Ahoy

[JohnnyReeftank]

Whats shakin y'all?

I've always wanted a saltwater setup and since I finally managed to buy my own house I've decided that its finally time to get my old 35g freshwater tank cleaned up. I basically just tossed out all of the crap in it and kept the glass. I cleaned it up with some vinigar and a hose and then started to do some research online. I couldnt believe that there was so much to learn in order to do this right. I'd never known anyone with a saltwater setup so I had no idea about how much of a challenge it is to maintain a successful ecosystem. Its now 3 weeks later and I've built my own stand, bought all my equipment (remora skimmer, GLO T5 HO's, heater, api test kits, refractometer) and my live rock and argonite. I bought 60lbs of rock from 2 different stores and some random guy off kijiji in order to get some bacteria diversity and I didn't figure I'd need to shell out for the live sand. I'm currently 2 weeks into my cycle and my ammonia is clearing up overnight but I haven't seen any drop in nitrites yet. I've heard this doesn't happen until week 3-4 so no worries yet.

The wait is killing me but the main point every reef keeper seems to emphasize is patience so I'm being diligent and just allowing my hitchikers to be my only inhabitants. I got 3 blue hermits, a shitload of orange bristleworms and a big @$$ Xanthid Crab (which I managed to trap and remove). I'm trying to trap the bristle's as well but they are tricky (any suggestions woulld be appreciated....using shrimp in container trap now). Other than that I'm just playing the waiting game...while I gawk at my bank statements and tour the various LFS in Cowtown. I'll post some pics once I have something worth posting

--Johnny

Edited September 30, 2010 by JohnnyReeftank