least 4mo give or take. I researched for the right tank that I wanted/needed. I originally wanted the IM Lagoon 25g and even though my apartment manager ok'd a tank that size, I was still apprehensive about having a tank that size with water, rock, sand, stand weight added to all that on the 2nd floor ABOVE the Manager. So, more research into tanks and stumbled on a member on NR about their Fluval 13.5. Finally! I found a tank that I was comfortable having on a second floor unit. I ordered what I thought Ineeded 

 

Tank

caribsea arag-alive special grade sand

Reef saver rock

Hydor 425 and hydor wave maker.

 

Went to my LFS and bought some pre-mix SW. Owner uses Red Sea Coral Pro Salt. Now, here's a funny story. I bought 2 5g and 1 3g. The owner's husband puts the jugs on a cart and I happily roll it to my car. Well, unfortunately the curb didnt have a lil dip made for wheelchair accessibility. I thought to myself, I dont want to have to carry each jug across the parking lot to my car. So, I went infront of the cart and gently picked up one side over the curb. 1 3g falls and cap bust open and water spilling out. 1 5g falls on my left big toe. I looked at the jug spilling with water and said F* IT! AND went chasing after the 5g jug that was still in tack rolling down the street, ignoring the pain my toe was in. Finally caught the jug and put that in the car, painfully walked to the remaining jugs by the cart and put those away. Sigh, that was my first day of my SW journey.

[Lula_Mae]

28 minutes ago, Minmay said:

Hi everyone, thank you to all that stop by and reads my journey. Im not new to aquariums, I've had FW tanks as a child through present. I've always loved SW but probably like everyone else starting out, it felt intimidating. So, I did research, research and then more freaking research for at least 4mo give or take. I researched for the right tank that I wanted/needed. I originally wanted the IM Lagoon 25g and even though my apartment manager ok'd a tank that size, I was still apprehensive about having a tank that size with water, rock, sand, stand weight added to all that on the 2nd floor ABOVE the Manager. So, more research into tanks and stumbled on a member on NR about their Fluval 13.5. Finally! I found a tank that I was comfortable having on a second floor unit. I ordered what I thought Ineeded 

 

Tank

caribsea arag-alive special grade sand

Reef saver rock

Hydor 425 and hydor wave maker.

 

Went to my LFS and bought some pre-mix SW. Owner uses Red Sea Coral Pro Salt. Now, here's a funny story. I bought 2 5g and 1 3g. The owner's husband puts the jugs on a cart and I happily roll it to my car. Well, unfortunately the curb didnt have a lil dip made for wheelchair accessibility. I thought to myself, I dont want to have to carry each jug across the parking lot to my car. So, I went infront of the cart and gently picked up one side over the curb. 1 3g falls and cap bust open and water spilling out. 1 5g falls on my left big toe. I looked at the jug spilling with water and said F* IT! AND went chasing after the 5g jug that was still in tack rolling down the street, ignoring the pain my toe was in. Finally caught the jug and put that in the car, painfully walked to the remaining jugs by the cart and put those away. Sigh, that was my first day of my SW journey.

Sounds like you're off to an auspicious start! In all seriousness, I hope you got home with everything else intact and I hope your toe doesn't hurt too badly and gets better in a hurry.  Welcome to the addiction!

[Minmay]

Second day after the tramatic water incident I filled my tank up with the water. It was actually perfect amount after spilling most of the 3g jug. I called around to home depot, ace hardware for a bottle of pure ammonia which they didnt have. Shrug, O well I'll just order it online on Dr.Fosters&Smith. I purchased Dr. Tim's pure ammonia and One and Only and also a refractometer. While I waited for shipping I kept the pumps/wavemaker on and also purchased Cobolt neo therm heater from another LFS that I go to. Here's a pic of my tank while waiting for my purchases to start cycling 

[Minmay]

5 minutes ago, Lula_Mae said:

Sounds like you're off to an auspicious start! In all seriousness, I hope you got home with everything else intact and I hope your toe doesn't hurt too badly and gets better in a hurry.  Welcome to the addiction!

