Hi all, first off thank you for your interest! I've been thinking about doing this for a long time, but just now found the right free time and motivation to start this thread, I think it will be interesting to document every change in my tank and share it with any who are interested. Feedback/criticism is encouraged, as always
When I got my first saltwater tank it was a bowfront 20-ish gallon tank. I put a porcupine puffer in there. He wasn't happy, I wasn't happy (bowfront on a small tank...can't see much.) so I took the plunge and upgraded to 75g. The puffer didn't last forever, but I'm happy that my tank is. Here's my journey, when I knew nothing about corals and only cared about those exotic fish.
The beginning of something expensive
Stocked up with some live rock, fake rock, fake corals, and some fish. You could tell I liked coral at this stage already, even if it wasn't real yet. Some of it looks pretty cool actually, but they lose color and fade very quickly.
I went hardcore into getting artifical coral, even making my own structures. I think the tank looks pretty sick at this point honestly, but the maintenance and life of the fake coral was pretty terrible. Who would have guessed, my live coral lives longer than artificial coral. It turned brown very quickly, I always had to take all of it out to clean, and all of it eventually just faded. It was awesome while it lasted though, I felt like I was on that 'Tanked' TV show while making it.
There we go, that's more like it. Ditched the fake stuff, and got the real stuff. Now I'm beginning to learn what true addiction is.
Boom, much better lighting. This picture doesn't even do it justice with how much better this lighting looks in person compared to what I used to have! In fact, none of my pictures do any of it justice because I'm only taking these pictures with an iPhone
Latest FTS (updated 10/12/15):
Stock:
yellow flanked fairy wrasse
some sort of pencil wrasse
coris Wrasse
lubbocks fairy wrasse
snowflake eel
mandarin dragonet
zebra barred darfish (pairs with the scissor tail, they are always together..pretty cool)
tailspot blenny
PJ cardinal
flame cardinal
flame hawkfish
royal gramma
2x platinum clownfish
Various CUC
When I got my first saltwater tank it was a bowfront 20-ish gallon tank. I put a porcupine puffer in there. He wasn't happy, I wasn't happy (bowfront on a small tank...can't see much.) so I took the plunge and upgraded to 75g. The puffer didn't last forever, but I'm happy that my tank is. Here's my journey, when I knew nothing about corals and only cared about those exotic fish.
The beginning of something expensive
Stocked up with some live rock, fake rock, fake corals, and some fish. You could tell I liked coral at this stage already, even if it wasn't real yet. Some of it looks pretty cool actually, but they lose color and fade very quickly.
I went hardcore into getting artifical coral, even making my own structures. I think the tank looks pretty sick at this point honestly, but the maintenance and life of the fake coral was pretty terrible. Who would have guessed, my live coral lives longer than artificial coral. It turned brown very quickly, I always had to take all of it out to clean, and all of it eventually just faded. It was awesome while it lasted though, I felt like I was on that 'Tanked' TV show while making it.
There we go, that's more like it. Ditched the fake stuff, and got the real stuff. Now I'm beginning to learn what true addiction is.
Boom, much better lighting. This picture doesn't even do it justice with how much better this lighting looks in person compared to what I used to have! In fact, none of my pictures do any of it justice because I'm only taking these pictures with an iPhone
Latest FTS (updated 10/12/15):
Stock:
yellow flanked fairy wrasse
some sort of pencil wrasse
coris Wrasse
lubbocks fairy wrasse
snowflake eel
mandarin dragonet
zebra barred darfish (pairs with the scissor tail, they are always together..pretty cool)
tailspot blenny
PJ cardinal
flame cardinal
flame hawkfish
royal gramma
2x platinum clownfish
Various CUC
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