Don't worry, everything is still alive. here are some pics of the setup, aquascaping needs some help, but everything is thriving and healthy.

Water params are all good except the pH and Alk were a little low, so buffering the alk up 5 more points.

I'm using an old stereo stand from way back, yes, that's an 8 track player!

shits getting colorful in there

Yeah, it is getting crowded. I need to get rid of something sooner or later.

damn. pics aren't coming through at work

They're from myspace, you got that?

no myspace for me. that shit just gets you in trouble.

Myspace is blocked at work so that makes sense.

Pretty cool, I always wanted a salt-water aquarium at home, just way to lazy... I suppose I'll do that in the distant future. I LOVE how colorful salt-water creatures can be!

whats up with everyone and their fishtanks?

ghey

Setting one up is expensive and time consuming. Once you get to the point of maintaining, it does not take as much time. I feed maybe everyday, and check the water level with my eye. The fun part is where I feed almost all of those corals and get to watch them consume, really amazing, and I'm still playing with the camera to get the best results as far as color goes. Right now, they have a little too much contrast for my taste.

I agree with Mort, once set up is done they aren't too time consuming. the problem is you do have to do a few minutes of work ever day to every other day. That's why I had to sell mine. the week long travel trips killed it.

They are way expensive. Expect to spend a couple grand to do one right.

Also if you start to get into sps corals, they smell.

Looks great, Mort.

I'm curious, though. This might be a dumb question, but what kind of salt do you use to get the right salinity?

I always used Instant Ocean.http://www.instantocean.com This stuff worked nicely. Mix that with RO/DI water and you are all set

That's pretty cool. I figured there was something like that out there.

Are salt water tanks more difficult to maintain than fresh water tanks?

you're still an idiot.

A little bit, depends on what you have in them. I think that the initial setup costs are higher, but like I said, once you get the ball rolling, it is only a few maintenance things that are costly. Right now, I just have to buy water and food.

Yes, in a sense. I had a fresh water tank set up for Piranhas. I had that set up so stable I basically never did anything to it besides feed the fish once a week, change filters twice a month, and change 20% of the water every month.

With Salt water stabilizing it takes longer. Also you have to tend to things more often (doing something every to every other day), but this kind of makes it more fun too. the bigger the tank you have the more stable it will be. But you have to change light bulbs every 6months-year, feed every to every other day. Weekly 20% water changes, Top off tank every couple days, mix salt water for water changes, etc.

If you have the money, are looking for an interesting hobby, and don't travel I highly recommend checking it out. When I move into a bigger place I'd love to get a 125gal and try this again.

I probably spent an average of $100 a month once my tank was setup. this was for fish food and a piece of coral here and there, light bulbs, and filters.

My tank is so small I can't add much more. Light bulb is a MH HQI 14k, which will probably need replacing once a year?, food is $20 a bag of Rod's food that should last about 3 months for me, filters, what are filters? I have live rock, live sand, and a protein skimmer.

Nice reef.

Salt water fish tanks are awesome. I had 55g. with live rock, couple fish (yellow tank’s, clown fishes, blue tank, damsels etc.) strawberry shrimp. It’s nice and relaxing, but can cost tons of money, especially on the beginning when you don’t know what to do and what to buy. I love to go to Leaving sea in Park Ridge, nice fish but little pricey.

I always got paranoid in summer time when water temperature started to rise,
and every time power went out. Every time I walked home the first thing I always did was to check on the tank if was still in one piece.
The coolest thing in my fish tank was Snowflake ell. That thing was wicked, but too massy + run away from that tank 3 times, so I took it to the store and exchanged it for blue tank.

That's all i got and I love it. Make sure you don't overfeed and keep that skimmer clean or you get nasty algae blooms. It go so bad that had to take out the fish and i'm in the process of cooking my live rocks again.

For the curious, cooking involves taking out all fish and covering the tank so it's pitch black in there. Leave it for a month or so and all the bad stuff goes bye bye.

Mort look into this. It's expensive but I now never have to worry about water level. With a smaller tank like yours it might be very beneficial

http://www.tunze.com/149.html?&L=1&C=US&user_tunzeprod_pi1[predid]=-infoxunter036

Yeah, I got the Remora C skimmer, and the tunze ATO.

Algae break outs for me were cause of low Alk.

Forgot.
Nice looking tank.

Where's the fish? No fish in a fish tank? It's just a buncha fuggin rocks for chrissake! j/k Bobby. Looking good! It's like a little piece of the ocean floor all to yourself. Can I come over and touch?

Not that I would ever talk someone out of buying Tunze for most anything.... If you are on a budget check out the JBJ ATO...
http://cgi.ebay.com/JBJ-ATO-Automati...QQcmdZViewItem

Tunze stuff is top notch but so is their pricing.
and an ATO isn't exactly rocket science (their doser pumps, ok... that is a bit closer to rocket science) but to turn a pump on and off when water level drops.. IMHO that shouldn't cost more that 30 bucks. (i know the JBJ costs more than 30 bucks (retail is 100) everything in this hobby is a rip off )

How much for the 8 track player?

Looks cool. I used to have a bunch of freshwater tanks but really want a saltwater tank now. Maybe one day I'm not as busy.

You can't touch, but you can look.

8 track player is yours if you just get it out of this cabinet! It's built into it, where my outlets are use to be a record player, my retard strength let me rip that thing out.

Wow, looks really good, Bobby! Looks like you are handling the D300 quite well!

As for Salt vs Freshwater.

One major advantage to Freshwater is that many species are easy to breed in captivity. Brianne could have 30+ Cichlid fry (aka baby fish and where the term small fry comes from) per month, and after 3 months of growing them out she should sell for between $2-5 each. The more exotic and more difficult to breed Cichlid could fetch $10-$30 EACH once you get them up to juvinile size (typically 3-6 months).

So if you kept a few 10 gallon tanks for fry, and a couple 30-40 gallon tanks for juvies, and had one tank for adults, you could pay your (now probably very large) electic bill by selling off the babies.

We just sold 98% of our fish to help with the house fund, and we made about $1000 in two weeks. And that was just lowball pricing to clear everything out quickly.

I'm not sure you can do that kind of breeding program with saltwater.

Thanks eric!!