Week 3 (w/c 14/01/07)

I bought some test kits to test my water. All the levels where fine, except for the Nitrate, which was 110mg/l !!! We all know this is a toxic level. Needless to say, I was panicking. I bought 2 clark's clownfish and was fearing for their lives. This was the Monday evening and all the shops was closed so I couldn't get RO water. I had to wait till the next day, worked through my lunch hour and raced home to catch the shop open.

After some advise & closer inspection off the tank, I realized that there was an under gravel filter under the substrate of the tank. This filter was obviously not in use. As you can imagine this was a breeding ground for nitrate and it would have to go. The solution? I had to 'strip' the tank and take the filter out & clean the muck beneath it. It took me 5 hours of non stop hard work & I felt like crying. But it was for the best. I rinsed the substrate and added some live sand.

Buckets out again:

After all the hard work:

Week 2 (w/c 07/01/07)

After all the hard work setting up the tank, I decided to keep it as a marine tank. I knew that I would have to read as much as I can regarding marine life & I would need loads of advise. If I can give anyone advise, do your homework BEFORE you get the tank. Then you can start slowly & get things right from the start.
I soon realized that I need to change a few things on the tank. As there was living fish in it, I had to change a few things at once - costing me more than I thought. I had to change all the medium in the filter as it was a bit old. I also had to change the lights & fittings as it was very brittle & when we removed it, some of the fittings broke off. I also quickly learned what RO water is and bought some off that too.
I also realised that I had a lot of blue green algae on the rocks. Likely I could easily rinse this off.
Thankfully there are great forums out there with people with lots of knowledge & know how. They are also brutally honest when giving advise, which is very important when keeping live stock.

Week 1 (w/c 01/01/07)

Day 1:
I bought the 30 gallon tank on eBay (2nd hand). My intention was for it to be cleaned and used for a freshwater tank. I've got a 10 gallon tank and wished to upgrade. The tank was advertised with only rocks & scrimps in it. The guy already sold his live stock. When I went to collect it, they guy told me that there was 2 large convict / engineer blennies is the tank. They where 12" long each. I took the lot home and thought that I'd set the tank up & look after the fish the best I could and then try to find them a home ASAP.
I got home and realized that after the guy sold his fish, he kind of let the tank go. So I had a lot of HARD work ahead of me.

Here's what the tank looked like:

Getting ready for cleaning & set up:

Finally, after 5 hours of hard work: