auntkaren
Member
I've been coming to these message boards now for a few months. I came in when we were first considering starting our own reef tank. I've watched with horror when members ask about curing with live fish or adding any critter before their curing process has barely begun.
I am NOT known for my patience, believe me! We knew that our tank would not be near inhabitable for any living critter for weeks and weeks. (Just tell yourself that it will be a month or more if necessary.) This drove me crazy from the very first day. We researched and followed directions to the letter but there were no instructions on how to be patient! I lasted three whole days with a tank of salt water and crushed coral, live sand and tonga live rock. I would sit at the tank and search for anything different, anything at all! Then on the 4th day i discovered................our magnifying glass!! You would be amazed at what you can see changing and growing in your curing tank! I never could find exactly what the burgandy and pink finger things were, or the white lumps that seemed to creep up and up and the teeny tiny plants that emerged daily or any other life that was growing before my eyes but it was there!
Ease your impatience with a magnifying glass you will have the pleasure of watching your live rock begin it's new life before your unaided eyes can detect what's really going on. Pick places in your live rock that look interesting and check on them once or twice a day. In our 24 gallon tank I spent about 20 minutes twice daily just in awe at what was going on in our tank! If you really want to delve into the new life keep a journal or log at what new things you notice and how things are growing.
There is a way to stretch your patience level and save lives of innocent critters that might have been put into an environment that would be ultimately deadly just to ease your impatient urges.
We also eased our impatience by doing daily levels readings just because we could do something that wasn't destructive. Any change in the readings is exciting because at least you can see something happening.
So.......follow the directions properly just as you are prone to do and help your patience along with a simple magnifying glass and you can enjoy your tank much sooner than you ever believed!
Hope this helps all you impatient aquarists, it sure helped us!
I am NOT known for my patience, believe me! We knew that our tank would not be near inhabitable for any living critter for weeks and weeks. (Just tell yourself that it will be a month or more if necessary.) This drove me crazy from the very first day. We researched and followed directions to the letter but there were no instructions on how to be patient! I lasted three whole days with a tank of salt water and crushed coral, live sand and tonga live rock. I would sit at the tank and search for anything different, anything at all! Then on the 4th day i discovered................our magnifying glass!! You would be amazed at what you can see changing and growing in your curing tank! I never could find exactly what the burgandy and pink finger things were, or the white lumps that seemed to creep up and up and the teeny tiny plants that emerged daily or any other life that was growing before my eyes but it was there!
Ease your impatience with a magnifying glass you will have the pleasure of watching your live rock begin it's new life before your unaided eyes can detect what's really going on. Pick places in your live rock that look interesting and check on them once or twice a day. In our 24 gallon tank I spent about 20 minutes twice daily just in awe at what was going on in our tank! If you really want to delve into the new life keep a journal or log at what new things you notice and how things are growing.
There is a way to stretch your patience level and save lives of innocent critters that might have been put into an environment that would be ultimately deadly just to ease your impatient urges.
We also eased our impatience by doing daily levels readings just because we could do something that wasn't destructive. Any change in the readings is exciting because at least you can see something happening.
So.......follow the directions properly just as you are prone to do and help your patience along with a simple magnifying glass and you can enjoy your tank much sooner than you ever believed!
Hope this helps all you impatient aquarists, it sure helped us!