Thank you. It took about 3-4 weeks for my toe to stop completely hurting. This hobby is definitely an addiction but way better to be hooked on this than drugs 

[Minmay]

Once I received the items needed for cycling it took about 3 1/2 weeks for my tank to finish it's cycling and during this time of waiting, staring at water, testing. I researched the kind of fishes/corals I wanted and also order a deluxe  frag kit and calibration fluid.  Im sure Dr.Foster's&smith know my acct info by now. It seems as though Im ordering from them every other week lol. Anyways, I decided I wanted a Black ice snowflake, cleaner shrimp and purple fire fish and after my tank was cycled off to LFS I go. I bought purple fire fish first and my wife named him Prince. After about a week of having him I noticed a white spot on his body. I wasnt sure what it was amd another NR member told me it was too big to be ick. So I went to my LFS where I purchased him and show her the pic. I forgot what she called it but told me to dip him in RO and that it would fall off and it did! Here's the before and after I dipped him. He was pissed at me after lol

[Minmay]

After purchasing Prince and dealing with whatever he had I decided to buy a cleaner shrimp which I named him Mr. Big. Hopefully in the future it would help clean bad stuff off the fishes and hoping that the fishes would allow him to clean them. While waiting 2 weeks I got some cerith snails to help turn the sand and a couple of corals, some zoas and acan. Started to get the normal diatom bloom.

[Minmay]

Two weeks of waiting to buy another fish. One of my LFS sells single designer clowns! Yes!!! I didnt want to buy a pair which would limit the variety of different fish that I wanted. Named my clown Elvis. He's so cute but I can tell that Prince was not happy with his new tank mate. 

[DAP]

Lol.  He actually looks like he making a mad face at you

[Minmay]

46 minutes ago, DAP said:

Lol.  He actually looks like he making a mad face at you

Yeah it does lol...I swear he was always giving me shade like the real "Prince". He went straight to his cave after getting dipped and stared at me like this lol

[Weetabix7]

23 minutes ago, Minmay said:

Yeah it does lol...I swear he was always giving me shade like the real "Prince". He went straight to his cave after getting dipped and stared at me like this lol

 

[Minmay]

Few weeks later I purchased more corals, gsp, cloves, hammers, mushrooms/candy cane combo. Keep in mind Im a beginner but wanted these superman mushrooms/candy cane combo so badly cuz it was only $30. I decided I'll be that Captain Save-a-coral. Why not? Thats what this hobby is about right? Learning, experiencing the unknown and hopefully things will turn out right. So after baby sitting and spoon feeding the candy canes. It is finally coming back from death. 

[Minmay]

At this point my GHA has gotten pretty bad. I was advised by other members of peroxide dip. I researched that but was scared. So, I bought some margarita snails instead. Sigh, a week rolls by and the snails arent are soooo slooooow at eating GHA. So, I decided to buy like 5 turbos which I should have done in the first place but I didnt want the turbos knocking corals over since I didnt glue them in place. Next day they did an amazing job with GHA BUT man do they take the biggest shits Ive ever seen with snails. My Ammonia was at 0.25. I took all but 1 turbo back. 

[Minmay]

Well folks, staring at Elvis and his anal fin looks funny. I wasnt sure if it was maybe he was swimming too close to rocks and scrapped his anal fin cuz thats what it looked like. Then maybe about a week or so later I noticed a piece of his dorsal fin was missing. I asked members for help and it was confirmed that it was battle wounds. Thank you to the members who responded and especially to @Clown79. Prince just hated Elvis by his cave. Its weird cuz I thought Clowns were suppose to swim in one area but Elvis swims the whole tank and Prince started to get really territorial with his cave. Once I saw part of his dorsal fin missing I told my wife her fish is getting the boot. So all bagged up and ready to go

[Minmay]

Ooo also forgot to mention that maybr about 2 weeks before letting Prince go. My wife and I put our money together to get Al Prime which was highly recommended by alot of members. When I finally received it I was excited to set it up. Then being confused for days while trying to figure this thing out. I do wanna give a shout oit to @Nixperience and another member that at this time cant remember the name but it started with an "M" lol. They helped me alot with this light and so grateful for the help.

