What part of California are you from?

[Salt4Us]

Here's a place to let you know a little about us and where abouts we are from.

We are from Southern California, about 15 mins from Disneyland, myself I've grown up here all my life and are a native Californian. My husband is from Northern California. We both met online on a BBS called PC-Link which turned into AOL.

We are new to the Saltwater, been into it since November of 2002 and found this site which has helped us a lot! Both of us grew up with Freshwater tanks and have owned freshwater for many years before becoming addicted to Saltwater. We started with just a 29 gallon and now have 2 other tanks, one 5 gallon fish only with live rock, and one new 40 gallon with black sand!

Please feel free to post here about yourself and your tanks!

 

[Sesos]

I'm in Ventura between LA and Santa Barbara.

My 3 year old daughter and I just started a 10 gal fw tank almost two months ago. I also just purchased a 2 gal hex for Felix the Betta in my office. What's really odd is I find myself wandering through my home and thinking "ooh, a reef tank would look great on this wall...oh, this space would be perfect for a new 55 gal...". My wife thinks I'm crazy! 8O

 

[Salt4Us]

LOL!! That's cool about the Betta tank, that was always my favorite freshwater fish, I always felt sorry for it being stuck in that small bowl, I don't care what anyone says it's creul. We bought one once and put it in a 29 gallon tank, I loved watching it swim across the tank.

Too funny about the reef tank, what I've found about saltwater is it's a fun and educational and great for the kids to see all the new life on just the rock that you put in the tank, this site is the best for helping out, our tank wouldn't have turned out so well if it hadn't been for AA. Your wife will probably love a reef tank, it's like having a garden underwater

 

[Sesos]

Yeah, I couldn't believe the size of the cup Felix was in when I got him! I don't think it was more than a mouthful of water, poor guy. He's quite happy now though. I really just went in to get some bloodworms when I "bumped into the betta section. The whole kit (2gal hex, pump, filter, hood w/light, gravel, fake plant and "rock" formation) plus Felix was less than $25! How could I possibly say no?

I already tried the underwater garden thing, she didn't say no but she didn't really say yes yet either. Funny thing is, she's way into gardening in our back yard, including 2 four by ten raised beds I built for her. She's just kind of surprised at how "badly" I've caught the bug. I'll keep nudging though.

 

[Salt4Us]

LOL you should show her some of the zoanthids, they look like flowers under the water, they come all sorts of colors, check out this guys site, he's in Irvine, CA and when I found his site I was blown away of the zoanthids he had in this little 7 gallon bowfront http://www.oc-creative.com/reef/Photos.asp

His pictures are beautiful and the best thing about a reef, ya never need to water it

 

[Sesos]

sooooo,...my wife stopped by my office to meet Felix and I just kind of said "hey check out these cool pics". She thought they were beautiful and I said "That tank is smaller than the one we have at home. That's going to be my next project." Her reply? "Cool!"

Now, if I can get her just a tiny bit involved when buying the tank maybe, just maybe, she'll consider something just a teency weency bit bigger

*fingers crossed*

 

[Sesos]

Whoops, in all of my blabbing I forgot to ask you where your favotite lfs is located.

I go between Tat's Tropical Paradise and PetCo (just supplies) here in Ventura. Is your place worth making the drive to for just a look around?

 

[Salt4Us]

Well the leather that I have in my tank we got from a place called Fish 2000 he had it shoved all the way in the back, they were closing and I just wanted to have a leather coral, it didn't look very good, and for a quite a few days after we got it I had the horrible feeling in my stomach that I just wasted my money, but it bounced back, it had been a dark brown the polyps were really bad looking, I did more reading up on them since they were photosynthis(sp) I also found out they like phytoplankton and that has been used to enhance their color, got some and add it a couple times a week, it has become the center piece of our 29 gallon. The zoanthids we purchased from www.thelogicalreef.com Bryan the owner was extremely helpful and has beautiful corals, he's in florida and he was actually the first coral purchase we had ever made online, we were extremely happy with what we received, he also threw in some little free ones from us that have really taken off. We have purchased some fish from Strickly fish in Garden Grove I believe which is our scooter blenny, we got our clownfish from all places Petco, very hardy, and we've also shopped for fish and supplies at Petown which is in El Toro, all are ok but I've been told there are some better places to check out and plan on checking out those soon.

I'm glad she liked that site, I will warn you the smaller the tank the higher the maitience but if you don't mind staying on top of things and water changes weekly, I just suggest a lot of reading, I am not a big reader but since getting into saltwater it has become addicting wanting to learn more. Something bigger would be your best bet Good luck!

