MY EARLY DAYS AS A NEWB.

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CompulsiveAqua

CompulsiveAqua
Mar 5, 2009
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Cleveland
Compulsive Aqua


By JAmes ZOldak…
THERE WAS MANY PIC'S BUT FOR SOME REASON THEY DON'T SIZE RIGHT WHEN I INSERT THEM...


it was close to five years ago when i experienced my first tank. it was downhill from there, by downhill i mean uphill, well, uphill with a lot of bumps, headscratces, and hair pulling delight. at the end of whenever it is that we get a break from the monster (thats what my wife calls it) inside of us, we can sit back and listen to the ocean, see the reef through our own personal looking glass, smell the salt from the powerhead that disrupts the waters surface, feel a moray eel or let a clown trigger rip a piece of shrimp from our hand and taste success (most of the time,uhh for some of us part of the time, you know what i meando you remember your first tank?).
twentynine gallon
cant believe this all started because of a hand me down fish tank. some of the things you are going to read are not pleasent; please dont hold it against me. ignorance and just plain stupid. when a past roomate and i went our separate ways, there was piece of furniture he couldnt fit in his dodge aries. you guessed it a 29 gallon tank. you're a mindreader. lets describe its emaculate conition: it had an ugf (under gravel filter) with one side not functioning, no heater to speak of, a burnt out flourescent bulb, a clogged air stone, inch and half of undeterminable colored stones with two inches of water so thick with fish **** that you couldnt see the two classic goldfish flopping around on the bottom. right again, ill take it! i said. was moving tomorrow so i put the tank in the back seat of my car and went to bed. the next morning i drove to my new apt.upstair of a house on clifton blvdgrrrreeaat! i proceeded to carry this sad excuse of a fish home of probably 50 degree water up the stairs. unfortunately, creating waves is a bad thing. i covered myself in fish poopie; smells good let me tell you.
first thing was first, i needed water, right? i filled the tank with good old clevelands finest, tap. i was on my way. to my surprise, through watered down feces, the two goldfish began to swim around and oh ya, there was another fish in there. where were you hidding little fishy? a sucker fish, i use to call them, but now its know as a placatimus. i never did clean the poop; i just let it settle to the bottom, didnt know how to unclog the ugf, but managed to get a couple bubbles out of the air stone after i washed it with soap. i look back and wonder sometimes about how the hell those fish survived in 50 degree **** water, but they did. after watching the fish eat their own crap for about two weeks, i decided it was time to head to the fish store. i do not wanna mention the stores name so we will call it petdumb. while there, i picked a bulb, five neon tetras and two more goldfish. the black ones with the buldging eyes. oh, almost forgot and some fish food. at the time i didn't ask questions. i didnt see the point. anyone can take care of fish, right? my dumbass didn't know about nitrate or any other bacteria that could harm fish. suprisingly, the fish lived for six months with no illness. i know, crazy, huh? next comes another billiant move, i pat myself on