Buffy's 1st Ever SW Build - Reef Tank

[Ibrahim]

That's 500? lol jk

 

[Buffy]

More Pics

And more pics.

Only was able to get 3 corals....Not a shi* load Carey hehehe.

I got no fish.

I got some 6 Margarita Snails, 1 Scarlet Red Hermit Crab, 1 Emerald Crab, A Turbo Snail I think, 1 Peppermint Shrimp, 1 Blood Red Fire Shrimp, 1 Nassarius Snail (only one they had).

1 Hard Tube Coco Worm (Red and White)

1 Orange/Green Polyp (on a branch type thing)

1 Elegance Coral.

That's it for live stock. (Unfortunately - store price was alot more than some of the online prices. Found that out shortly before I got home. I'm calling Monday to see if I can get a credit for the differences)


There ya have it, that's it. Hope no one's bubble is popped, but how can I come home with a shi* load of corals at 50.00 a pop????

 

[Buffy]

500.00 includes 2 test kits (Salifert Ca, and KH/Alk-40.00), dip, C Balance, pH Buffer, Hanna pH Tester-85.00, calibration solutions, timing outlet for lights-36.00, my Bestest Friends Water Fountain (That was 60.00), another pump (forgot I had 2 here, til I saw them lol), package of Algae Wafers, and hmm I think I'm forgetting something. Oh the Ice Cream Cone and Frappachino LOL

Dang Blood Shrimp was 39.00 itself, online is cheaper....One reason gonna call, same with the Coco Worm, online was 20.00 cheaper.

 

[Buffy]

Elegance and Coco Worm are already opening up. , They were opening before I was done taking pictures as you can see the Coco on the left side of the tank. If I get to close for the pictures they get blurry, so sorry they are a little far away. Lights are off for the night.

Oh that little thing under the rock (side tank picture), is the Emerald Crab - supposedly. He's not green though :-(, guy said when they get bigger some loose their color, is that right? I wanted GREEN. lol

 

[Buffy]

Dang she must have a TON of stock if shes acclimating this long

Nope, but I never did it before. And I forgot to premix saltwater before I left and get it up to temp too, so I had to do that before I could acclimate.

 

[huma-huma]

Holy sh @#!! Thats about what I gotta say. Props for not getting hooked by a fish. I was shocked when I read through the eqyipment list. Now imagine spending 500 on fish

 

[Ibrahim]

Omg 500!!! You shoulda ordered online!! Bluezooaquatics has amazing corals. You have gotten 15-20 3-4" corals for 500 and a clean up crew from reefcleaners for 40

 

[kelly77143]

I love my SW tanks but they dont come close to my to dear Macaws. They greet me by flying to me whenever I enter a room.

That's my worst nightmare!!! I'm terrified of birds!

 

[Ibrahim]

That's my worst nightmare!!! I'm terrified of birds!

My birds are sweet hearts. The love bobbing their heads and saying hello. And even lay on their backed when they r excited

 

[Buffy]

Omg 500!!! You shoulda ordered online!! Bluezooaquatics has amazing corals. You have gotten 15-20 3-4" corals for 500 and a clean up crew from reefcleaners for 40

I'll need to check out Bluezooaquatics. Thanks. Don't forget I got other stuff I needed too. I didn't want alot of snails or anything. I didn't buy the small bottles cause I didn't want to go back up right away. Now I only need to go up when I want to pick up something from Diver's Den (sales, sales and sales LOL). I didn't really anticipate much "livestock" as I still needed to get the other stuff (my puppy water dish wasn't cheap either lol.) So when you buy 30, 40, 50 & 60 dollar stuff (which at 1 each is 180.00 right there), it don't take much to get up there). I kinda hate ordering online but am slowing getting there. I know it's cheaper but still, I'm not crazy at all about it.

Anyway, other than a few things that I found were cheaper on line, I did pretty good considering all the maintenance stuff I got without going online.

P.S. Salesman did talk me out of a few corals too LOL or my total would have been higher. I'm glad he did cause I don't want to go and get something I can't or don't know how to take care of yet. So my 3 corals are just perfect, and I have enough stuff now to take care of of them without having to figure a way around my work schedule to get to a store, except....Carey smack me now but I didn't get the phosphate test stuff. They didn't have it at the store and by that time I wanted to get back on the road so I didn't want to wait for them to go to the warehouse AGAIN lol. I have to look back and see what other tests I need to get.


