Patrick Bateman
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
I posted most of this in the about me section on my profile, but it cut quite a bit of it off, so I will repost the entire text here (admins, I don't know if there is an easy solution to this, but there wasn't quite enough room to add all the information about my aquarium).
First though, a little background information about my experience with aquariums: Since I was a baby, my family has always had an aquarium in the house. My parents kept freshwater fish throughout my childhood and I took up the hobby at a young age. When I was 11 or 12 years old, I took piano lessons from a woman that had a marine aquarium in her house. I was immediately hooked by the beautiful fish and knew that I had to start saving my money to start my first marine tank. My very first marine aquarium was a twenty gallon tank with a single powerhead and power filter. This was before the time that live rock was so common. I kept a single Oscillaris Clown that lived for almost two years, and when it died, I temporarily gave up the hobby.
Recently, I've rediscovered the joy of keeping a marine aquarium with added excitement due to the advancement of the hobby with regard to the equipment and widespread knowledge of the biological filter system by means of live rock. I bought a 72 gallon tank with the basic necessities, but was in too much of a rush to get the expensive and often fragile fishes that I found to be so beautiful. I neglected to quarantine ANY of the fishes before I put them in the display tank and had a pitiful 15 pounds of live rock to support a 72 gallon system. I also had no protein skimmer at this point. Eventually, the inevitable happened: I had an outbreak of Ich which killed every last fish. I took down the tank, cleaned it, and vowed to start over, do my research, and do things right this time. This is what I have so far:
72 gallon bow front, Marineland C-360 canister filter, Coralife protein skimmer (LOVE IT! completely recommend it--once you get past the initial task of priming it for 72 hours and dealing with the subsequent micro bubbles) , three powerheads including one with a sponge filter to use as the biological filter in the quarantine tank when needed, 65 pounds Fiji Live Rock with 30 more pounds of decorative show pieces on a Fed-Ex truck somewhere between Fort Lauderdale, FL and me
48 inch Hellolights four bulb, T5 high output bulb fixture (two 10,000 K's and two Actinic's). No sump or fuge yet, but I'm definitely looking into it (advise me, please, especially a way to do it inexpensively). Currently no fish, as my tank JUST finished cycling TODAY (1/18/09) (longest cycle ever for me. . . almost 8 weeks! My last tank cycled in about a week) plus I'm going to be adding some semi-cured live rock soon, which will almost certainly cause a second, hopefully smaller, cycle. Once that's completed, I'm planning on starting with a pair of Percula Clowns and possibly a Magnificent Anemone, if water parameters permit. Later, I would like to add a Threadfin Butterfly, Royal Gramma, Lemonpeel Angel, some kind of Tang, and a Cleaner Wrasse as well as some random inverts, such as Clams, shrimp, snails, maybe even polyps etc. . . Please feel free to advise me on any of the information I've provided here. I love learning and am looking forward to getting to know the hobby even better and getting to know some of the members on the forum. If you see a potential problem with anything I've posted here, PLEASE don't hesitate to let me know about it.
First though, a little background information about my experience with aquariums: Since I was a baby, my family has always had an aquarium in the house. My parents kept freshwater fish throughout my childhood and I took up the hobby at a young age. When I was 11 or 12 years old, I took piano lessons from a woman that had a marine aquarium in her house. I was immediately hooked by the beautiful fish and knew that I had to start saving my money to start my first marine tank. My very first marine aquarium was a twenty gallon tank with a single powerhead and power filter. This was before the time that live rock was so common. I kept a single Oscillaris Clown that lived for almost two years, and when it died, I temporarily gave up the hobby.
Recently, I've rediscovered the joy of keeping a marine aquarium with added excitement due to the advancement of the hobby with regard to the equipment and widespread knowledge of the biological filter system by means of live rock. I bought a 72 gallon tank with the basic necessities, but was in too much of a rush to get the expensive and often fragile fishes that I found to be so beautiful. I neglected to quarantine ANY of the fishes before I put them in the display tank and had a pitiful 15 pounds of live rock to support a 72 gallon system. I also had no protein skimmer at this point. Eventually, the inevitable happened: I had an outbreak of Ich which killed every last fish. I took down the tank, cleaned it, and vowed to start over, do my research, and do things right this time. This is what I have so far:
72 gallon bow front, Marineland C-360 canister filter, Coralife protein skimmer (LOVE IT! completely recommend it--once you get past the initial task of priming it for 72 hours and dealing with the subsequent micro bubbles) , three powerheads including one with a sponge filter to use as the biological filter in the quarantine tank when needed, 65 pounds Fiji Live Rock with 30 more pounds of decorative show pieces on a Fed-Ex truck somewhere between Fort Lauderdale, FL and me
48 inch Hellolights four bulb, T5 high output bulb fixture (two 10,000 K's and two Actinic's). No sump or fuge yet, but I'm definitely looking into it (advise me, please, especially a way to do it inexpensively). Currently no fish, as my tank JUST finished cycling TODAY (1/18/09) (longest cycle ever for me. . . almost 8 weeks! My last tank cycled in about a week) plus I'm going to be adding some semi-cured live rock soon, which will almost certainly cause a second, hopefully smaller, cycle. Once that's completed, I'm planning on starting with a pair of Percula Clowns and possibly a Magnificent Anemone, if water parameters permit. Later, I would like to add a Threadfin Butterfly, Royal Gramma, Lemonpeel Angel, some kind of Tang, and a Cleaner Wrasse as well as some random inverts, such as Clams, shrimp, snails, maybe even polyps etc. . . Please feel free to advise me on any of the information I've provided here. I love learning and am looking forward to getting to know the hobby even better and getting to know some of the members on the forum. If you see a potential problem with anything I've posted here, PLEASE don't hesitate to let me know about it.
