belanger
New Member
Greetings,
Long time lurker. Finally getting going again with a nano tank, so I decided to join.
I started so many moons ago when I found an abandoned 35G tank in my fraternity. I started up with freshwater, but unfortunately for my wallet the LFS had a small saltwater room, where I spent most of my time when there. I bought and read the "Marine Aquarium Handbook," by Martin Moe and was off. Next I sold all my freshwater fish back to the LFS for a small credit, threw away the undergravel filter I was using and bought a hangoff the back filter with a tiny(!) rectangular protein skimmer. Bags of Instant Ocean and bottles of Chemipure were next.
Instead of starting small and learning the hobby, I went full-bore and bought live rock, a couple of Chromis Damsels, a leather coral, a clean shrimp, a bubble-tip anemone, a clown fish, a Flame Angel. Granted these animals were added over the span of a couple of months and it worked! No brown or hair algae; no diseases or deaths. The anemone even settled in the middle of the tank! That tank ran problem free until I had to break it down and sell back the animals 9 months later at the end of the school year.
I know that I lucked out and it's probably for the best that I did, as I'm not sure that I would have stuck with the hobby had I not experienced such success. Lord knows, filled with unearned confidence I would later experience all the standard problems and more in subsequent tanks, but I always remembered how great that first one was, which kept me going.
After leaving school, work and later family took priority and I put my equipment away. <<sad face>>
Not too long ago, I stumbled into an amazing freshwater shop that exclusively sold Aqua Design Amano (ADA) products and was stunned by the clarity of the low iron glass tanks. I purchased a small ~5G aquarium to use as a nano-reef tank. A few weeks ago I purchased a Fiji-12 reef sump to increase the total water volume in my nano. Now it's time to fill out the rest of the equipment like heaters, powerheads and the rest. This hobby always moves, so I'm sure I have a lot of new techniques to learn and I hope this forum will help me do that.
-MB
Long time lurker. Finally getting going again with a nano tank, so I decided to join.
I started so many moons ago when I found an abandoned 35G tank in my fraternity. I started up with freshwater, but unfortunately for my wallet the LFS had a small saltwater room, where I spent most of my time when there. I bought and read the "Marine Aquarium Handbook," by Martin Moe and was off. Next I sold all my freshwater fish back to the LFS for a small credit, threw away the undergravel filter I was using and bought a hangoff the back filter with a tiny(!) rectangular protein skimmer. Bags of Instant Ocean and bottles of Chemipure were next.
Instead of starting small and learning the hobby, I went full-bore and bought live rock, a couple of Chromis Damsels, a leather coral, a clean shrimp, a bubble-tip anemone, a clown fish, a Flame Angel. Granted these animals were added over the span of a couple of months and it worked! No brown or hair algae; no diseases or deaths. The anemone even settled in the middle of the tank! That tank ran problem free until I had to break it down and sell back the animals 9 months later at the end of the school year.
I know that I lucked out and it's probably for the best that I did, as I'm not sure that I would have stuck with the hobby had I not experienced such success. Lord knows, filled with unearned confidence I would later experience all the standard problems and more in subsequent tanks, but I always remembered how great that first one was, which kept me going.
After leaving school, work and later family took priority and I put my equipment away. <<sad face>>
Not too long ago, I stumbled into an amazing freshwater shop that exclusively sold Aqua Design Amano (ADA) products and was stunned by the clarity of the low iron glass tanks. I purchased a small ~5G aquarium to use as a nano-reef tank. A few weeks ago I purchased a Fiji-12 reef sump to increase the total water volume in my nano. Now it's time to fill out the rest of the equipment like heaters, powerheads and the rest. This hobby always moves, so I'm sure I have a lot of new techniques to learn and I hope this forum will help me do that.
-MB