[Nixperience]

12 minutes ago, Minmay said:

Ooo also forgot to mention that maybr about 2 weeks before letting Prince go. My wife and I put our money together to get Al Prime which was highly recommended by alot of members. When I finally received it I was excited to set it up. Then being confused for days while trying to figure this thing out. I do wanna give a shout oit to @Nixperience and another member that at this time cant remember the name but it started with an "M" lol. They helped me alot with this light and so grateful for the help.

You're welcome ? ??

[Minmay]

So, anyways Friday. I went to my LFS to buy SW and she showed me a Yasha goby and candy pistol shrimp. She said it wasnt paired yet but it should be pretty easy for the two to "fall in love" lol. She gave em both for $50 which I thought was a great deal since I know Yasha Goby alone is $50 some dollars. Acclimated them but my mistake was that I released the pistol shrimp first and it made a burrow under a rock and the Yasha found the Cave that Prince use to have and hid there. O well, I'll figure it out the next day. I didnt wanna stress them anymore. The next day I found the pistol which I named Yoshi and got him to go by the cave that Yasha was in (named goby Mr. Miyagi) I watched while Yoshi made a burrow underneath the cave well it looked like the burrow opened into the cave and Mr. Miyagi was now face to face with Yoshi. They stared at each other which seemed like forever...They finally paired!!! They fell inlove folks!! Yes! 

[Minmay]

Now I read that Yasha Goby and candy pistol will hide for weeks sometimes months. My pair was actually out the next day. Mr Miyagi standing guard while Yoshi working on their burrow. I have a couple of videos. One of me feeding Mr Miyagi the first day I got him and the second is Yoshi building the burrow while Mr. Miyagi stands guard but I guess the vids were over 6mb so couldnt post ???

[mbarton2010]

I loved my yasha/ pistol pair I had years ago

[Minmay]

15 minutes ago, Mkbarton said:

I loved my yasha/ pistol pair I had years ago

They are pretty cool and much better tank mate for Elvis. They dont bother each other. Im pretty suprised how big Mr. Miyagi's mouth opens. I think I even see fangs. He comes up right to the baster to eat. When I did my routine WC yesterday he wasnt even scared that my hand was in tank so im assuming he feels pretty safe

[Nixperience]

My fish aren't scared either. My clowns bite my hand all the time. So aggravating. 

[Clown79]

Sounds like a great journey, excluding toe injury.

 

I love the names! Mr. Miyagi!

 

My clowns are definitely not afraid, my girl bites me - gets annoying!

[Minmay]

8 hours ago, Nixperience said:

My fish aren't scared either. My clowns bite my hand all the time. So aggravating. 

Elvis hasnt bitten me "knock on wood" only thing that annoy me is Mr Big (cleaner shrimp) but he only annoys me when feeding time

[Minmay]

7 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Sounds like a great journey, excluding toe injury.

 

I love the names! Mr. Miyagi!

 

My clowns are definitely not afraid, my girl bites me - gets annoying!

Thank you. So far so good. Im enjoying this journey, minus the toe injury. Haha yeah I felt their names were appropriate and the more I look at Mr. Miyagi. The more he looks like him to me ???

[Minmay]

I've noticed since Prince has left, that Elvis now swims in one area of the tank. He swims by the return pump. Opposite of where Mr. Miyagi's/Yoshi's cave is. So, I guess Elvis was antagonizing Prince to act aggressive towards him. Dayum, fish can be mean like people lol. Elvis knows that they are there, he just doesmt care. How weird huh? Makes me wonder what he's thinking. Why he chose to bother Prince and not them. 

[Lula_Mae]

1 hour ago, Minmay said:

I've noticed since Prince has left, that Elvis now swims in one area of the tank. He swims by the return pump. Opposite of where Mr. Miyagi's/Yoshi's cave is. So, I guess Elvis was antagonizing Prince to act aggressive towards him. Dayum, fish can be mean like people lol. Elvis knows that they are there, he just doesmt care. How weird huh? Makes me wonder what he's thinking. Why he chose to bother Prince and not them. 

Guess Elvis has to be the boss!