 

[sokhamik]

hello californians.. i am a nineteen year old boy from the city of san jose.. south bay.. we have a place called Brian's fish world here... very healthy and beautiful fishes.. very pricey, but they take care of them, rarely do you see a sick or dead fish.. the other place I go to is PetClub.. that is like PetCo, but different companies.. that's where i bought my Thornback cowfish or helmet cowfish.. it's pretty cheap over there but a lot of sick fishes... next is King's aquarium, it is the biggest of all the san jose fish store.. very nice.. sort of pricey.. i travel to a place called GREAT BAY AQUARIUM to go look at the stocks they have every now and then.. i'm a kid so 1 hour drive to see fishes is a long way for me, but i seem to think it's worth it... i live with my girlfriend and she is the main source of fundings for my fishes.. like 40 percent of my money and 60 percent of hers.. hehe.. she thinks i'm crazy for spending all that money, but when she gets an impulse buy and spend about 70 dollars in one day, it's not crazy to her...

anyway.. oh yeah, i think it's a crime to put a betta fish in a small cup like that, too.. mines was swimming in a 55g tank with 2 other betta.. they established who is stronger than who so they did not fight at all..

i started saltwater fish because i saw MTV crib and it was showing Travis's house from Blink 182.. it showed his prized fish.. forgot how it looked like, but i knew that i wanted it right away... i had a dream about it. hehe..

my first fish was a boxfish.. not knowing how to care for it, and being that it was an impulse buy and i knew nothing about saltwater, it died soon after...

after that i started to do research on SW fishes... i've checked out everybook there is to check about SW at the library... I've read so much online that my eyes are a little messed up.. hehe..

oh, last but not least i would like to speak of my future plans... i plan on building a 15000 gallon aquarium when i get a house... it's going to have one side glass or acrylic so that you can see everything from the basement... the rest is going to extend out into the backyard and it's going to be a miniature beach.. everyone thinks i'm crazy, but i've researched and it should only cost about 50,000 or less to build it.. hehe.. ONE DAY SOON!!!

 

[Sesos]

Welcome sokhamik, your dream tank sounds awesome! If you ever get it built, you could probably charge admission

 

[Salt4Us]

The tank sounds pretty cool! Sounds like you have some nice fish stores up by you, we are going to have to do some more checking around, but with this heat I can see why some fish aren't making it. The one place we went to on Friday had blue spotted jawfish for 39 bucks! What a deal considering online the cheapest I found was around 50 bucks :?

 

[sokhamik]

i had a powder blue tang that i got for like 35 dollars... it succombed to ich overnight.. it was eating well and all but died the next day... it was a good fish.. can't believe i lost it..

 

[Salt4Us]

Oh I would love to have a tang, but a 40 gallon just isn't big enough, someday maybe we'll have a place for a 100+ gallong that would be nice Sorry for your loss on the tang, I hate watching living things suffer

 

[illuminum]

I'm 19 and from the os Angeles area, between santa monica and encino. There's PLENTY of fish stores in the neighborhood. Need some locations? PM me.

I have a 12 gal FW tank and I really want a bigger tank for SW but still want to do alot more research before I invest in anything.

 

[Salt4Us]

Cool tank illuminum, did you make your own background? I'll warn you SW is very addicting but exciting!

 

[illuminum]

Thanks salt4us! Yeah, I did make my own background.

I'm worried as to how much my FW tank will cost me (supplies, LR, LS, and livestock included). I want to get a 80-100 gal tank, probably glass to keep scratching to a minimum.

Read my thread on the fish only forum! Click here ---> http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=8260. I'm trying to ficure out what livestock I should get. Help me out if you can.

 

[Anamorphic]

Hey, all! Los Angeles here, in the Miracle Mile area, just a stone's throw from the La Brea Tar Pits. Although they've requested I stop throwing stones at it. I'm fairly new to aquariums. I started a 20-gallon freshwater a little over a year ago. Right now, there's a pleco and several zebra danios in there; there were more, but I made the mistake of buying a few of the fish from PetCo, and a week later, those and several of the existing fish were dead from a mysterious illness. Wish I knew about this forum back then.

I have a 40-gallon tank that's just sitting empty at the moment. It was given to me by someone who was given it in turn, and didn't want to deal with the process. Her loss is my gain! Anyway, I've had it for a few weeks, but I don't want to set it up just yet, because I plan on moving sometime relatively soon (next few months), and rather than having to break it down and move it, I figure I'll just wait until I'm settled in to set it up in the first place. Think I might go with saltwater when I finally do get to it, but I'm not fully decided yet.

Anyway. Just wanted to introduce myself. Hi!

 

[Salt4Us]

Illumium, sorry I never responded, I've got a 3 year old that seems to distract me a lot while I'm on here and then I go on to something else. :/

I'm not real good about livestock, we are still having problems trying to figure out what to put in our 40, we were thinking of going just Green and Yellow coral gobies, but they don't really do much just kind of sit there. Then we thought maybe getting some reef safe wrasses, but after our 6 line jumped out we've decided against those. A lot of things aren't reef safe and that's what we are going for. That and peaceful. We may end up with black and white clowns tank raised ones from liveaquaria. Still up in the air. I read the thread and looks like FF helped you out there. If you need any seeding sand let me know ours has been up for close to a year and has lots of pods life in it

 

[Salt4Us]

Anamorphic,

I love the Tar Pits! We used to take field trips when I was in school to there.

Can't wait to see pics of the 40 when you get it going!

 

[XXFirefighter]

I'm in Lompoc 45 minutes north od Santa Barbara...