KyRo
Active Member
I have posted a bit about my disaster tank in other threads, but why not also make a full build thread here?!
Flashback to Christmas time 2019. I'm not a kid anymore, but my mom asks what I'd like for Christmas. I say I might start a saltwater tank, so literally anything for one. I told her to ask my uncle what he would recommend and I tell her not to spend much money. I was mostly looking for small start up products.
I get a text with this picture... "Your uncle says you can have it if you can clean it out". Now mind you, I remember this tank being gorgeous, but he really let it go.
I did not judge. My uncle has had a lot going on the last few years and had some tough times. I was just excited to get started on cleaning it. I literally had to beg him to clear up some time for me to come do it. It took longer than I'd like to admit to get this into my car. I drive Chevy Cruze and I think we deserve a medal for getting everything into my car.
Let me tell you though, it was a mess and much harder than I thought. The amount of scraping I had to do to get this thing looking like a tank again took me from 10am to 2am that night. I was working so hard I forgot to eat.
The nightmare tank got a bit worse. I cleaned most of the tank that night and ended up ditching a lot of the crud into the bathtub to clean most of the equipment off. Good idea? I mean... the tank started to look nice....
I was so stoked, BUT I woke up the next morning to go to work and as soon as I stepped into the bathroom my foot was fully submerged in freezing cold water.
I believe I somehow plugged up the drains in my apartment building, which is really dumb on my part. The water was everywhere and even got into the building hallway.
To put it lightly, I freaked out. I had to call off work and get this cleaned up because the water was not stopping. My landlord is very nice and helped me get it straightened out, so that was a huge relief.
Now to New Years Eve. I did the last finishing touches on the cleaning and was able to finally put in the sand and rocks. I was so into the set up that I missed the ball drop. I heard my sisters in the living room counting down and kept on working lol. I had taken it fully apart to clean and forgot how to put it back together... so yeah that was a complete frustrating mess on my part. It took a couple days to get everything situated after that.
This was my first tank shot with my 2 clowns, a little piece of GSP and a little hammer coral. I do admit, I added the fish and corals way too fast. I'm glad nothing went bad off the start, but I still regret doing it this way. I got rid of the Red Sea lid and lights for an AI Prime. I loved the look of the LEDs for sure.
This was my little attempt at starting a Zoa garden
My tank was going great for about 3-4 months. COVID hit and life happened, so I lost track of my tank to be honest. I had 3 hammers in my tank that all didn't make it and had some pretty annoying algae. I had stopped doing water changes and was even getting lazy on my top off water adding. My fish were still doing great though! I contemplated selling or giving the tank away since I did not think it was for me if I could just let this happen. Again, I was lazy and didn't want to move it to my storage unit so I just let it go for another couple weeks.
I got sick of looking at the hard work I just let go, so I decided to get my butt in gear and turn it around. I got a whole bunch of RODI water for water changes, got rid of the heaps of bubble algae I had, and cleaned a bit. Over the past few months, I have gotten my tank back to how I wanted it from the beginning. I keep up with my water changes and won't let it go bad out of laziness again.
These are pics from my tank this past week. I have the 2 clowns, a sapphire damsel, 2 green chromis, a yellow watchman goby and a pistol shrimp. All are doing wonderful. The zoas never died and actually grew quite a bit during the worst times, so I'm thankful for that! And of course my GSP didn't care about any of it and is as big as ever lol
My resilient Zoa Garden
I wanted some more hammers/frogspawn so I could redeem myself with them. So far I have 4 that are doing great. The neon frogspawn I have had for 2 months and is my favorite
This is just my little Duncan that I like
This tank has had its ups and downs for sure, which is why I think I like it so much. I could have done without the flood.... but I'll take the rest as a learning experience. I hope to keep updating this thread as I go. I am really looking forward to my Zoa Garden really coming together. I know the journey isn't all going to be good from here and I will run into issues as everyone does, but I feel like I am at least a bit more knowledgeable and can deal with anything that is thrown at me.