the back for thinking up this one all by myself. i was bored. this is easy i said to myself. lets have a little fun. back to the store i went. petdumb was more than happy to help me with my little project. i asked for a fish that would beat up my fish. here, this one and a half inch tiger oscar will do it, he said. i couldnt wait to get home. i poured the water and the fish right in there. lets not let him adjust or anything! god **** it, nothing is happening! why arent they fighting? time to go to bed. low and beholdthe next morning i woke to two less tetras. where did they go? i asked myself. and when i came home from work, no more tetras. one by one this stealthy oscar annahilated them in the dark. he did not touch the placatumus. a week later the oscar was dead. why? was it the rat of the sea (goldfish) he ate? did the placatumus kill him? or was it the fact that two years of fish **** made the nitrate twice as high as my credit score, 800? i know, 400 lets not talk about it, fish, were talking about fish. that was it; i flushed the sucker and pitched everything except the tank, light, and stand. two years went by till i touched it again, but in the back of my mind; i was always thinking about it.
second twentynine gallon
the old lady and i kinda, sorta split up; you know how those things go sometimes. i had a two bedroom by myself, just me and peneolpe (my daughter). i needed something to pass my free time. little did i know it would amount to this. ive lugged this piece of glass around long enough, lets put it to use. this time i was a little more interested and decided to ask some questions at petdumb. i got rid of the ugf, replaced it with an aquaclear 30, got a lid for itevapertion, duh! bought a heater, thermomiter, new rocks (substrate), and some decor (tree roots for fish cover). i was all set, now i needed fish. he said’“what about cichlids”…”what are those? i replied. he rattled on about the frown smilie face, they were agrressive, but not toward each other, only other types fishes. i purchased four. i dont really know, but im pretty sure they were all convict cichlids. i was smart now. i let them adapt to the water for 10 miutes before releasing them to their short lives. immediately they began to fight. before long (4 days) three were dead. the victor i later found out was a jewel cichlid. why? i did everything right! why didnt my fish live? cycle you say, whats that? this brute i would come to find out looked lonely to me, so lets go get him some friends. the guy said,i dont know what happened, man. i lost twenty dollars worth of fish, thats what happened, man (that's a lot, ha). he convinced my naiveness to buy two four inch peacock cichlids, twenty more, weeee! the jewel was only an inch and a half so there was no way he could mess with them. im sure it was a combination of water quality and the fact that he had his territory already picked out. they lasted two day. flush. four more random cichlids. flush. i got that lightbulb above my head again. lets try and find something that can really handle its own. six inch green terror. no contest, right? it took two weeks but he managed to remove (bite, shred) all of his fins, he put up a good fight though. green terror. flush. i decided he should be alone and went to the store and bought a ten gallon tank starter kit for my cichlid that i quite proudly named killer.

