the salt life!

[acbaro]

First I'd like to introduce myself, my name is Anthony and my wife is Carly. We definitely want to give out a huge thanks to Gerwin for first giving us GREAT and very helpful information. Also for getting us hooked on our new addiction and helping us by showing us everything for getting started! I Always had Freshwater fish and love African Cichlids but now I'm starting my transformation to saltwater which I have always been wanting to do. We are definitely looking forward to returning to Just Fish and having Gerwin assist us furthermore through the process and finally to the tank we hope to achieve! I Will be using this thread to post our journey through our salt life! We hope you guys enjoy and please ANY help and good info/tips will be very useful during this whole process!

And the filling up process begins! Here we have the 29 Gallon tank with everything for now. (about 30lbs of sand, a ceramic heater and the filter!)



Finally filled up and now we wait for everything to settle!



Now that everything has settled we are going to let everything run for a couple days and then maybe tomorrow or Friday we will purchase about 20lbs of live rock to add to the tank!



Hope you guys enjoy the journey just as much as we are expecting to! More photos to come! Once again thanks to Gerwin and everyone at the Just Fish store!

Anthony

[brianjoy81]

Welcome to the salt world!!! Once you go salt you will never be able to go back to fresh water! Haha

[acbaro]

Haha that's for sure! I can't wait until we finally move into our house back in Florida once we're separated from
The service. Then that's when I'm really going to do some work!

[Redfish]

Congrats on the new tank, can't wait to see what you do with it.

[acbaro]

SOOOO.. We finally went today and got our live rock for the tank AND our very first saltwater fish! They told us that our salinity was .023 so we ended up getting about 30lbs of live rock and a yellow tail blue damsel! The guys again at Just Fish were very helpful, we purchased a reef light but it was the wrong size so Gerwin is going to order me the right size and I can't wait for it! We definitely plan to make this a coral and fish tank in the future and plus I like the way the light shines in the tank . We have the rock added but we feel it still seems a bit empty so in a couple weeks we're probably going to add another 20lbs to fill it up some more! Hopefully It wont be a problem adding more rock later.. well enough of the blabbing and onto the pictures! By the way these are all iphone pictures so sorry if they are not good quality!


Finally got everything setup and stirred the sand up a bit in the process! The wave maker is a 1050.




Our first saltwater fish, the yellow tail blue damsel! The wifey named him Zues!



Finally everything cleared up and Zues hiding away.. hopefully he gets comfortable and start to show himself a little more in a couple days!



Hope you guys are enjoying it and we definitely hope to be adding more to it soon!!

[acbaro]

So we have an update on night one with zues and its sad to say zues didn't make it. We're going to try and take zues back along with a sample of water so maybe one of the guys at just fish can tell us what might of happened. Hopefully this wont happen to the next one!

[acbaro]

Another update!! We went to the store today with the dead fish and a water sample and turns out that the water was good to go and everything was reading perfect. Maybe the fish wasn't wanting to live anymore who knows . He wife was a bit upset when she woke up this morning but gerwin was kind enough to let us try out another blue damsel so hopefully this one makes. The wifey is gonna wait this time before she names him.
We also purchased a black bckround to hide all the wires and we will be waiting for the light to come in this week. We will take more pictures and add them soon once the damsel becomes a little more social!

[Gerwin]

background is gonna do wonders

[acbaro]

Thanks gerwin it looks better already with the background and we definitely are looking forward to making this tank lively!

[Gerwin]

put a pic after background for a immediate comparison

[acbaro]

Will do gerwin! I'll get that up tonight with the comparison of the two! And one a good note our blue damsel has made it the past two nights and is now feeding and swimming around nicely!

[acbaro]

UPDATE! The backround has been added and the new fish seems to be enjoying his new and we are happy about that and definitely are looking forward to adding more life into the tank! Now onto the comparison pictures!

here is the before!



and here is the after!

This is a daytime one and you can see Zues #2(yellow tail blue damsel) swimming in the center of the tank!



here is a nighttime one.




Now black isn't the only backround at the store. They also have different ones with corals in the backrounds, but black definitely does a good job!

More updates soon!

[acbaro]

We added a new member to the family! A banded Serpent star fish and I'm glad we were able to get him! The wife on the other hand isn't to fond of him since she doesn't like snakes and she says he looks like one or at least moves like it. Hence the name serpent lol. She is slowly getting to like him ! He seems to be enjoying the tank already since he has been moving around. I found out that they are more active at night, so it was interesting to see him moving after we were all ready for bed. Zeus (the blue damsel) doesn't seem to have a problem with him and has actually been kind of hanging around him a few inches away so i hope its a good thing. As for the star fish, what should i feed him or does he just go around scavenging around the sand and tank looking for food? I've read on other forums of people feeding the star fish grocery store bought shrimp and stuff but i don't know how i feel about that since i'm not trying to go around throwing all kinds of stuff in my tank! Well this Thursday I go and pick up my coral light for my tank and then see how the water is looking. So far its still going good, and hopefully it stays that way! We definitely appreciate all the help Gerwin and the guys have been giving us at Just Fish and we are glad to have chose them to help us with everything! And we can't wait to add more life to the tank, now onto the pictures!

Zeus wondering what this new thing in the tank is while we acclimate he star fish!



After 45 mins to an hour we finally were able to release the new star fish into the tank and within seconds he was already by the rock work!



Hope you guys are enjoying, feel free to leave any tips or ideas!
Anthony

[acbaro]

UPDATE:

So I went to the store yesterday and finally picked up my light! Thanks Gerwin for ordering the right size for me! Its a 30" Coralife T5 High Output lamp, it has 1 10k fluro bulb and an actinic bluelight! So I'm one step closer to being able to toss some coral into the tank. Can't wait for that . We also were able to get two reef crabs to add to the clean up crew and boy are they constantly on the move! I guess now its time to let the tank cycle a little longer and then hopefully on the first of May we will get another 30 lbs of live rock and re-aquascape the tank a little And then that should be final for the live rock! No worries Gerwin the light is on in the pictures but i promise that it doesn't stay on any longer than us looking at it and when I'm feeding the fish ! Now on to the pictures!

Acclimating the good 'ol reef crabs!



Zeus showing off while the camera is out and the crabs are acclimating!



Finally the crabs are done being acclimated and finally released into their new home and boy do they love it! Zeus being all interested!



This is my first time seeing this but boy are these crabs quite the athletic types, climbing up the silicone of the tank. I hope they aren't capable of climbing out of the tank!




Both crabs have been doing this and they also have been hanging all around the serpent star that we have. I'm definitely liking how the clean up crew is looking and I can't wait to get more life in this tank! Well i hope you guys are enjoying the progress as much as we are! more updates soon to come!

[Gerwin]

I love it,
now what you say we hide that heater and temp probe behind some rocks or put a nice plant right in front of it, then take some pics again!