My First Tank 90G

[randy322]

Impulsively went to my LFS and immediately knew I needed to start my very own reef tank. I’ve had a betta before, but that was nothing compared to this. Currently I’m a month and a half in with no issues once so ever.

I wanted to do something with puffer fish, eels, and sea horses but some research I knew that would be way to difficult if not impossible. So I decided to do a box fish, and I may risk my inverts later on with trying to find a dwarf moray, in a few years.

After some planning and thinking, I started small buying everything off of Facebook. Found a great 90g tank, with stand filter, and heater for $280 delivered to my living room.

I then went to my LFS and bought live sand, some rock, salt, testing supplies, and some other miscellaneous supplies. I had no idea I would spend another several hundred dollars, lol.

Went home set everything up, and began waiting and testing and a few weeks later I bought my first few fish.

Ocellaris
Black ocellaris
Royal gramma
Tiger pistol

All fish seem extremely happy! Even though the gramma hides constantly and I haven’t seen the pistol shrimp in a week. I don’t know what to get next I’m thinking some hermit crabs, cleaner shrimp, star fish, a mangrove, and some snails, however I haven’t seen much (if any) algae.

Let me know thoughts!

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Following along! love the aquascape in your tank!

 

[kevgib67]

Off to a great start I see. Welcome to R2R, glad you are here!

 

[randy322]

So my first issues arose. I went to add copepods due to diatoms starting to appear. Unplug filter ok easy peasy. Cylinder filter has bad O ring. Flooded apartment. Horrible mess ensues. Fixed. I can not figure out how to fix the cylinder filter, so I replace it with protein skimmer. Should be better in the long run anyways. I then decide to add some clean up crew. Halloween hermit, an emerald crab, bumblebee snail, cleaner shrimp, zombie snail, torchus, a margarita, and a tuxedo. I see a deal on feather duster annd can’t resist. I also add a YWG for my pistol. All seem fine for a few days, however one of the snails doesn’t move a lot. I have to go on vacation for a few days so I purchase an auto feeder. I set it up to feed slightly too much and come home to a very dirty tank, and see my Halloween hermit FEASTING on the urchin. I move the urchin. I see it’s tentacles moving slightly so I know it’s alive. However it doesn’t move at all. Sigh. Hope it’s still ok. I don’t have any vacation plans for a while so I can keep a closer eye on things, so hopefully no more big issues arise. Happy to see my gramma moving more and saw my cleaner molt. Saw the pistol and goby a few times nice to see everything come to life!


Forgive me for the poor ugly photo, but that is the state of the tank! ( going to upgrade powerhead eventually)