LynnEdwards

We started with just the 3 pepperments (as part of the cleaning crew) then added the clowns and a kenya tree...then added the pulsing xenia and the shrimps (we decided we love watching the shrimp)...then a few weeks later we added the 2 tangs and the candy cane. We bought them young (the tangs) so they are little right now. We knew we liked salt water, we didn't realize how much we'd all like it. We have moved our couch around so it's facing the tank - we sit and watch the tank for hours. We don't have a TV in our living room....we have a fish tank we watch. I don't think this is too bad for a 75 gallon but yeah we don't have much room for anything else. We still want an anemone and a mandarin fish. Basically what has been happening is every 2 weeks when my father in law comes over he decides he wants to add something - he sits and watches it for hours and falls asleep watching it as well. As for a bigger tank....yeah I don't know - I have no idea how we'd move stuff from one tank to another. I'd like a tank that was drilled though instead of the acrylic overflow we have.

it does fit snugly on the 50" side, it hangs over on the back to help hide the overflow and wires, im sure it could be trimed if so desired. it is still available. But what kind of lights are on it?

I guess we will see!

are they good or bad?

We would like a set for our tank - thx

I'm clearly very new to this - but I was reading this article this morning regarding mangroves and thought I would share: http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/nitratecontrol/a/aa051398.htm All my newbie books say when nitrates go up, I need to do a partial water change. I will do it again today but I'd like to someday have a better 'ecosystem' going.

Here are some pics now that we've put the new rocks in - Thanks Mike!

I pulled the shroom rock out and tried to break it - my husband did actually. And as he was hammering the rock with the scrwdriver....he missed and hit my poor mushroom I am distraught - no mushroom Rock is out though.

OOOOH, so pretty! How big is it and when can I come get it!!! I need a big one to finish my rocks up. Thanks for the good word Robb - you know I'm trying to keep my live rock super healthy here

PM'd you I need a few more pieces - depending on what you have!

Lol - all right - I feel better! As we are watching him here he seems to be trying to relocate - weirdest thing, I didn't know they moved.

This is the coral that came with one of the rocks - Does it look okay? We thought it was looking okay but it released some kind of 'slime/goo' there and from what I've read, that's a bad thing.

We bought that rock with a mushroom coral on it - the mushroom coral is doing really well - so we didn't want to move it. It also has a mollusk or something on the bottom of it as well.

The RCA people didn't say I could have shrimp - just snails and hermits. They wanted me to wait too - that was me being bad. And yes we have Aiptisia on one of our rocks - http://aiptasia.ca/ Was hoping the shrimpies would eat them and it wouldn't be a problem.

I'm waiting until saturday to get Roberto I'm not going to get any more hermits since it sounds like they eat corals. I really want to get a rose anemone - but I'm still not certain which clowns they will work with. Plus the chapter on anemones in the book make them sound very difficult to keep alive. I'm thinking I want to get a serpent star, a tiger conch, more little snails and then try mr. peppermints again for my cleaning crew saturday. I tested again this morning btw - still 0 on ammonia and nitrites but trace on nitrates. I'm assuming that's because I don't have my protein skimmer running yet.

Yeah - in terms of reading I'm doing lots of that (Page 130 of the reef tank owners manual today) *sigh* the shrimp I got were to get the...pollops? off of one of the rocks I have. The peeps at RCA said that it was bad and would spread and the peppermint shrimp would eat it. So - one of the things I had read was the acclimation piece - on http://saltaquarium.about.com they talk about it. I was planning on doing that with my snails - logan (from RCA) said with my water test I could have 10 snails and 10 crabs so I could have something in there to look at (they all took off and hid except for one guy who looks like he is trying to jump ship) - Anyways they said I didn't need to acclimate the snails or the red leg cortez guys, I could just dump them in. So to make a long story short (very short for mr. pepperment) I thought that since the shrimp dudes werent fish I could just dump them in as well. I DID let them float to get used to the temperature - but yeah dumped them in and one shrimpy died in like 20 minutes, the other in a few hours.

Why is tropic marin better than instant ocean?

Just picked up salt at the RCA holiday sale I really wish I hadn't decided to finally set up my tank a week after their sale! Seriously though, the guys at RCA have been super great -- I've bought all my water from them so far. Does anyone know the difference between the 1 dollar water and the 1.50 water though?

lol - Guess I better ask for the refractometer I just wanted to get a base line for everything - I actually get a huge kick out of the chemistry involved in this more than you would imagine. I did have a tiny bit of ammonia register this morning, but added another 20 gallons of water to top off my tank and the guys at RCA said that was just like doing a water change - then tested it all tonight and came up negative. I want to get my cleaner shrimps Friday if my levels stay good (Roberto the banded Bandito needs to come live in my tank!)

Ammonia - 0 ppm; nitrate 0 ppm; PH 8.4; Calcium 540 ppm; Salinity; 1.023 (this seems low?) Alkalinity 196.9 ppm KH/11 dKH; 0 nitrates, low phosphates.

Thanks for the tip! We'll look into the RODI system - my husband is a handyman - he's building a custom sump for the thing today We moved the rocks around and are going to get more salt water. I bought a tester yesterday but it's a 'reef tester' and I couldn't test for ammonia this morning! I'm just taking a sample to RCA this morning since we need more water as well anyways. As for the lifestock - we're not doing fish for quite a while - but one of the rocks we bought has a coral on it so...we're going to try to keep it alive. Thanks guys!

Here are some pics of my tank now - day 1 Clearly I need more water and I think probably another 50 lbs of rocks.

Just FYI - thanks to everyone who was so helpful the last 24 hours. The bulb stopped blinking after being left on for about 20 minutes. I guess they just needed to warm up.

So - what started out great ended not so well The lights I bought worked when I was there - we unplugged them and got them home. Now one of the circuits the lights are constantly blinking. Any ideas what I can do? It is an Odyssea light, 48 inches long - has 6 bulbs, says 260 watt dual strip.

thanks - the sump is all I was interested in.