I recently won a saltwater/reef tank from
Aquatic Addictions a couple of weeks ago. They had a charity raffle, the prize was a complete saltwater setup. Having NEVER even considered saltwater before, my husband & I have been tossed in the deep end and are paddling for all we're worth! LOL Here's what the set up came with and how we got it started.
-36 Gallon Hex tank with stand and cap
-Fluval 405
-One Hydor Koralia 1
-Rock,sand and livestock (paired clownfish, couple plate corals and couple of ricordeas)
-150W Metal Halide Pendant and all accessories (heater etc.)
I'm not sure how long the tank was set up at AA but it had been taken down before we picked it up (long story short, the first guy that won the tank never showed up, then after a month or so arrived at the store and said no thanks, he pulled another ticket and it was mine! yay!). Anyway, they took the tank apart before we won it, so it was pretty easy to transport it home when the time came. We brought all the equipment home (except the light - that came a couple of days later), bought new sand as the old sand had sat in the empty tank for a time and stunk to high heaven. The Fluval needed cleaning out (dead anemone in it!), so dh (dear husband!) cleaned everything (tank, fluval, Hydor Koralia, etc), we then set it up in the corner of the living room. Once we figured out where we wanted it (which did include buying a new couch as the old one was too big to allow the tank & stand to sit in the corner we wanted it to! LOL), put the new sand and freshly mixed saltwater in. Got the Fluval running with just carbon in it, got the Koralia going, near the top of the tank with the flow aimed at a front wall, heater installed, etc. We bought a hydrometer and brought the metal halide light home and got that hooked up. Here's a quick pic of 'phase 1' (north facing window btw).
We tested the tank every day for the next several days. Once the specific gravity and temperature were stable, we brought home some of the live rock. AA had been holding our tank inhabitants and rock in one of their tanks. So we bring home a box of rocks, start 'aquascaping' the tank. Hubby gets to the bottom of the box, and decides to toss the 'rubble' in for a little interest. Once it hit the bottom, it got up and walked away!! Hermit crabs and snails!! Our first recognized hitchhikers! We didn't even know such a thing existed! Here's a pic of phase 2!
And our first hitchhiker..
And here's a close up of phase 2's rock layout
We kept this setup for a week or so, then went and picked up the rest of the live rock - the stuff with ricordea, anthelia, some feather dusters, etc. It took some maneuvering and fiddling, but got all the rock in place and everything settled in nicely. We found a Halloween hermit crab and an astrea snail amongst the new hitchhikers. The Halloween hermit spent the first week sitting in one spot (okay, maybe a 3 inch diameter spot) at the front of the tank. We didn't hold out much hope for him (there was a big piece of rock sitting on him in the bucket we brought everything home in), but since then he's finally acclimatized and today is the first time he's moved farther since we got him. He made it to the top of the rock pile today, so he's obviously feeling pretty good.
Once we had all our 'free' live rock installed, very well cured rock apparently (so we were told - remember, we don't know much about the saltwater aspect of the aquarium hobby!), we opted to purchase a few more pieces as we needed to fill out the back wall of the tank a bit more - we bought another three pounds from Aquatic Addictions, mostly out of the same tank our original rock came from. We made a quick trip to J&L Aquatics a few days later to pick up a bit of a clean up crew - 5 blue legged hermits, a scarlet hermit, and 5 small snails and two peppermint shrimp (we have some aiptasia that we have been led to understand is a bad thing, and we're hoping the shrimp will keep it inline for a bit). We also picked up a second Hydor Koralia 1, and a few more odds and ends (so much for a 'free' saltwater setup! ROFL!).
We added the pair of true percula clowns on Tuesday this week. They had eaten just before we brought them home, so we fed them for the first time today. WOW! Talk about healthy appetites! They pigged out! I'll get pics of the current set up tomorrow - it's looking pretty cool - though not nearly as amazing as some of the setups I've seen here!!
Now comes the newbie part (and thank you for reading to this point!). I have a couple of questions, and no amount of reading has answered them for me yet.
1) Would you add a protein skimmer to the set up?
2) Given the size of the tank, and the live rock/critters we have, should we be adding supplements of any kind. We have ricordea, anthelia, colt coral (Cladiella sp), feather dusters, and bright yellow polyps (zoa?) that we know of.
3) Do you see anything that we are blatantly forgetting or don't know about? We're reading as much as we can, but my brain is completely overwhelmed with information! We don't want to kill anything, and we are completely fascinated with the whole concept of the saltwater tank system - hubby's already talking about a bigger tank one of these days. Yup, so much for 'free'!! ROFL!
(another great big thanks to Dan, Nikki, Scott and crew at Aquatic Addictions!!)