New clowns in my 29 fowlr

Well, here we go again. After losing my very first set of clowns back in the beginning of December (my husband bought them for me as a surprise birthday gift THREE DAYS after I setup the tank...bad bad bad husband! He meant well, he just didn't know...and from Petco, nonetheless.) I have been working to finish cycling my tank, which was completely done over. 

We bought it used, a 25 gallon breeder tank...it had crushed coral for a bed and some fake decorations from the freshwater section. The first clowns used this setup, because I had not yet replaced it when my husband put them in my tank on my birthday. Well, when they died we tore down everything and started fresh. We bought a 29 gallon tank, stand, etc (we can't fit anything bigger in our house). I bought live sand, live rock, a new filter, a new powerhead, a new heater, literally everything was replaced from what we bought used a week or so before. I wish we had skipped out on the 25 all together...

Since then I have been testing and doing water changes, and for 2 weeks now I have had steady readings...my cycle appears to be done finally. Next up...adding some new clowns! Well, after my husband finishes his little project lol.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Limpid 

Sorry to hear your first attempt failed, I too received a fish for my birthday once . One word of advice buy the same type of clown and buy one smaller than the other. Do not add different specie of clowns to same tank, they will fight.

We plan to do one orange and one black but both Ocellaris so that they "look different" but are the same. My husband knows better now, he felt really bad when they died :(

Quote:

Originally Posted by lilclowns 

Yay clowns. I too have crushed coral as a sandbed

We don't have the crushed coral now, we were using it in the 25 setup originally, but moved to the 29 with a 1-2" sand bed.
 

We are going to pick up a few small pieces of rock to finish up the tank design this weekend and then the clowns hopefully sometime next week, very excited!

I am hoping I can get the last of my rock tonight, I will definitely upload some pics as soon as my husband gets home tonight with the camera.

Here is the original 25, while we wait on my husband LOL. It is only 11am here, so gonna be a bit.

Here are my biggest pieces of rock (in the 25), they are currently the foundation of my stack in the 29.

Yeah, I like my rocks, but adding some more so soon. Those were both taken in the 25, they are in the 29 gallon now...25 is sitting empty, ready to go to storage tonight.

Those aren't the only rocks either, to be clear :)

We might, actually. It kind of depends on how creative my husband can get LOL. So we decided we are going to break the rocks we bought tonight, because they are massive and build the rest of the tank up. The rocks are supposed to be fully cured, we have them in the 25 (put all the water back into the tank from the buckets), which we decided not to tear down after all at least until the tank is stocked (using it instead of the 10 gallon, thankfully..cause these rocks would not have fit in the 10 lol).

Here are pictures all 4 of the current rocks, totaling 41lbs.

The small one is 13.3, the big one is 15...these are what we got tonight...Got it fully cured for $4.50/ lb! That is amazing for Hawaii, don't know about anywhere else, but it is normally
$7/ lb on island. This was my surprise from my husband tonight...I went in the store while he stayed in the car with the kids, and came out to tell him what they had (only these pieces) so he went in to "look" and I figured we would come home with nothing because I didn't know they were going to sell it to us so cheap, and a 13.3 lb rock is a lot of money at full price...he came out with both

So, right now I have two tanks of rock. Have to wait to combine it until the stand is finished...but then I promise I will get a full tank shot :)

Yeah, we have lots of ideas, just gotta play around and see how they fit/if the bigger one will fit without being broken down. But, tonight is tank night ! All of our shopping is done for the week, and we both get off early today, so hopefully we can get a lot done (as long as our kids cooperate!)

Thanks for the reminder :) I think my husband pushed them all down to the glass, but I will double check it today when I run my water tests. The one rock does not reach the sand because it is sitting on the other rocks, but I believe the rest are down.

Here is what the tank looks like now, I plan to add one or 2 more rocks...just not satisfied yet.

I will post my water parameters in a couple hours, hopefully we can start adding fish soon.