tomato clown
Member
About 11 years ago my brother-in-law gave me this tank stocked, and that's where my hobby began.
Things went fine as a FOWLR, but being uneducated in SW, I went out and bought, bought and bought. Literally thousands of dollars to end up with problem after problem after problem. Mainly all due to bad equipment and thinking more as if it was a FW setup.
One day I found SWF.com and began reading things that helped a lot. Thanks to Beth and others, You were the ones to kind of kick me in the tushie.
Anyway reality set in and things went great until the 2 hurricanes we had, No power for 2 weeks and I lost almost everything because the tank crashed even with trying to manually move the water. No, we didn't have a generator either
(Note to self: get a battery backup this week for the filter..lol)
So the tank turned into a LR only tank, where I simply kept a basic HOT filter moving the water because I had a single red tube worm. At this point just about every water parameter was all over the place and hard to stabilize. This is where I gave up, threw in the towel and just wanted to take the tank down completely. I brought an old 30gal. to work and it was set up as a FW. As the days started passing my interest once again began to peek, so I went home one night and got started.
As I peered in the tank, there was no sign of life. No pods no bristles, nothing. I also mixed up the substrate because for some stupid reason I'd still put flake food in the tank 1-2 times a month.
The following week I did a massive 50% water change, but used 10% as RO making the salinity low. (It's been a while, I forgot all about the salt creep.) Waited a week more and looked at the progress, to my amazement there was life in the tank. I was overjoyed, I had bristleworms!!
I guess the 1-2 times a month I tossed in flake allowed them something to eat.
I did another 25% water change and started testing the water when I noticed the LR still had coraline algae.
I honestly have no clue how in the world I kept the LR alive and it kept the coraline.
SO basically all because of a single red tube worm, I've brought this tank from near septic conditions to rejuvenated life and it shall only continue to get better.
Below you'll see pictures in order from old to new.
Current standings:
Tank:
36gal. Bowfront (I think it's Oceanic, not sure though)
Filtration:
FLuval 205, Aquaclear powerhead (10 years old and still kicking), home-made hangon sump (used an old biowheel to fill with chaeto) 2 Aquaclear heaters (My place gets cold.)
Lights:
Basic 10k sunlight and 14kActinic blue (FW hood fluorescent bulb type)
Stock:
65lbs LR (Used to be a single 85lb chunk, I broke it up)
2.5" CC substrate
1 Domino Damsel
1 Yellow Tail Damsel
2 3 stripe Damsels (one is getting big and may need to go sooner then expected)
1 Nass. Snail
5 Turbo Snails
1 Conch
1 red tube worm
1 colony of something (Too small to view or take a pic of, but they all look like feathers growing from the LR)
And of course I have to include the bristle worm I named Vile Beast
Things went fine as a FOWLR, but being uneducated in SW, I went out and bought, bought and bought. Literally thousands of dollars to end up with problem after problem after problem. Mainly all due to bad equipment and thinking more as if it was a FW setup.
One day I found SWF.com and began reading things that helped a lot. Thanks to Beth and others, You were the ones to kind of kick me in the tushie.
Anyway reality set in and things went great until the 2 hurricanes we had, No power for 2 weeks and I lost almost everything because the tank crashed even with trying to manually move the water. No, we didn't have a generator either
So the tank turned into a LR only tank, where I simply kept a basic HOT filter moving the water because I had a single red tube worm. At this point just about every water parameter was all over the place and hard to stabilize. This is where I gave up, threw in the towel and just wanted to take the tank down completely. I brought an old 30gal. to work and it was set up as a FW. As the days started passing my interest once again began to peek, so I went home one night and got started.
As I peered in the tank, there was no sign of life. No pods no bristles, nothing. I also mixed up the substrate because for some stupid reason I'd still put flake food in the tank 1-2 times a month.
The following week I did a massive 50% water change, but used 10% as RO making the salinity low. (It's been a while, I forgot all about the salt creep.) Waited a week more and looked at the progress, to my amazement there was life in the tank. I was overjoyed, I had bristleworms!!
I did another 25% water change and started testing the water when I noticed the LR still had coraline algae.
SO basically all because of a single red tube worm, I've brought this tank from near septic conditions to rejuvenated life and it shall only continue to get better.
Below you'll see pictures in order from old to new.
Current standings:
Tank:
36gal. Bowfront (I think it's Oceanic, not sure though)
Filtration:
FLuval 205, Aquaclear powerhead (10 years old and still kicking), home-made hangon sump (used an old biowheel to fill with chaeto) 2 Aquaclear heaters (My place gets cold.)
Lights:
Basic 10k sunlight and 14kActinic blue (FW hood fluorescent bulb type)
Stock:
65lbs LR (Used to be a single 85lb chunk, I broke it up)
2.5" CC substrate
1 Domino Damsel
1 Yellow Tail Damsel
2 3 stripe Damsels (one is getting big and may need to go sooner then expected)
1 Nass. Snail
5 Turbo Snails
1 Conch
1 red tube worm
1 colony of something (Too small to view or take a pic of, but they all look like feathers growing from the LR)
And of course I have to include the bristle worm I named Vile Beast
