Cat's Healing Gift

[caitrina]

If you read the previous portion you are aware that a motorcycle accident is what led to the purchase of a AGA 65 gallon saltwater tank. When my husband and I were able to walk without the aid of wheelchairs, crutches, braces, canes and all that stuff I decided I wanted a fish tank. I had asked him for a simple little fresh water 10 gallon tank to put some guppies in so I could watch them and help take my mind off the constant pain. He looked at me and said Cat, isn’t that kind of small? I said no, I just want something little, again he pressed and said, why don’t you get something bigger if you want a fish tank. Well, I said to be honest, what I really want is a salt water tank, but I never had one, I only know about fresh water and I would be afraid I would kill everything, neither one of us are chemists and there’s a lot to learn ……well he said let’s go look and see, if you want SW that is what we will get, besides I would like it too. So off we go, we went to the one place I thought would be helpful, but came home feeling discouraged after being treated like a pair of worthless idiots. That night he called his nephew and asked him about places because his nephew has a 90 gallon SW, (which he just recently gave to me). The next day we got up and went to another LFS and fell in love with a bow front but it wasn’t pre-drilled and heard horror stories about drilling them. So our search continued, the next day another LFS. For several weeks this was our daily ritual and I was only physically able to go to one place a day. We hit all the places we knew and most more than once. Finally we spotted a AGA 65 gallon that we both liked. Every time we left a LFS we would talk about this tank and would go back and look at it again. Finally we decided to get it and we went back and measured and I said, nah, maybe not, we went home measured and agreed we should have gotten it. Next day back to the LFS and bought everything we needed. The guy laughed at us because we had been in there about 5 times looking at this tank after giving up on the bow front. He laughed even more when he took it out to the car and saw a convertible there. Not a problem for us, top down, tank stand in, tank beside it, sand, sump, lights, fish food, and pumps. Jump in car, look at the Florida sky and take off down the road feeling little drops of rain, trying to beat the big drops home, but I remember how I felt, I remember being excited, and thinking that this was fun, this was the first time since the accident that I felt we were beginning to feel normal, happy and thankful we were alive, hair blowing in the wind and a new adventure and journey to share together as we laughed and hurried home to start this whole SW learning process. I wish I had a picture of that, but this is the picture of my husband with instructions in hand for the sump and the first picture of the tank that day which was 4/29/06.

IMG]http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff314/caitrinia2000/catandmedicsadventure1.jpg[/IMG]

[caitrina]

[Mermaid]

Hi,

I love your name! I had a beautiful baby, my first, and I gave her your name (only spelled a little different) I could only hope that she would have grown up as beautiful as you. She only lived a few hours and I had wanted her for a while. However my life has been full with three wonderful girls that come just a little later. Time is your friend. All of these good people are there for you.


Mermaid

[GeeWizzItsMe]

Can't wait for more pics!

[sasquatch]

Checking in on the walkathon, take your time Cat, we'll be here.Steve

[caitrina]

Just want to say thanks to everyone who has posted replys so far, if I don't individually thank you it is simply because at some point this portion of the thread will end and I will address everyone at that time. So let us walk on...

[caitrina]

Well the last pictures got out of order but you got the idea anyway, Ok, here we are tank is set up, but empty because we were exhausted from the whole process so water was for the next day. The rest of the night I made cracks about how pretty the fish looked and how all the fish disappeared because (du du du du) Jaws made his way into our tank, ate everyone and washed them down with the water.

The next day we got up and began the whole process. We had bought salt and the guy told us we could use our tap water to mix the salt and sold us a chemical to put in to dechlorinate, dechloramine, de-ammonia(lol), detoxify ammonia, nitrite and nitrates and provide slime coat and a phosphate pad to be placed in the filter area of the sump. That being done, next came the sand, one 30 lb bag (I think) was plain normal fine sand, the other bag was live sand. We rinsed the normal sand like we were told, but not the live sand and into the tank it went…OH MY, we thought we were never going to see clear water again and of course this left things wide open for me to make those off-handed wise cracks while I sat looking in the twirling whirls of sand. A few lbs of live rock went in and guess what?(I dislike myself for this, but was ignorant) Later that day a couple of poor little green chromis. I couldn’t even see the poor things and I asked my husband, how can that be good for them, all that sand swirling every where and of course his remark was “ I don’t know Cat , but I guess the guy knows what he is doing.” So the little green chromis swam in the murky water and at one point I said do you think we should turn the pumps off so maybe the sand can settle and they can at least breathe and maybe even see to eat? He said hmmm, maybe that’s a good idea so off went the pumps and then a little while later we both kind of said , ya know we have fish in there some where, how are they going to live, so back on came the pumps, Boy, were we stupid or what? By the way, I still have those same green chromis which you will see later down the road.
This picture is on the 1st of May, days after and this was when it was beginning to actually clear a little.

[Dentoid]

This just keeps getting more endearing!

[caitrina]

Regardless I still sat by my tank and watched every little grain of sand swirl by, hoping that my husband didn’t just dump a bunch of money into something that was going to look like a constant wet sand storm. Every once in awhile I would leave my post by the tank and meander to the yard or another room and I would return to see Jack looking at the tank and he would say it will be ok Cat, don’t worry you will have a really nice tank. I would smile while still thinking…poor guy is probably thinking , man all that money down the tubes. Well the day did not leave much for clearing but the next day my husband woke me up, whispering in my ear....get up sleepy head, I got something to show you...I drug myself out of bed and well this is what I saw... I continued to take pictures as the day progressed and look you can actually see the back wall and the little green chromis who were given the names Curly, Moe and I can't think of the other stooges name, but that one. He died a few months after Jack did anyway. Larry, right?







After this miraculous day I was beginning to feel better about the whole thing and this whole tank was quickly becoming our source of stress relief, pain relief and just a reason for me to get out of the house. Remember I am still barely able to dress myself or do much of anything but sit and watch all that went on so I would spot every little thing that would move in that tank. This next pic is of the following day of the three stooges.

[Dentoid]

It's Alive!

[caitrina]

[Techno-Vicki]

I'm walking with you too. Thank you for sharing this journey; it helps us all remember how precious every day is, and how amzing life is - especially the diversity under the sea. ON with the walk...........................................

[AQTCJAK]

I have someone who's hand I can hold now

[bluespotjawfish]

Let's continue on our walk 'bout

[caitrina]

The tank continued to improve and each day we would hit an LFS to have water tested and look at things we wanted. We finally had gotten some hermit crabs and some snails to go along with my 3 stooges and we would buy rock each time we would go into an LFS…another stupid move, but miraculously things survived. Since I am on that subject I will now tell anyone who is setting up a SW tank DO NOT do things this way, regardless of the success we had.

I think we just got lucky or maybe perhaps it was because we had been through so much and a higher power knew there was more to come so spared the tank losses.Who knows, but I do know that we did everything wrong although at the time we felt we were doing it right since we weren’t having any issues as algae outbreaks or losses. I did have one issue with the little plants in this picture and that was when they would touch the sand it would turn it green. Well those had to go because I wasn’t having green sand in my tank!



Somewhere through this time period to about the 20th I don’t have pictures which I think is because I was not able to take pictures by myself and so they were too blurred to see or too much movement that they were deleted. The pictures that are half way decent were taken by someone else or were taken when Jack would help me hold the camera still, push the button or something