The Tank

So... Remember in my last post when I said I wanted to take up a new hobby? Well, I have. When we went to Dallas to pick up my brother from the airport, we visited my aunt and uncle. My Uncle, David, has a nano-reef aquarium and it made me think, "hmm...It would definitely be fun and entertaining to start up a saltwater aquarium". I knew it would be a lot of hard work and a lot of learning, but I decided to take the challenge. After several days of research and looking for good deals, I ordered an aquarium. Then I ordered 45 pounds of sand, a protein skimmer, and a hydrometer.

To make a long story short, I assembled the aquarium which took a lot of time and muscle (which I have very little of), mixed my saltwater, rinsed my sand, bought my live rocks, and put it all in the tank. 30 gallons of water, 30 pounds of sand, and 12 pounds of rock later...

I have spent the last two weeks learning about the nitrogen cycle, salinity, specific gravity...etc. After a week of cycling my tank (you have to let saltwater tanks "cycle" for several weeks before actually purchasing fish in order to grow healthy levels of bacteria), algae was growing out of control. After checking with Uncle David, I bought some snails to help clean up the tank.  

My tank has now been cycling for two weeks. The snails have done a great job cleaning up the algae, and all my water parameters seem to be a-ok. Just today, I decided I needed more rock in my tank in order to give my future corals more surface on which to grow and give my future fish more hiding spaces. So here is my tank as it stands this evening. 

Stay tuned for more updates on my tank! I'll be adding new creatures soon-ish.