Good Afternoon All,
My wife and I bought a cube on July 5th 2008 and have ventured into the hobby. 10 years ago I had an 80 gallon Hex tank that I had a great deal of success with and I have wanted to get back into the hobby. We took our pastor and his wife to an Aquarium store near us because he has a 75 gallon tank. We found a cube for half off and we just couldn't resist.
It seems like there have been a great deal of advances in the industry since I was involved in it years ago so I'm very excited to share the hobby with my wife. We purchased live sand and made our way home eager to get everything running. Our first bump in the road was when we realized that they left out the salt which was on the counter and never purchased. ARG! The next day we traveled back over to Knoxville and looked at another store and found a very nice man that helped us with rock purchase and salt. We like the first store for the choices but we have found that the smaller store gives us a lot more information and is more personal with information. So we bought 26lbs of Figi Live rock only 3 pieces. One was very nice with a lot of present Coraline growth. The other two pieces were not as nice but worked for the vision I had for the aqua-scape.
No problems with the initial set up and the Aqua-scape looked great. I really didn't take any beginning pictures and now i regret it after looking at all the ones on this site. The progress from the 7th to the 15th was great with a lot of things coming out of the sand and rock right away. To my surprise I got a very fast diatom bloom. I wasn't expecting it to be that fast. I did nothing to the tank at all except watch it every night. We really thought we had some great luck when we found a snail trekking across our rock and at the time we didn't know what a glass anemone was. During the last part of the first week I started to look at different forums and found that it was something that we didn't want in our tank. On the 15th I went to a local store that wasn't as far to drive and picked up a Blue Leg Hermit Crab, Peppermint shrimp, Emerald Crab, and some purple up. I also bought 9 more pounds of LR that completed my vision for the aqua-scape it was the final two pieces. After adding them to the tank the Hermit hid for a few days but the Emerald Crab who my wife named Mighty Joe went right to work with the Shrimp she named Peppi because he sways back and forth.
By the 17th I had a lot of diatom bloom and the pods were everywhere having a blast running in and out of holes in the rocks. We were going to be in Knoxville so I bottled up two containers of water with the plan to take them to each of the stores and see who would be the best at helping us. The first place we went pretty much told us that we needed to do a 5 gal water change and everything else was spot on great. They also said I should raise the salinity. No charge for the water test either. The second store which was the nicer of the two with less personal attention charged us 3 bucks for the test, and didn't give any advice. I didn't press them for information at either. I bought a Rio 600 pump and a Saltwater Master Test kit and home we went. Installed the pump and changed the water.
I tested the water the next 3 days and found each test spot on where they should be. Over the next 3 days more bloom with green hair and brown.
On July 20th we went from church and trek-ed to the stores in Knoxville. Its always rush rush rush because they close so early making it hard to get there in any amount of time. We were going with the intention of buying a Koralia pump that I have noticed a lot of you putting in your tanks. We ended up with a Koralia 2, 5 Turbo Snails, a pair of rare black Ocellaris Clowns and some kikari mysis shrimp for them to eat. I was a little apprehensive in buying the pair but I had seen them in the store every time we visited and our friend there assured me they were a very hardy fish and we could handle it. I inquired about mushrooms and he suggested to try one for 10 bucks first so it wouldn't be a great loss if something went wrong. The clowns were 59.00 a piece!, but after we left and went over to the bigger store I saw one that was 99.00 so I felt very good about buying them. I purchased a Refractometer and a Red leg Hermit Crab and an Arrow Crab and off to the house we went. Every thing went very good with the process. I ended up moving the Mushroom once because It just didn't want to stay where I put it. One of the clowns jumped into the pump chamber but it came as no shock because I had read that would most likely happen. That problem has been resolved with gutter guard from Lowe's from a tip on one of the boards.
This brings us close to where we are in the tank process. We found out my wife is going to have our first child after 5 years of marriage and have purchased a video camera. Ive been using it on the tank to practice but I don't know a thing about putting pictures or video on forums yet. I do want to be able to though. (help please. ) Everything has been doing very good for the past week and all water test have remained perfect.
July 26, 2008 we went over to check out the reef store and our buddy was there we got there 15 min before closing and he was leaving to buy something but told us to go in and he would be back. He said we will be closed by the time I get back but we are open for you now!! What service. We looked around and talked to them about the second chamber in our bio-cube. They have a tank set up in their store that has two in tank pumps and a skimmer on the back. That's it! It is very healthy and they have convinced me that the second chamber does not need anything but a skimmer on it. No Bio balls or LR. I ask about the LR and pretty much it becomes a trap for Nitrate eventually. Our purchase yesterday was a Rio nano skimmer, yellow watchman, pistol shrimp, a red mushroom frag (10 bucks), a frag of Zoanthus Polyps, and some Kent Zooplex. Our friend that we have now found is the owner of the store really wants us to be sucessful in our tank. We were asking about a particular coral and he said I don't want to see you put that in your tank for at least 6 months, so I feel good about his advice. On a personal note I think I may have jumped the gun on the Yellow Watchman/shrimp but time will tell. He ate that evening and did yesterday as well. I'm pretty happy with the results so far. The first mushroom looked bad, but after feeding the Zoanthus Polyps and new mushroom with the Zooplex from the dropper it has really come alive. I haven't put the skimmer on yet but I plan to today when I get home from work. The owner said if I would mark the back of the hood, he would be happy to cut it for me.
That's pretty much where we are right now. I have started taking picture because I know how many picture addicts there are that troll the forums and a picture is worth 1000 words. Once I learn how to post them I will get you caught up on the progress visually.
That's currently where we are on our little piece of heaven. I hope to start a thread soon. I would appreciate all comment's. Our email address is
daniel.sandlin at yahoo dot com. Please feel free to give us a message.