third twentynine gallon
what fun, huh? i felt bad for the fish and felt bad about my wallet. then a friend at work says to me, have you been to (changed name for protection) smr aquaculture? i had not been, but what could this fish store have that others did not? what a world of difference, to have a good fishes dealer. first question out of the empoyees mouth was,has your tank cycled yet? huh? what? so the explaination began on what, why, and how cycling in pertinent
Figure
1 FIRST COUPLE OF WEEKS…HORRIBLE DESIGN.View attachment AQUARIUM 2 013.JPG

Figure 2 AT TWO MONTHS, JUST STARTING TO DECORATEView attachment Landscape 134.JPG
Figure 3 SIX MONTHS, THINK I WAS FINALLY HAPPY WITH THE DESIGNView attachment fish and stuff 016.JPG

for a successful aquarium. i really wanted to buy some fish that day, but he suggested (with some vigor in his voice) not to. a sales person, not pushing a sale, what the he__? instead he suggested some test strips and a book about freshwater aquariums i bought two (aquarium care of cichlids by claidia dickinson/animal planet, to try and figure out what went wrong and freshwater aquariums also by animal planet, both are good reads for a beginner). he also told me to come back in three weeks when my ammonia, nitrite and nitrate were zero hence a cycled tank. i would have to say here is when it all started. the rows and rows of tropical fishes, plants, marine fishes, invertabrites, hard corals, soft corals and anomones (what the hell is that?) i say this is when it all began because i began to read. and to this day i have not stopped. the great thing about this hobby is that like life you can learn something new everyday (those of you who think you know it all, think again, dumbass). ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, cycling, filters, heaters, frozen food, fray, protein skimmer, wetr/dry, metal halitesthe list is endless, i love this hobby and obviously you do to if you are reading this article. now back to the topic at hand, enough of the mushy stuff. i went home and did as he suggsted, since there had been the flurry of fish battles in my twentynine gallon tank, it took only about a week for the pee-pee and pooh-pooh, as my daughter calls it, to break down. i still waited for three weeks though. back to smr i went. not having any sort of theme in my mind for the type of tank i wanted, i just chose the fish that looked cool to me (and i even let my wife pick out a couple). what was baggd up and taken home was three 4in bala sharks (pretty minnow), three 2in marble angelfish,and i got the ten pack of neon tetras for a steal out the door. to show what i mean by a good fish dealer is how informative they are to you. and if they really dont know the answer, they say so. the salesman told me that when the sharks got bigger they could possibly eat the neons, but it would be a while. also, the tanks at the store should be realitively clean, void of dead fishes, and disease.
a couple of weeks went by and my nitrates went sky high, guess its time for a water change. twenty percent of twentynine is.. ah.ah ..around six, right? so i did my water change and waited another two weeks. the nitrates were even higher. whats going on now. its been five years and this next topic is still a pain in my ***. as much as they can eat in two minutes, three times a dayor is it five minutes twice a day or just once a dayits better to feed too little than too much they saywho the hec is they anyway and how much is too much and if a little is alright is it enough so they dont die and if i feed them too much do i have to siphin out the extra food everytime. needless to say, i was feeding them too much and that is way my nitrates went through the roof. how much of a brine shrimp cube or how many silversides is too much, im getting ahead of my self. not on saltwater yet. ok, that problem sorta solved. the only i advice i have, that i havent read in a book is: each fish really has its own eating habit and til you get acustom to how they eat, be prepared to make a ton of water changes. about a month later i went back to petdumb and purchased two 1in red wag platys and two 1in red glass barbs and added them the proper way. six months went by and everything was good until i saw my fish breathing heavy, then i started seeing white specks that looked a lot like salt. can you guess? ich, apparently its a protazon parasite that feeds of fish and multiplies like rabbits. smr suggested to turn up the temp gradually and gave me a medicine that turned my water green (malthite green). a couple weeks past and they were better. its kinda like being a kid all over again, you sometimes have to experience it to learn your mistakes. three more months went by and both tanks were doing great. my fish grew a little, some of my tetras turned up missing (like he said), and i had fun redesigning my tank during water changes. my daughter also enjoyed feeding the fish, feed fish!, feed fish! how can you resist. being the type of person i am, freshwater didnt seem to challenge me enough. those marine fishes at smr really looked cool. i did a little research online and read a book (saltwater aquariums, david e. boruchowitz/ animal planet). also a good beginner book.
sixtyfive gallon tank

