Mooses
Active Member
Hi Everyone!
Been lurking around here for the past few weeks just “getting my feet wet” (sorry, had to :)).
Anyways, my wife, 9 month daughter, & I decided to take the plunge into saltwater. We bought & have had a small 25 gallon freshwater tank for probably a little over a year. Nothing spectacular, just some Cichlids. That was doing great, & we wanted to get a little further into the hobby, so we decided to try & aquascape the 25 gallon tank a few weeks after we got it. Well, the Cichlids had other ideas for how they wanted their tank. Everything we planted was uprooted & shredded. So we just removed everything we planted & let it be as it was for several more months.
Having really enjoyed the 25 gallon, I wanted to get a “large” tank for the living room. As such, I kept an eye on what was for sale in our area for several months. Eventually I found a 150 gallon Oceanic with the original stand that was in pretty good condition. It came with 2 sumps, a few old heaters, & some old cheap Marineland LED light bars.
So me being kind of a “maker”, I figured while it was empty, I’d go ahead and refinish the stand. All I really did was sand it down to remove the original finish, put some boiled linseed oil on, polyurethaned it & called it a day.
Anyways, got it moved in, plumbed up, filled with RODI, & got it cycling for a few weeks. We just added 2 weeks ago from LA:
-40lbs of dragon rock
-2 black photon clownfish
-1 lawnmower blenny
We also ordered & are due to arrive tomorrow:
-1 pincushion urchin
-2 scarlet skunk shrimp
This past weekend we picked up a Zoa colony, as well as a GSP live rock from the LFS. I dipped everyone in CoralRX prior to adding to the tank; still managed to pick up a few HH though. Somehow the critters below managed to survive the dip:
-1 small serpent starfish
-1 bristleworm
-1 Asternia (so far that is; plucking them as I see them)
Sooo.. lesson learned; & hopefully that is the end of the HHs. I will be getting a QT this weekend & setting it up with the extra sump for any & everything I get from now on.
Anyways, that is where we are at right now. Looking forward to getting to know everyone & seeing everyone else’s builds.
—Moose
Been lurking around here for the past few weeks just “getting my feet wet” (sorry, had to :)).
Anyways, my wife, 9 month daughter, & I decided to take the plunge into saltwater. We bought & have had a small 25 gallon freshwater tank for probably a little over a year. Nothing spectacular, just some Cichlids. That was doing great, & we wanted to get a little further into the hobby, so we decided to try & aquascape the 25 gallon tank a few weeks after we got it. Well, the Cichlids had other ideas for how they wanted their tank. Everything we planted was uprooted & shredded. So we just removed everything we planted & let it be as it was for several more months.
Having really enjoyed the 25 gallon, I wanted to get a “large” tank for the living room. As such, I kept an eye on what was for sale in our area for several months. Eventually I found a 150 gallon Oceanic with the original stand that was in pretty good condition. It came with 2 sumps, a few old heaters, & some old cheap Marineland LED light bars.
So me being kind of a “maker”, I figured while it was empty, I’d go ahead and refinish the stand. All I really did was sand it down to remove the original finish, put some boiled linseed oil on, polyurethaned it & called it a day.
Anyways, got it moved in, plumbed up, filled with RODI, & got it cycling for a few weeks. We just added 2 weeks ago from LA:
-40lbs of dragon rock
-2 black photon clownfish
-1 lawnmower blenny
We also ordered & are due to arrive tomorrow:
-1 pincushion urchin
-2 scarlet skunk shrimp
This past weekend we picked up a Zoa colony, as well as a GSP live rock from the LFS. I dipped everyone in CoralRX prior to adding to the tank; still managed to pick up a few HH though. Somehow the critters below managed to survive the dip:
-1 small serpent starfish
-1 bristleworm
-1 Asternia (so far that is; plucking them as I see them)
Sooo.. lesson learned; & hopefully that is the end of the HHs. I will be getting a QT this weekend & setting it up with the extra sump for any & everything I get from now on.
Anyways, that is where we are at right now. Looking forward to getting to know everyone & seeing everyone else’s builds.
—Moose
