OK, I am going to chronicle my progress in setting up my new saltwater aquarium! Don't know if anyone is interested or not, but it seems most people on this forum enjoy seeing the progress of an aquarium as much as I do!
Picture 1: This is my first tank setup. It is a 10-gallon that I intended to eventually become my quarantine. As you can see, I have been massively struggling with algae. It is coating the glass and all the rocks! It came to my attention last week that my city water supply has up to 20 ppm nitrate!!! No wonder I can't keep the algae under control! Anyhow, this was my initial setup.
----
Picture 2: OK! Next up. I tore apart the 10-gallon, removed the rock for a few minutes while I scrubbed the glass and vacuumed all the crushed coral. It was so cool to see all the little critters crawling around in the crushed coral that came from my rock!
I also performed almost a 50% water change, and replaced it with reverse osmosis water. I thought I had the water heated up to the appropriate temperature, but I noticed it fell about 3 degrees! I hope that doesn't hurt me too bad! :?
I moved the 46-gallon setup into place, and then moved the QT tank into the base of the stand for the 46. Time will tell if that was an intelligent move. There is room, but it is a little tighter than I had hoped. Maybe one day I can turn it into my sump and put a new QT tank in my bedroom or something.
Anyhow, you can see how much cleaner the 10-gallon is, and my coral beauty seems to have transitioned well...he is in much cleaner water with much cleaner surroundings...I hope he does well!!!
So my aquarium is still empty, but the equipment is on the way, and I will update this as I get new equipment, rock, etc! Don't worry, the next pictures will be closer up, this was just to give you an idea of the difference!
Picture 1: This is my first tank setup. It is a 10-gallon that I intended to eventually become my quarantine. As you can see, I have been massively struggling with algae. It is coating the glass and all the rocks! It came to my attention last week that my city water supply has up to 20 ppm nitrate!!! No wonder I can't keep the algae under control! Anyhow, this was my initial setup.
----
Picture 2: OK! Next up. I tore apart the 10-gallon, removed the rock for a few minutes while I scrubbed the glass and vacuumed all the crushed coral. It was so cool to see all the little critters crawling around in the crushed coral that came from my rock!
I also performed almost a 50% water change, and replaced it with reverse osmosis water. I thought I had the water heated up to the appropriate temperature, but I noticed it fell about 3 degrees! I hope that doesn't hurt me too bad! :?
I moved the 46-gallon setup into place, and then moved the QT tank into the base of the stand for the 46. Time will tell if that was an intelligent move. There is room, but it is a little tighter than I had hoped. Maybe one day I can turn it into my sump and put a new QT tank in my bedroom or something.
Anyhow, you can see how much cleaner the 10-gallon is, and my coral beauty seems to have transitioned well...he is in much cleaner water with much cleaner surroundings...I hope he does well!!!
So my aquarium is still empty, but the equipment is on the way, and I will update this as I get new equipment, rock, etc! Don't worry, the next pictures will be closer up, this was just to give you an idea of the difference!