More Pictures & Water Readings

The crabs are still alive and doing well. We've had lots of fun watching them crawl around and eat things off of the live rock! Here are a few side-view photos of the tank:











And, some close-up shots of the live rock:























We have also discovered some zoanthids, also called "zoas" or "zoos" (above, bottom-right) growing on the rock.

Water Readings 3/29/10:
PH - 8.2
Ammonia - 0 PPM
Nitrite - 0 PPM
Nitrate - 0 PPM
Temp. - 78° F

Aptasia!

We have discovered another pest growing on the live rock we purchased - Aiptasia!








Apparently, this stuff isn't easy to get rid of either; certainly not as easy as buying a crab to eat it! Fortunately, however, we only seem to have a couple of them. So far, we're taking a "wait and see" approach with these.

Water Readings 3/24/10:
PH - 8.2
Ammonia - 0 PPM
Nitrite - 0 PPM
Nitrate - 0 PPM
Temp. - 78° F

New Additions to the Aquarium

Today we added another 39 lbs. of live rock:

Since our water readings have been perfect for 10 days straight, we also decided to go ahead and test adding some crabs to our marine environment. Even tho you're really supposed to wait at least a month to let the aquarium cycle before adding any marine life to it. We chose 2 emerald mithrax crabs; we named them Pete & Repeat - ha! Pete & Repeat will eat the bubble algae along with cleaning up other things we don't want in the tank.

We'll see how they affect the water levels and also how they will cope with it. This will be a good test of how well we're doing with our tank, how adding marine life will affect it, and whether or not we might be able to add more anytime soon!

Water Readings 3/22/10:
PH - 8.2
Ammonia - 0 PPM
Nitrite - 0 PPM
Nitrate - 0 PPM
Temp. - 78° F

Water Readings

Water Readings 3/18/10:
PH - 8.1
Ammonia - 0 PPM
Nitrite - 0 PPM
Nitrate - 0 PPM
Temp. - 75 deg. F

Discovery

We have joined Reef Central - www.reefcentral.com (as joshnlaura), an online community of dedicated marine aquarium hobbyists. We posted photos of our new set-up and discovered that some of the live rock we purchased has bubble algae (the translucent green stuff) growing on it. Apparently, bubble algae is not something we want!

We also discovered that a snail that didn't want to come out of one of the live rocks when we purchased it actually survived the set-up process!


Water Readings 3/16/10:
PH - 8.1
Ammonia - 0 PPM
Nitrite - 0 PPM
Nitrate - 0 PPM
Temp. - 80° F

Initial Set Up

We are newbies to the marine aquarium hobby, but have always dreamed of having one. Today we made that dream a reality. We purchased a 75 gallon tank with an oak stand from a friend for a steal! After spending several days cleaning and getting it ready, we were finally able to add the necessities to get it started: 80 lbs. of live sand, 60 gals. of pre-mixed salt water, and 27 lbs. of live rock. After much effort to pick-up and get the stuff in the aquarium and after giving the sand several hours to settle, we were left with something that looked a bit like this:

Since we were having an enormous amount of trouble getting the lights to work in the hood that came with the tank we purchased, we went back to purchase a T5 light that Pet Palace had on sale and some bubble things that are supposed to help circulate oxygen in the water (I think it adds nicely to the aesthetics, too). After getting it installed and being able to see the contents of the aquarium enough to rearrange the rock, it ended up looking something like this:


Water Readings 3/14/10:
PH - 8.2
Ammonia - 0 PPM
Nitrite - 0 PPM
Nitrate - 0 PPM
Temp. - 75° F