Edward
IG: @ed3aquatics
Hey everyone,
I haven't posted in almost a year I believe, I was selling some devil's hand frags according to my recent posts. I just wanted to pop in and say hi and let everyone know how my now singular tank is going.
I shut down my 12x12x12 cube when I moved from my old apartment to my new apartment and always intended on getting it drilled and adding a sump since it required too much of my time to maintain, being a very active college student. Instead of keeping this dream alive I decided to keep the tank and all the lights and equipment and store them until I move on into medical school or a PhD program and my living situation is far more favorable for animals that require a fair deal of attention.
I had a tank crash in about November, right when it started getting cold. Anyone who has seen my 90 knows its in a basement which is heated, but it is an old house. When you're not around except for the weekends information like "we're redoing the heating system in the house" fails to get passed along and to make a long story short both my heater and backup heater broke trying to keep the water in the 80s when the basement was frigid. I lost almost everything, all my coral died except for a green star polyp mat I WAS TRYING TO GET RID OF; this had never made a full recovery and is slowly melting away. Can't blame it though, the water was in the 40's, yes the 40's, for several days. I nursed the one fish to survive, a small hippo tang, back to full health and he is thriving. Many of the snails, 3 turbos and a handful of astrea, survived too. My poor 14 year old brother, who has been taking care of the tank and genuinely has interest in the hobby now, wasn't checking the temperature of the tank although he was allowing the rest of the tank to flourish. One mistake I can't necessarily blame on him but I had to buy two new heaters and start planning the future of the tank.
I slowly started stocking it by adding a clean up crew good enough for the messiest of 90 gallon tanks and then several weeks later, last weekend. Added fish again finally after months of allowing the tank to recycle, be cleaned, cycle again. Now we have a small pair of clowns, a fire fish, the old hippo tang and an aurora goby, who has been hidden in my rock work since I bought her.
Since this tank will no longer be a solo-venture and frankly I wanted to pack it up and wait until I get all my degrees, graduate undergrad next year and jump right into higher education. I made an agreement with my brother to keep my hobby and the start of his hobby alive. I will stock the tank as long as I get weekly updates on all parameters possible. I will buy all test kits, I will buy all fish and coral for the tank with the understanding that once I have the time I will take the fish and coral and bring them with me to where ever I end up, if its a reasonable distance from my mother's house. I'm also letting him frag any corals as he sees fit in order to keep his interest and make some money off it, since he isn't paying for anything haha! His first task is to save up enough to buy half a controller, look up what lighting is best for the types of coral he wants to keep and save up half of this, save up for half a titanium heater or two and finally research sump systems and refugs because the system has always been lacking an adequate sump system since I started it 3 years ago. I'm no parent but I think this is going to be a great way not only to get him into the hobby but teach him responsibility, he's already seen what happens when he doesn't pay attention to details every single time he's checking the tank.
Maybe it is too much information for some but I thought some people may like to know what I've been up to, he the tank is and where I've been. This tank will be a slow process but I will be around the forums a lot more keeping up with things.
Hope everyone has been fine!
Eddie
I haven't posted in almost a year I believe, I was selling some devil's hand frags according to my recent posts. I just wanted to pop in and say hi and let everyone know how my now singular tank is going.
I shut down my 12x12x12 cube when I moved from my old apartment to my new apartment and always intended on getting it drilled and adding a sump since it required too much of my time to maintain, being a very active college student. Instead of keeping this dream alive I decided to keep the tank and all the lights and equipment and store them until I move on into medical school or a PhD program and my living situation is far more favorable for animals that require a fair deal of attention.
I had a tank crash in about November, right when it started getting cold. Anyone who has seen my 90 knows its in a basement which is heated, but it is an old house. When you're not around except for the weekends information like "we're redoing the heating system in the house" fails to get passed along and to make a long story short both my heater and backup heater broke trying to keep the water in the 80s when the basement was frigid. I lost almost everything, all my coral died except for a green star polyp mat I WAS TRYING TO GET RID OF; this had never made a full recovery and is slowly melting away. Can't blame it though, the water was in the 40's, yes the 40's, for several days. I nursed the one fish to survive, a small hippo tang, back to full health and he is thriving. Many of the snails, 3 turbos and a handful of astrea, survived too. My poor 14 year old brother, who has been taking care of the tank and genuinely has interest in the hobby now, wasn't checking the temperature of the tank although he was allowing the rest of the tank to flourish. One mistake I can't necessarily blame on him but I had to buy two new heaters and start planning the future of the tank.
I slowly started stocking it by adding a clean up crew good enough for the messiest of 90 gallon tanks and then several weeks later, last weekend. Added fish again finally after months of allowing the tank to recycle, be cleaned, cycle again. Now we have a small pair of clowns, a fire fish, the old hippo tang and an aurora goby, who has been hidden in my rock work since I bought her.
Since this tank will no longer be a solo-venture and frankly I wanted to pack it up and wait until I get all my degrees, graduate undergrad next year and jump right into higher education. I made an agreement with my brother to keep my hobby and the start of his hobby alive. I will stock the tank as long as I get weekly updates on all parameters possible. I will buy all test kits, I will buy all fish and coral for the tank with the understanding that once I have the time I will take the fish and coral and bring them with me to where ever I end up, if its a reasonable distance from my mother's house. I'm also letting him frag any corals as he sees fit in order to keep his interest and make some money off it, since he isn't paying for anything haha! His first task is to save up enough to buy half a controller, look up what lighting is best for the types of coral he wants to keep and save up half of this, save up for half a titanium heater or two and finally research sump systems and refugs because the system has always been lacking an adequate sump system since I started it 3 years ago. I'm no parent but I think this is going to be a great way not only to get him into the hobby but teach him responsibility, he's already seen what happens when he doesn't pay attention to details every single time he's checking the tank.
Maybe it is too much information for some but I thought some people may like to know what I've been up to, he the tank is and where I've been. This tank will be a slow process but I will be around the forums a lot more keeping up with things.
Hope everyone has been fine!
Eddie
