Starting small........

Tommy Gun · 09-24-2006, 08:51 PM

Hello everyone!

So wanted to get into the saltwater side of the hobby and thought I should 'start out small' to get my feet wet, no pun intended. So after asking waaaaay too many questions from people like Aaron, I settled on a nice small 90 gallon bowfront tank! Ok, so small isnt the best word, but hey, I was excited!

The tank is a custom made Oceanic bowfront with 3/4 inch glass (good in case the rocks decide to move) with the overflow in the center rather than the typical offset or side versions. It has 5 drilled holes in it, one in the overflow to feed the sump and one for the return (to the top of the tank). The other three holes serve as an input to a 1200 gallon per hour pump and two returns that feed four powerhead nozzles.

^The overflow chamber

^With the stand drilled out to match the holes in the tank

^The complete tank, stand, and canopy (trying out the positioning before I filled it up

Tommy Gun · 09-24-2006, 08:56 PM

Continued....

I have 100 pounds of live rock and 80 pounds of live sand and a 4 bulb lighting system with T-5 bulbs (2 white light, 2 blue actynic)

^This is the tank with the sand (80 pounds) and my first shipment of live rock (45 pounds)

^You can see some of the intakes and powerheads here

^And finally with all the rock, as it looks today

Tommy Gun · 09-25-2006, 08:27 PM

Continued.....

As you can see from the last picture (and my signature), there are already inhabitants in this tank. I have 4 damsels in the tank of which two, the domino damsels, are very hard to find since they are black and the background is also black. The yellow tailed damsels are almost neon blue and very active. There are also 2 hermit crabs in the tank to help me clean up after trying to feed my puffer fish krill, which it is not yet fond of since it was raised on live food at the LFS due to that store's 'expert' love for putting a show on for customers.

^My puffer, affectionately named "E.T."

^The hermit crabs

^Finally, one of my Domino Damsels (either Bonnie or Clyde)

Tommy Gun · 10-04-2006, 06:30 PM

So, it has been another two weeks or so of my tank being up and running with my porcupine puffer "E.T." as the sole inhabitant. After a long debate with my family and my inner-child, I decided to stock my tank as an aggressive tank with three fish; the puffer, a lionfish, and a snowflake moray eel. I placed an order with an LFS which was having an anniversary sale and saved alot of money!

So, here are the pictures I have so far:

^This is Mufasa, the lionfish. He is full of charisma and has already started to gain confidence in the tank. He is somewhat hard to find as he blends in with the LR very well. Earlier this morning, on my way out the door, I took this picture of him checking his new home out:

V And this picture of "E.T." checking out his new room mate

And I would like you all to meet "Tundra", the Snowflake Moray Eel. He is about a foot long at the moment and close to the diameter of a dime. He LOVES krill and I have feed him small amounts twice now. I use a wooden skewer for now until I can find a decent feeding apparatus.

Tommy Gun · 10-04-2006, 06:49 PM

I also took a couple of short videos of the fish. I am still working on a couple more, but I figured I would share these first.

This first video is one I took while trying to feed "Mufasa" (the lionfish) some thawed out Krill. He seemed very interested in the shrimp when I had it on a skewer (in order to keep my hands out of the tank) but it wouldn't take it. So I dropped it right in front of him....

Fish Videos - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Tommy Gun · 10-04-2006, 06:51 PM

After that, some what concerned over the stress the fish went through during the transport and introduction to the tank, so I fed two small feeder fish. My puffer was born and raised on feeder fish and I was in a 'pickle' when I dropped the feeders in the tank because I had just got the puffer to eat frozen foods. Check out how this worked out....

Fish Videos - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Tommy Gun · 10-04-2006, 06:54 PM

So, I decided to distract "E.T." the puffer so that the Mufasa could get his dinner....

Fish Videos - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Loman · 10-04-2006, 08:21 PM

Tommy,
Nice fish and video

thewebpop · 10-04-2006, 08:54 PM

Cool, That is a nice looking Lion, looks like he is fighting some heavy water currant. Looking good!
Later, Pop's Liked the other photo's in your PhotoBucket as well.

Tommy Gun · 10-04-2006, 10:13 PM

Thanks Pops and Loman!

I am hoping that this lionfish is really going to like the amount of water current I have right now. I haven't actually researched to see what Lionfish preferr, but mine seems to love 'sitting' right in front of the powerhead nozzle. It is kind of cool to see his long fins bent over from the water movement. It totally reminds me of the days in which bald guys would do the 'comb over' hair style!

It has taken me some time to get all of those pictures on photobucket. The camera I have saved the picture and video as a weird file type and so I could never figure out to get them uploaded since photobucket only allows certain types of files. Today at work I has an epiphany and I am now able to change the file type to .wmv.