Time For Some Learning Lesson

Well the first learning lesson was leaving the window open overnight. The second lesson was how I introduced my Anemone to my tank when I brought him from the store. What your supposed to do is float your animals in the tank for about 45 minutes then you add about a cup of tank water to the bag every 15 minutes, and after about an hour of doing this you net your fish out of the bag and add him to the tank. I did that for all my fish that I bought, however with the Anemone I couldn't figure out how to net him out of there, SO I DUMPED THE BAG into the tank. Lesson number two those tanks at the store are full of chemicals to keep the fish subdued. The next day I came home to a dead Velvet Damsel, a very sick clown fish, and a sad looking Anemone. I immediately went out and bought a ten gallon hospital tank, and began to wait until the water got up to temperature. While I was at the store the guy there told me about adding garlic solution to help the fish relax and that would in turn help them get better. So I added the garlic right away and set up my hospital tank, by the time the clown fish that looked like he had white worms growing off him had all but healed.
Lessons:
#1 Be careful with open windows
#2 Don't add the store water to your tank
#3 Make sure you take your time acclimatizing your animals
#4 Never add too many fish at the same time only do a couple at a time.
#5 Have a hospital tank set up to make sure your fish are disease free.
#6 GARLIC WORKS GREAT, I add it their food every day
#7 Stress causes disease and kills fish, add garlic to the tank when they are stressed for what ever reason.

Stocking The Tank

Well the tank has finished cycling and I've captured, killed, or removed all but two of my yellow tailed damsels. It is now time to begin the task of stocking the tank with a community of fish that are compatible, so of to the book store and pet store to find a good book that shows which fish get along the best. The best book I found was The 101 Best Saltwater Fishes, I found that in Vancouver at J&L Aquatics in Burnaby close to S.F.U. on Lougheed hwy. I also found they had the biggest variety of stock and supplies and the best prices. When I was there I also picked up some live sand 40lbs bag and replacement media for my Marineland canister filter, and I also bought a package deal for a clean up crew. The custodian package I got was for a 50-60 gallon tank it included 45 Blue Legged Hermit Crabs, 5 Red Scarlet Hermit Crabs, 15 Astrea Snails, 15 Margarita Snails, and 15 Cerith Snails, and all that for $150.00. I also bought another 60gal pail of Seachem Seasalt for $40.00 and a few other books on reef keeping. I waited until I got back from Vancouver until I bought fish because I was worried about the 4 hour car ride back to Kelowna, a worry that I should not have had, as they would have been fine I would have just had to worry about the temperature. Anyways ounce I was back I waited until the two for one sale and I bought two False Percula Clown Fish (Ocellaris Clown Fish) and a Lawnmower Blenny Fish. The next weekend I went down and bought a bubble tipped Sea Anenome, man was that guy beautiful. That Anenome was a good 6 inches in diameter and had a real nice purple colour to him, at the store he was a pink colour and was about half the size. I found out later that the reason he changed coulour was because of my blue actnitic lights becuase it had the same effect on another fish I bought a Royal Gramma who was half bright pink and half bright yellow and when I got him home he was half purple and half yellow. I also bought a Blue Velvet Damsel Fish.

Cycling the tank

Well I bought my three little fish and all I had to do was wait about four to five weeks for the tank to cycle, which as I stated on the previous post I knew nothing about. So I did my best to research what it meant, and from what I could figure was that as the fish were fed and produced bio waist, that would in turn crate nitrates in the water which in turn would create nitrites, or something like that. At this point I had no chemistry kit to test the water so I had to bring a sample to the store and I relied on them to tell me how everything was doing. Another thing I was to do was to take notice of the different colour algae blooms, it was supposed to go green, brown, red, and back to green again. I never noticed anything much more then a slight change in colour that showed up on the gravel and all the tests that I did at the store came out perfect, no traces of anything. One thing that I forgot to mention that during that first month was that I had read that providing the tank with fresh air was a good thing, well one night I forgot to shut the window and the next day two of my fish were looking pretty sick. They were really pale almost white and they moved slow, well the next day one died and the other fish was missing. Well off to the pet store again to buy their replacements, two more damsels which I named David and David. I learned the hard way (which I tend to do) temperature change is a really bad thing and needs to be monitored extremely closely. So a month went by and everyone at the store agreed, my tank must have finished cycling and it was now o.k. to add different fish, the only problem was that those yellow tailed damsels were mean fighting fish and I now had catch them. Well about week after adding David and David to the tank that missing fish came to the surface and was hiding at the top of the tank. This was good because it was a week after I added David and David that I learned that these Damsel were not to be kept and they were only there to help the tank cycle. So I caught him and put him in a breeder isolation container which acted as bait to catch the other damsel. At this point Larry Died, Curly was captured and so was one of the Davids, that only left Mo and the other David, and of course Zena my six lined wrasse. The clerks at the store figured would be OK, hopefully, and if they were too aggressive we could try and catch them again.

Setting up the Live rock and filters and everything else

I proceeded filling up the tank with Reverse Osmosis water that I bought from a near by bottled water company, I used R/O water because thats what the clerk at the pet store told me I needed. I let the tank run with just water for about a week, until I went to the store and bought all that rock. Again on the advise of the sale clerk I waited a couple of days before I put any fish in the tank and when I did I had to buy Damsels because they were extremely hardy fish and could handle the effects of Cycling, which I didn't really understand what that meant but no worries I was patient. When I added the rock and was waiting to add my damsels I notice a wierd looking thing running around on the gravel, he looked like a miniture lobster or something like that. I didn't think much of it and figured he just was a stole away from the rocks, along with my six snails and my six lined wrasse (Zina). I later learned that he was a mantis shrimp and could be very hazardest to the fish that I would be keeping. Anyways with no way to catch him I was stuck with him, funny thing is I never saw him ever again? So I research the internet looking for the best way to arrange the rock formation and read up about how to place the rocks carefully on the glass bottom making sure not to crack the glass. Then I was to place the gravel around the rocks and that would make them super secure and the snails and fish wouldn't be able to knock anything over. I also placed some sea shells I had in the original tank many years ago, I bleached them and was very careful to rinse them thoroughly. So off to the store to buy three fish, yellow tailed damsels, and I named them Larry, Curly, and Mo.