Hannah tester.....Shows my temp is 2 degree's higher and my pH is 8.4.

The button is real hard to push to turn on, actually hurts my thumbs but hey, no doubt bout the reading now. I still can't get it into set up mode so I can change from celsius to fahrenheit. But so what, I just go online to convert LOL till I get it. But this tester is SWEET. Bye bye API woohoo

I'm bushed, nite all. Thanks for all your help and input and if these lil buggers die on me, I'm gonna resurrect them and kill their as*es all over again.

 

[Buffy]

Holy sh @#!! Thats about what I gotta say. Props for not getting hooked by a fish. I was shocked when I read through the eqyipment list. Now imagine spending 500 on fish

LOL I'm sure I will at some point..... I still have a 55, 40B, 2 x 20's, and 2 x 10's that are sitting empty in my den hehehe.

 

[huma-huma]

LOL I'm sure I will at some point..... I still have a 55, 40B, 2 x 20's, and 2 x 10's that are sitting empty in my den hehehe.

If this isnt a pure carey statement I dont know what is

 

[Grizz]

If this isnt a pure carey statement I dont know what is

Classic
Buffy nice score! Try Mr Coral they have a $10 area that cant be beat i buy a lot of frags from them and never had a problem We will need pics a month from now when every thing is blooming

 

[Buffy]

If this isnt a pure carey statement I dont know what is

When you learn alot from someone, I guess you start to sound like them LOL. She's my SW Mommie lol.

But when I grow up, I wanna look like my pup, he's soooooo cute. LMAO

Classic
Buffy nice score! Try Mr Coral they have a $10 area that cant be beat i buy a lot of frags from them and never had a problem We will need pics a month from now when every thing is blooming

Thanks Grizz. I'll check out Mr. Coral also.

@Ibrahim - I checked out that site, there are some differences however with any other place they are more or less depending what you get. I'm going to make a spreadsheet with what I bought and do comparisons. I'll be able to use this sheet when I make futures purchases too. I should have done that before I started buying anything, lights pumps too, cause remember who has what for how much stinks.

I do see my elegance was cheaper by 10.00 and your shrimp was cheaper by 16.00, my orange was cheaper by 10 than yours, so it comes out in the wash. I don't know what shipping would have been, but I didn't have shipping cause I went to the store, but I bought other things too. The big thing with me buying "live" online is my work schedule, It's very tough for me to be at home on designated days or times, as I can get called out anytime day or nite. So by me going to the store and paying a little extra here and there works for me AND like I told the guy at the store, if I got a problem, I'm gonna hunt him down. lol

I like the fact that I have a human face to talk to, question and ***** at if needed versus email, unanswered calls, phone tag, and pass the buck calls.

 

[Ibrahim]

@Ibrahim - I checked out that site, there are some differences however with any other place they are more or less depending what you get. I'm going to make a spreadsheet with what I bought and do comparisons. I'll be able to use this sheet when I make futures purchases too. I should have done that before I started buying anything, lights pumps too, cause remember who has what for how much stinks.

I do see my elegance was cheaper by 10.00 and your shrimp was cheaper by 16.00, my orange was cheaper by 10 than yours, so it comes out in the wash. I don't know what shipping would have been, but I didn't have shipping cause I went to the store, but I bought other things too. The big thing with me buying "live" online is my work schedule, It's very tough for me to be at home on designated days or times, as I can get called out anytime day or nite. So by me going to the store and paying a little extra here and there works for me AND like I told the guy at the store, if I got a problem, I'm gonna hunt him down. lol

I like the fact that I have a human face to talk to, question and ***** at if needed versus email, unanswered calls, phone tag, and pass the buck calls.

Yep but their coral, shrimp, and fish are usually almost twice as big as they say they are. If you go to the sale section at the bottom left of the page there are lots of corals at 25 and they are about 3 or 4" even though it says 2.5". I ordered ricordia and got twice as much and my corals were 2x bigger. If you check my "dead" 75 gallon build you can see the corals were pretty big even though they said 2.5".

 

[Buffy]

Yep but their coral, shrimp, and fish are usually almost twice as big as they say they are. If you go to the sale section at the bottom left of the page there are lots of corals at 25 and they are about 3 or 4" even though it says 2.5". I ordered ricordia and got twice as much and my corals were 2x bigger. If you check my "dead" 75 gallon build you can see the corals were pretty big even though they said 2.5".