im lucky. and i will tell you why. talking to my boss at work all the time about my fishes and telling him that i am thinking about getting a saltwater tank, the most amazing thing happened. he kept a saltwater aquarium about eight years ago and he was willing to give it to me if i did some work at his house. i didnt realize the deal i was getting. sixty five gallon tank, enhiem canister filter, prizm protien skimmer, master saltwater test kit, a home made canopy with twentyone inch compact white and twentyone inch actinic blue lights attached, two powerheads, and various nets and scapers and such. wow, i thought to myself i wont have to spend any money (lol, lmao). those of you with salt know i got a good deal, but that's really only the tip of what you will spend on saltwater aquariums. i read, but i still needed some guidance. smr here i come. lets call him bob. bob said all i need was some substrate, salt, a hydromter, and a heater. i chose live sand because it would help with my cycling (ha, reading does help) and bob suggested i put a pleum in before the substrate. again, what is that? i really didnt understand even after he explained it to me. something about negative space under the sand turning waste into gases. i drove to home depot and bought what i needed and installed it. everything was set. all the filters were working, salinity (salt in the water) was at 1.022 (should be between 1.018 to 1.024 for fish-only tanks), heater set to 75 degrees, substrate in..waiting for tank to settle. the tank gets very foggy when you add the sand and anyway you need to wait a day for the salt to mix properly. bob told me not to attempt a reef tank because high water quality was necessary, i didnt really know what that meant either. here it is, im calling a sidebar. im writing this to let all you know out there wanting any sort of aquarium to read many books (not one), talk to aquarists, go online. do not make the same mistakes i have. do not do the stupid **** that i pulled. and have fun. back to bob. time to add some damsels (small, cheap fish used to cycle your tank) and starter bacteria for some extra added help. i bought four and in two weeks, two were dead and all my levels were great. fish, fish, fish i want them all, ill take that one and that one and that one. this is very common for the newbie.never buy more fish than can fit in your tank as full grown adults! screw that, lets get some fish. bob suggested a predator tank (fishes that are carnivores), some of the other fishes are omnivores and require high water quality he said. whats high water quality? you think i would ask. nope. fish, fish, and more fish! i bought a blackpatch trigger, two days later i bought a lionfish, three days later i bought a dogface puffer, a week later i bought an undulated trigger. ok, rewind, what was that last one, i think someone pulled a fast one on me. do not buy this fish unless he is in a tank by himself or you wish to stress out or kill all of your fishes (boy he is beautiful though). that trigger, when i fed them krill or shrimp, would actually take all of the food as it fell, make a pile in the back of the tank and guard it with his life. this caused me to chase him away from the other fish to feed them, stressing everyone in the tank. fishes are touchy and do not liked to be stressed, get a book and read about it. anyway i dealt with that s.o.b for two months, then finally emptied the tank of all its decor and took him back to smr. its like buying a car, i paid 29.99 for him (they should have given me money) and got 3.00 in store credit back. yippie! if you havnt already guessed, the old lady and i got back togather. i let her pick the next fish. an eel. a snowflake eel. what the ____! he meshed well. lets touch briefly on fish personalities. like people there is not two alike. my first puffer was happy and curious. yes, when i came home one day, he was blown up, dead, and stuck to one of the powerheads. i dont know what happened. so i bought a new one. he hid, always! to explain how it all went down ill tell you how the boys in the tank acted. the lionfish constanly harassed the puffer, but the trigger was kind of his protector and shooed away the lionfish ocassionaly. he was mean, one of the two damsels met his fate when i didnt feed him enough. he ate him, the lion wasnt that big so you could see a big blue lump in his stomach. the eel kept to himself. i had heard (dont really know where i get this information from) that angelfish are the king of the tank and that they could keep the other fishes in check. hi lemonpeel angelfish. everything was great for two weeks until…… this 3 fish of death sure was the king, but not by keeping the peace, by egging the others on. he must have been paid to make the puffers life a living hell. nip.nipnipnip..nip!! you could actually see the chunks taken out of the puffers underside. the trigger was still trying to protect, but he couldnt keep up with two attackers. so i decided i loved my girlfriend so much that i asked her to marry me. shes editting this, i get points. that means we were going to live togather again. bigger, bigger, bigger. tax return time, forget about the bills you have to pay, buy fish stuff instead. at this point and time i had also decided to check out any local fish clubs, looked online and found out there was the cleveland aquarium society (cas). the meeting are the first tue of each month, membership is 10 bucks and the people a friendly as hec. during the meeting we watched a video about freshwater fish, had food and drinks and afterwards talked about fish. that's the best part about it allpeople that actually like the same thing you dothere is not many of us out there. each personality is great, you have snobby know it alls(gotta have at least one of those), breeders, newbies, and people with more experience than i am old. overall i give cas a 9. oh ya, and at the end there is a raffle for fish stuff, you can even bring stuff in you dont need and give it to someone who does. there was only two others that had saltwater and they were taking it slow, which is what you should do, but somehow i am too compulsive. i did get a tip while i was there..i said i was looking for a bigger tank and they directed me to aquriacentral.com. it paid off, something good for once! three hours away, 125 gallon tank, stand, wet/dry filter, 72 corallife power compacts, powerheads,how much you ask? 400 dollars, ill take it. smooth transaction, now it was time to tell the future wife. she seemed excited (lol). in the basement it went, six foot celings, no sun and get temperature.


