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Ashleigh

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Jul 24, 2010
Messages
2
Location
Texas
Hi everyone. I have a 90g tank that I'm restarting. I bought my 90g in 1998 and had it running for 8 years. One evening there was a short of some sort (we think the tank heater) and everything fried. I was devastated but happy we were home and the house didn't go down too!

I'll be honest...I had a bad start up because I had a LFS that when I look back, really wanted to sell livestock and products without thinking of consequences and I was a complete novice. To start..instead of doing a "real" cycle I was sold some enyme something to get a quick cycle. I couldn't stay out of the store and a week later the owner of the LFS said to pick out fish. Oh...and I did. I went home with a tassel file, 2 yellow head jawfish, a flame angel, engineer goby, a maroon clown, a yellow spotted box fish, and a long horn cow fish! I know...I know...now. I acclimated them and put them in the tank. I was a fanatic...I watched them for hours on end...tested every day. I honestly do not know how I kept them alive. Two weeks later I went back to the store and ....hold on it gets worse...she sold me a bicolor angel, lemonpeel angel, AND a mandarin goby and a piece of LR. (I had no LR and she had convinced me to buy cc for my substrate) The mandarin didn't live for long. Things went well for a few months. Loved my tank. But I was concerned because I could never seem to hold my levels and I always seemed to have ammonia and nitrates. One by one my fish died. I was upset and was told to keep adding LR. It was always a struggle to maintain that tank even though I did weekly water changes and tested often. This went on for years. It seemed to stabilize the last 3 years but I wouldn't say it was perfect. I had bought a skimmer and a uv light. Changed some things...started removing the blue bio balls. blah blah blah. When the electrical fire happened I was just done. It made me sick to see these fish die. Well..all but the now 10 in long engineer goby!! (No one told me they would get that big!)

Fast forward a couple of years.....I never could get rid of my tanks. I also have a 48 hex. I'm glad I didn't because the past few weeks I've gotten the urge to do it again...only this time I'm more knowledgable. This time I will do it right from the start. I won't be doing business with the previous LFS for sure.

That is about it. My husband is excited to start. I already had my tanks when I married him and he fell in love with them too. Our son is 8 yo and wishes I would get off the internet to set it all up! But I have a lot more reading and research to do to make sure what I set up this time is absolutely the best way to do. I'll probaly have a ton of questions for all of you so be forwarned!
 
Welcome to AA and congrats on getting back into the hobby! :)
 
Thanks everybody. :) I've just spent the last 2 hours reading the forums here and making lists. There are a lot of great ideas on this forum! Unfortunately almost too good....now I'm kind of thinking maybe...just maybe I should prepare for a reef. Just waiting on my husband to get home so we can check the tank to make sure it will pass the leak test. Then to see what equipment is working.
 
Lots of good advice here. Ask away! AND....

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