Awesome, how much is their shipping. I hadn't got to that part yet. I plan to order online also, just gotta get that schedule thing down, the other stuff I can deal with. Thanks for the info, I'm going to include that in my sheet too.

I'm hoping the spreadsheet I make up will help me alot with this type of stuff. And as you say, they say 2 inch but you may get 3 inch. Makes a difference there too, I'm going to have like a notes section on the sheet so I can compare sites with pros and cons too.

People's experience from the difference sites helps too. I hope when I do order from them (I do plan to as they have a few things I want) I have a good experience like you do.

I'm still leaning toward a software program that would help me with that and well basically all my aquarium stats, history, maintenance, costs and such. I've think I've narrowed down to two. I just can't find anyone that has experience with these as everyone does their own logs. But me, I want more than a log.

Back on topic now...(so to speak lol).

Got my light on. Coco closed up when lights came on and opened again. Found the shrimp (both hiding deep in the rock). Emerald crab is shy and hiding under his rock he found. He's hasn't left that rock, been on top of it but, mostly stays under. (Saw him move it too, was cool).

Can't pick out my Scarlet Hermit yet. Only way I can tell where he is, is if his legs show. LOL Some of the snails are moving around. 3 are still huddled where they were yesterday when they were first put it. They are alive (I see legs and stuff moving).

 

[Buffy]

New Pics...I think I have a Mushroom!!

Looking at my sheet see what snails I got, I saw that I got a Dwarf Yellow Tip Hermit Crab, now wait a minute, I thought I got 6 margarita snails but my sheet shows 6 dwarf yellow tip hermit crabs. uhmm, gonna have to figure out what is what in my tank now. (He gave me the last narcissa snail too supposedly - as he was putting stuff in bag I was looking for timers and stuff.

So may need help figuring out who is who. LOL

Here are some pictures from today with my lights on. Almost 24 hours in my tank and I think they are doing well.

But...........I moved my Elegance Coral over cause looked like too much flow, I'm thinking it still has too much. Can anyone verify this? His tenacles seem waving at too much of an angle to me.

The last picture.....I found this in the back of my tank today. I didn't notice it before, and I don't believe it was there last week. I believe it's a mushroom of some sort, I need to research it. But still...Does anyone know what it is AND will it move to the front?

 

[Ibrahim]

Awesome, how much is their shipping. I hadn't got to that part yet. I plan to order online also, just gotta get that schedule thing down, the other stuff I can deal with. Thanks for the info, I'm going to include that in my sheet too.

I'm hoping the spreadsheet I make up will help me alot with this type of stuff. And as you say, they say 2 inch but you may get 3 inch. Makes a difference there too, I'm going to have like a notes section on the sheet so I can compare sites with pros and cons too.

People's experience from the difference sites helps too. I hope when I do order from them (I do plan to as they have a few things I want) I have a good experience like you do.

I'm still leaning toward a software program that would help me with that and well basically all my aquarium stats, history, maintenance, costs and such. I've think I've narrowed down to two. I just can't find anyone that has experience with these as everyone does their own logs. But me, I want more than a log.

Back on topic now...(so to speak lol).

Got my light on. Coco closed up when lights came on and opened again. Found the shrimp (both hiding deep in the rock). Emerald crab is shy and hiding under his rock he found. He's hasn't left that rock, been on top of it but, mostly stays under. (Saw him move it too, was cool).

Can't pick out my Scarlet Hermit yet. Only way I can tell where he is, is if his legs show. LOL Some of the snails are moving around. 3 are still huddled where they were yesterday when they were first put it. They are alive (I see legs and stuff moving).

Shipping there is $39 but free on orders over 140. On orders over 200 you can get either free zooantids or a lawnmower blenny, on orders over 300 you get either a Yellow tang or a large rock covered in mushrooms, palys, zoos, and on orders over 500 you can get a Blue tang or a 8" rock covered in mushrooms, polyps, zoos, leather corals, and LPS. Corals I'd tried to get now if I were you are xenia, kenya tree coral, and Green Star Polyps. They all grow extremely fast and mines tripled within 3 months. Good luck Oh and heres the link to my old build that messed up because the seller screwed me. But there are pictures of corals that I bought at Bluezooaquatics for about 100

 

[Ibrahim]

Actually why don't I make an order under 200 for you so you can buy it whenever you want

 

[Ibrahim]

Here it is. The order came about at $215 but most I picked out are fast growing and over 3" the zooas are actually about 6"