That was long winded, but thanks for anyone who took the time to read! I appreciate it.
Flashback to Christmas time 2019. I'm not a kid anymore, but my mom asks what I'd like for Christmas. I say I might start a saltwater tank, so literally anything for one. I told her to ask my uncle what he would recommend and I tell her not to spend much money. I was mostly looking for small start up products.
I get a text with this picture... "Your uncle says you can have it if you can clean it out". Now mind you, I remember this tank being gorgeous, but he really let it go.
I did not judge. My uncle has had a lot going on the last few years and had some tough times. I was just excited to get started on cleaning it. I literally had to beg him to clear up some time for me to come do it. It took longer than I'd like to admit to get this into my car. I drive Chevy Cruze and I think we deserve a medal for getting everything into my car.
Let me tell you though, it was a mess and much harder than I thought. The amount of scraping I had to do to get this thing looking like a tank again took me from 10am to 2am that night. I was working so hard I forgot to eat.
The nightmare tank got a bit worse. I cleaned most of the tank that night and ended up ditching a lot of the crud into the bathtub to clean most of the equipment off. Good idea? I mean... the tank started to look nice....
I was so stoked, BUT I woke up the next morning to go to work and as soon as I stepped into the bathroom my foot was fully submerged in freezing cold water.
I believe I somehow plugged up the drains in my apartment building, which is really dumb on my part. The water was everywhere and even got into the building hallway.
To put it lightly, I freaked out. I had to call off work and get this cleaned up because the water was not stopping. My landlord is very nice and helped me get it straightened out, so that was a huge relief.
Now to New Years Eve. I did the last finishing touches on the cleaning and was able to finally put in the sand and rocks. I was so into the set up that I missed the ball drop. I heard my sisters in the living room counting down and kept on working lol. I had taken it fully apart to clean and forgot how to put it back together... so yeah that was a complete frustrating mess on my part. It took a couple days to get everything situated after that.
This was my first tank shot with my 2 clowns, a little piece of GSP and a little hammer coral. I do admit, I added the fish and corals way too fast. I'm glad nothing went bad off the start, but I still regret doing it this way. I got rid of the Red Sea lid and lights for an AI Prime. I loved the look of the LEDs for sure.
This was my little attempt at starting a Zoa garden
My tank was going great for about 3-4 months. COVID hit and life happened, so I lost track of my tank to be honest. I had 3 hammers in my tank that all didn't make it and had some pretty annoying algae. I had stopped doing water changes and was even getting lazy on my top off water adding. My fish were still doing great though! I contemplated selling or giving the tank away since I did not think it was for me if I could just let this happen. Again, I was lazy and didn't want to move it to my storage unit so I just let it go for another couple weeks.
I got sick of looking at the hard work I just let go, so I decided to get my butt in gear and turn it around. I got a whole bunch of RODI water for water changes, got rid of the heaps of bubble algae I had, and cleaned a bit. Over the past few months, I have gotten my tank back to how I wanted it from the beginning. I keep up with my water changes and won't let it go bad out of laziness again.
These are pics from my tank this past week. I have the 2 clowns, a sapphire damsel, 2 green chromis, a yellow watchman goby and a pistol shrimp. All are doing wonderful. The zoas never died and actually grew quite a bit during the worst times, so I'm thankful for that! And of course my GSP didn't care about any of it and is as big as ever lol
My resilient Zoa Garden
I wanted some more hammers/frogspawn so I could redeem myself with them. So far I have 4 that are doing great. The neon frogspawn I have had for 2 months and is my favorite
This is just my little Duncan that I like
This tank has had its ups and downs for sure, which is why I think I like it so much. I could have done without the flood.... but I'll take the rest as a learning experience. I hope to keep updating this thread as I go. I am really looking forward to my Zoa Garden really coming together. I know the journey isn't all going to be good from here and I will run into issues as everyone does, but I feel like I am at least a bit more knowledgeable and can deal with anything that is thrown at me.
That was long winded, but thanks for anyone who took the time to read! I appreciate it.
