Most up-to-date photo:
Welcome to my build thread Since my tank has been up for a while, I'm going to post a timeline of the history of my tank up until the present using various pictures that I've taken over the years.
I first started my saltwater journey by converting my freshwater standard 55 gallon to saltwater. I had no idea what I was doing, and it showed - I bought a Fluval canister filter, cheap lights, and HOB skimmer, and made a lot of poor stocking choices. I'll detail these choices and the issues I ran into below. Currently, I have a Red Sea Reefer 250 and I've learned a lot since I first started exploring the world of saltwater.
October 3rd, 2019
This is the earliest picture I have of my tank, immediately after my cycle finished, and I bought some clean-up crew, zoas, and GSP. I started the tank with about 75% live rock, and 25% Stax flat rocks, which I thought would be very convenient for placing frags on. The CUC at this point only consisted of a strawberry top snail (tectus conus) and a pencil urchin. Spoiler alert: none of these corals survived.
November 14, 2019
The live rock that I purchased had green coralline algae on it, so naturally, that was the first type of coralline that took over. It looks absolutely horrendous and even to this day I still have some green coralline where purple/pink hasn't grown yet. New additions include: x2 black ocellaris, a tiled starfish, a rainbow bubble tip, a feather duster, and some Halloween hermits.
December 2nd, 2019
When I worked at my LFS, my boss asked me several times if I was "sure" that I wanted to purchase the Australian sea apple he just had ordered in. I told him emphatically "yes". Despite how new my tank was, I was confident with the access to resources and information I had that I would be able to care for it. A friend at the time lovingly named it "Mr. Squonch".
March 13th, 2020
A new fish store had opened up near me, and the guy had way more connections than my boss at the LFS had, and was able to get in more obscure specimens. This is when I started burning money, as nothing that I purchased ended up living very long. I had heard about this thing called a "refugium" that people filled with something called "chaeto", and while I didn't have a refugium, I could purchase a HOB breeder box! Seen on the left with some limp, dead, sad-looking chaeto.
One thing about the new LFS that opened up was that the boss knew I was young and stupid and couldn't keep anything that he sold me alive. I feel bad for all of the fish and inverts that were lost due to my ignorance, and I should have known better than to trust the guy that was always trying to sell me something.
The killer arrow crab that decided to make many fish and inverts a delicious snack. Pictured here eating what's left of my coral banded shrimp.
My first go at keeping black storm clowns. They were cute and adorable and reminded me of little cows. They were very new at the time, but I really, really wanted them. I gave away my pair of black ocellaris and bought them from the shop I worked at - the first died within a day, rapidly breathing at the bottom. This one went similarly after a few weeks or a month. It might have had something to do with their gill deformities, or it could have been my parameters because I didn't test often at the time.
Too Much Live Rock! - Or, Watch an Idiot Slowly Learn What They're Doing
Welcome to my build thread Since my tank has been up for a while, I'm going to post a timeline of the history of my tank up until the present using various pictures that I've taken over the years.
I first started my saltwater journey by converting my freshwater standard 55 gallon to saltwater. I had no idea what I was doing, and it showed - I bought a Fluval canister filter, cheap lights, and HOB skimmer, and made a lot of poor stocking choices. I'll detail these choices and the issues I ran into below. Currently, I have a Red Sea Reefer 250 and I've learned a lot since I first started exploring the world of saltwater.
October 3rd, 2019
This is the earliest picture I have of my tank, immediately after my cycle finished, and I bought some clean-up crew, zoas, and GSP. I started the tank with about 75% live rock, and 25% Stax flat rocks, which I thought would be very convenient for placing frags on. The CUC at this point only consisted of a strawberry top snail (tectus conus) and a pencil urchin. Spoiler alert: none of these corals survived.
November 14, 2019
The live rock that I purchased had green coralline algae on it, so naturally, that was the first type of coralline that took over. It looks absolutely horrendous and even to this day I still have some green coralline where purple/pink hasn't grown yet. New additions include: x2 black ocellaris, a tiled starfish, a rainbow bubble tip, a feather duster, and some Halloween hermits.
December 2nd, 2019
When I worked at my LFS, my boss asked me several times if I was "sure" that I wanted to purchase the Australian sea apple he just had ordered in. I told him emphatically "yes". Despite how new my tank was, I was confident with the access to resources and information I had that I would be able to care for it. A friend at the time lovingly named it "Mr. Squonch".
March 13th, 2020
A new fish store had opened up near me, and the guy had way more connections than my boss at the LFS had, and was able to get in more obscure specimens. This is when I started burning money, as nothing that I purchased ended up living very long. I had heard about this thing called a "refugium" that people filled with something called "chaeto", and while I didn't have a refugium, I could purchase a HOB breeder box! Seen on the left with some limp, dead, sad-looking chaeto.
One thing about the new LFS that opened up was that the boss knew I was young and stupid and couldn't keep anything that he sold me alive. I feel bad for all of the fish and inverts that were lost due to my ignorance, and I should have known better than to trust the guy that was always trying to sell me something.
The killer arrow crab that decided to make many fish and inverts a delicious snack. Pictured here eating what's left of my coral banded shrimp.
My first go at keeping black storm clowns. They were cute and adorable and reminded me of little cows. They were very new at the time, but I really, really wanted them. I gave away my pair of black ocellaris and bought them from the shop I worked at - the first died within a day, rapidly breathing at the bottom. This one went similarly after a few weeks or a month. It might have had something to do with their gill deformities, or it could have been my parameters because I didn't test often at the time.
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