Forklifthazzerd
New Member
Hi all, I am new here. But I have had this saltwater fish tank since 2004 . In December 2019 the last of my old fish Passed.
I left it set up and running not sure if I wanted to quit or restock. By March 2020 The Mrs. was getting a little sick of just looking at Nassarius noses.
So i cleaned the sand and sump to keep it from smelling and did a water change and afterwards I had that crystal clear water again.
This sparked a what to do next and started looking at the local fish stores. Mid April 2020 The Wife nicely asked " ARE YOU PUTTING FISH in THAT Tank SOMEDAY Soon?",
Now for years the Mrs. has tried to get me Interesting birthday gifts. On my birthday I got a call at Work about there is SOMETHING in the FISH TANK and come
straight home after work. I was thinking GREAT WHAT NOW as I drove home?? WAIT, In the tank??? (Hmm. Interesting). When I got home I found two fish in my tank, 1 Half and Half Chromis, 1 Davinci Clown, then in May 2020 on our anniversary I came home to find 1 Long Tentacle Anemone, and 1 Lantern Bass Fish.
Oh Crumb, an anemone, how do I take care of this? I know how to take care of fish but anemones....huh? So I did what everyone else would do, and I went on YouTube. On YouTube I found DANIEL NESTORIO How to keep anemones!
Okay this seems easy enough. Now I started to feed it krill with long handled tweezers. It was doing well for the first couple weeks as I noticed it anchored itself in the tank. But then it stopped eating and started moving around. I kept searching on YouTube for other ways I could feed it. Meanwhile another Half and Half Chromis appeared in my tank. Suddenly I am fighting a large hair algae bloom. And added three turbo snails and a handful of blue legged hermit crabs and more Nassarius snails along with a six line wrasse to get rid of the bristleworms. The turbo snails cleaned the algae bloom in under 3 weeks. But the anemone was not looking very healthy. I started checking my water quality and found it was okay but not great. I found RODI water was a thing. And started watching bulk reef supply videos How to and What not to do. I then found that my plastic Instant Ocean Hydrometer and my Coral Life Hydrometer were reading at completely different levels. I was mixing my saltwater wrong for 16 years!! I then got a Portable Refractometer.
Now the tank is looking and running nice, however my anemone died in the process. In 16 years I have made many mistakes but have been very lucky to have fish that have lived long healthy lives the longest being 12 years old. Thanks to YouTube and forums like this I am gaining an interest in coral.
Now starts the quest to keep my parameters good enough for corals.
Here are my tank specs:
65 Gallon Reef Ready Tank
25 Gallon Sump
25 Gallon Refugium
3 Cheap 25 in. LED light strips
Sh1-Skimz Skimmer
More to come as I upgrade my tank for coral.
Here are some pictures of my current set up. Oh yeah, and one picture of some of my hitchhikers
.
I left it set up and running not sure if I wanted to quit or restock. By March 2020 The Mrs. was getting a little sick of just looking at Nassarius noses.
So i cleaned the sand and sump to keep it from smelling and did a water change and afterwards I had that crystal clear water again.
This sparked a what to do next and started looking at the local fish stores. Mid April 2020 The Wife nicely asked " ARE YOU PUTTING FISH in THAT Tank SOMEDAY Soon?",
Now for years the Mrs. has tried to get me Interesting birthday gifts. On my birthday I got a call at Work about there is SOMETHING in the FISH TANK and come
straight home after work. I was thinking GREAT WHAT NOW as I drove home?? WAIT, In the tank??? (Hmm. Interesting). When I got home I found two fish in my tank, 1 Half and Half Chromis, 1 Davinci Clown, then in May 2020 on our anniversary I came home to find 1 Long Tentacle Anemone, and 1 Lantern Bass Fish.
Oh Crumb, an anemone, how do I take care of this? I know how to take care of fish but anemones....huh? So I did what everyone else would do, and I went on YouTube. On YouTube I found DANIEL NESTORIO How to keep anemones!
Okay this seems easy enough. Now I started to feed it krill with long handled tweezers. It was doing well for the first couple weeks as I noticed it anchored itself in the tank. But then it stopped eating and started moving around. I kept searching on YouTube for other ways I could feed it. Meanwhile another Half and Half Chromis appeared in my tank. Suddenly I am fighting a large hair algae bloom. And added three turbo snails and a handful of blue legged hermit crabs and more Nassarius snails along with a six line wrasse to get rid of the bristleworms. The turbo snails cleaned the algae bloom in under 3 weeks. But the anemone was not looking very healthy. I started checking my water quality and found it was okay but not great. I found RODI water was a thing. And started watching bulk reef supply videos How to and What not to do. I then found that my plastic Instant Ocean Hydrometer and my Coral Life Hydrometer were reading at completely different levels. I was mixing my saltwater wrong for 16 years!! I then got a Portable Refractometer.
Now the tank is looking and running nice, however my anemone died in the process. In 16 years I have made many mistakes but have been very lucky to have fish that have lived long healthy lives the longest being 12 years old. Thanks to YouTube and forums like this I am gaining an interest in coral.
Now starts the quest to keep my parameters good enough for corals.
Here are my tank specs:
65 Gallon Reef Ready Tank
25 Gallon Sump
25 Gallon Refugium
3 Cheap 25 in. LED light strips
Sh1-Skimz Skimmer
More to come as I upgrade my tank for coral.
Here are some pictures of my current set up. Oh yeah, and one picture of some of my hitchhikers