so back to the fish, for the move i planned on taking all the fish to the new house, i had some time, so i was ready for the cycle, i bought some live rock and ten damsels.go figure after about a month of this chaos in the sixtyfive gallon i had decided to come home from work, rip apart the tank, and take back the lemonpeel. why does everything go wrong that can go wrong? newbie. angelfish.dead. lionfish.dead. puffer on his last leg. dead. trigger, eel and one damsel survived. i think the puffer had enough and annhilated the lion and the angel, but no one knows.no one was there. the puffer was the last to die though.
this was my first major blow to the wallet and to my emotions. i had become attached to those fish. i guess that's what sets aquarists and just fish keepers who give up when things get rough, apart. i am only a couple months in on saltwater and now know what the books ive read mean by saying, you will spend a lot of money on saltwater tanks, so expect it. inexperience again: from reading online i guess test kits do have a shelf life. the one i got from my boss was 4 years old! my nitrates always read twentyeven when i did water changes.idiot. so i bought a new test kit, nitrates 160. holy s___t! at this point i was done with the sixtyfive gallon tank and decided to take it apart, use the sand, plelum and some water to cyle my new beast of a tank. and unfortunately that meant putting in the trigger, eel and other dam\sel in early.
onehundredtwentyfive gallon tank
ohh my god! this is a lot of water. my boy and i had fun hooking everything up and putting in the 10 damsels, blackpatch trigger and snowflake eel. the 4x 96 watt power compacts had to be replaced200.00. one hundred pounds of sand250.00. just to start i bought 30 pounds of live rock210.00. now lets talk about the live rock..it is called so because of the little critters that live within its cracks and crevices. if it is good live rock it should have some coraline algae growing on it. coraline algae it the best algae you can have, it comes in all colors: red, purple, pink, green, white. i bought some with purpleand used dead corals as fillers which would, in time, become live rock also. so cycled it went. it took about three weeks for the full cycle and no dead fish. now that my nitrates were up there, it was time for my first water change. ok.. i get it.. when you are starting out bigger is better and a must. what you are accomplishing with the large tank is creating perfect water parameters and practicing your ability to keep them that way. things tend to take a while to go bad when you have a large tank, i.e. your nitrates would take a couple of weeks to get bad. only advanced aquarists should have smaller setup due to the constant water changes and the necessary husbandry. i decided to do a 40 gallon water changeanother wallet buster..mixing salt came be time consuming, here is a breakdown of how it should really be done:
1. use reverse osmosis water (the longevity of the fish will increase, you wont be adding phosphates, nitrates, or metals which can be detrimental to fishand future corals.)
2. dont take your water out yet!!!
3. decide what percentage of change (i do 10% a week)
4. water, salt, bucket, and powerhead to areate
5. let it sit over nite
6. next dayremove water and any visible waste
7. when you are adding your new water back into the tank use the same siphon hose, dont just pour it in, put the bucket higher than the water level and siphon it back in. that way it has time to mix in.
i find this method of doing it benefits your fish and the corals that i will get to.
for the first 3 months of the tank i used tap water with dechloinator.much more to come


View attachment AQUARIUM 2 013.JPG View attachment Landscape 134.JPG View attachment fish and stuff 016.JPG View attachment fish and stuff 048.JPG
 
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Lycanthropic

AC Members
Jun 29, 2009
667
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0
Alberta
Please stop posting in all caps locks!
IT IS ANNOYING!
 

excuzzzeme

Stroke Survivor '05
The all bold caps posting makes it impossible to read! Nor do I like the (previous) title.
 
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ToeJam

MMORPG ADDICT!!
Jan 9, 2009
765
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Tacoma,WA
I do say for the sake of making things better for a reader when you type stories I do recommend you stick to more strict Grammar formats.

Smaller fonts, Caps when approrpiate, Indentation etc etc...it helps those who would like a good read.
 
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Slappy*McFish

Global Moderator
Staff member
Feb 18, 2002
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75
Raleigh, NC
Yeah, I didn't read it either...and I really wanted to.
 

tekonus

...meh?
Nov 20, 2008
471
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16
Long Island, NY
I tried to read it... got most of the way into the part about his saltwater setup before I felt like one of my eyeballs was about to explode. Seriously, dude. I don't care that you used the word (that was edited from the thread title) but that was one of the worst structured post ever. Its like one Capslock'd run-on sentence. Did you actually read what you wrote there at all after typing it all up?
:thud:
 
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montanafish gal

AC Members
Aug 1, 2009
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50
Montana
good story. Makes the rest of us who have made the same (or worse!) mistakes feel alittle better!! I would love to have a salt water tank, but I am just not brave enough!!
 
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