Theicecreamdan
Reefing newb
Hey there new forum!
My name is Dan, me and my girlfriend Jenna are just now starting our first aquarium. Apparently a part-time job and full-time school just weren't enough to keep our time occupied so we decided to learn about some marine life the hard way.
Just a couple days ago we went and picked up a used 46 gallon bow front aquarium with an eheim canister filter, jager heater and a few other goodies. After a few trips to the local petstores we decided that the extra time, money and effort would be worth having a saltwater tank.
So we put in 10 pounds of bio gravel, 36 pounds of sand from Fountain's aquarium supply store along with a piece of dead coral and a big rock and around 46 gallons of salt water. After spending a while figuring out how to read the hydrometer correctly we've got the specific gravity right around 1.021. The filter is doing a pretty good job of clearing out the cloudiness from the water, and the pH and alkalinity seem like they are in the right ranges. So tomorrow we're going to go pick up our first couple of fish.
The first few people we talked to at pet stores we're telling us to get Damsels to cycle our tank, and a couple have said Clown fish should be ok. The last guy we talked to today said he starts all of his marine aquariums with a clown fish or two. So unless I read anything more tonight about clown fish not being a good first fish for a new tank I hope to go find a pair of clownfish tomorrow and begin our cycle.
I really look forward to learning a lot from this forum and I hope someday I'll know enough to be able to share some knowledge back to you. At least I'll be able to share some pictures of our fish as we develop their new community over time.
My name is Dan, me and my girlfriend Jenna are just now starting our first aquarium. Apparently a part-time job and full-time school just weren't enough to keep our time occupied so we decided to learn about some marine life the hard way.
Just a couple days ago we went and picked up a used 46 gallon bow front aquarium with an eheim canister filter, jager heater and a few other goodies. After a few trips to the local petstores we decided that the extra time, money and effort would be worth having a saltwater tank.
So we put in 10 pounds of bio gravel, 36 pounds of sand from Fountain's aquarium supply store along with a piece of dead coral and a big rock and around 46 gallons of salt water. After spending a while figuring out how to read the hydrometer correctly we've got the specific gravity right around 1.021. The filter is doing a pretty good job of clearing out the cloudiness from the water, and the pH and alkalinity seem like they are in the right ranges. So tomorrow we're going to go pick up our first couple of fish.
The first few people we talked to at pet stores we're telling us to get Damsels to cycle our tank, and a couple have said Clown fish should be ok. The last guy we talked to today said he starts all of his marine aquariums with a clown fish or two. So unless I read anything more tonight about clown fish not being a good first fish for a new tank I hope to go find a pair of clownfish tomorrow and begin our cycle.
I really look forward to learning a lot from this forum and I hope someday I'll know enough to be able to share some knowledge back to you. At least I'll be able to share some pictures of our fish as we develop their new community over time.