Reefer

Remember a while back my brother gave me his old 10 gallon fish tank?

It died. The electrics stopped electrifying. No more light for the creatures.

Super Girlfriend to the rescue!

She got me a JBJ 12-gallon Nano Cube Deluxe. It's gorgeous, with nice blue and white daytime lighting, surface skimmer, filter media, great flow, and LED "moon lights" which look awesome in a dark room. It also fits on the same old stand, which is nice.

Three weeks ago the brother came and coached me through the tank transfer -

Man, I really hate the Southwest Airlines "bags fly free" commercial.

HATE IT.

- what was I saying - oh, right...

We took out all the live rock and creatures, dumped half the water, and poured the other half in the new tank, put the rock and sand in to the new tank, made a saltwater mix with a package of sea salt from local fish store and tap water (found out this is bad, more later), and filled the new tank up.

- shit, stupid Colts took the lead. I hate you Manning. -

- Oooh, Mass Effect 2 commercial. Cool. -

Umm...oh yeah...moments of truths came:

• Tank does not burst under pressure, check.
• Plug in, flip the switch and stuff turns on, check.

Sweet. My girlfriend didn't get me a piece of junk...I will keep her around...

Minutes after adding everything and turning it on, the water is already starting to uncloudify, showing how strong the pump and filtration is in the tank...

Shot with LED moon lights:

Jump forward two weeks. I have put a few snails and hermits in the tank.

Zoidberg, the alpha-hermit from the old tank is still alive and well:

Next to another hermit, really showing size:

Snails in the moonlight:

For a healthy tank, water conditions must be just right.

Among other things, you have to maintain healthy parameters for:

• Temperature
• Salinity
• pH
• Ammonia
• Nitrites
• Nitrates
• Phosphates

I picked up a test kit, made by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals at the fish store. I will wait until the tank is healthy and stable before adding fish.

Brother also gave me a heater, so my temperature is maintained around 77 degrees fahrenheit.

Ammonia levels are ZERO, good.

Nitrite levels are also zilch, good.

pH between 8.2 and 8.4, good.

Nitrates at highest part of scale, BAD!

Nitrate is the last effect of the nitrogen cycle before being released as nitrogen into the atmosphere - aka, living room area behind my couch.

So why are my nitrates so high? Hobbyists keeping saltwater tanks will often have nitrate spikes when adding to or removing something from their tank. This changes up the chemistry of their tank and will usually correct itself.

However, since half of my water came from my old tank, my suspicion is that the old water, with no light, improper maintenance routines, and other general newbiness on my part, such as overfeeding, are to blame. Another possible culprit is the tap water used to make the saltwater. Tap water is treated with all kinds of chemicals and could very possibly contain chemicals you don't want to put in your tank, so I should have instead been using RO/DI (reverse osmosis and/or de-ionized) water.

How do I rectify? Water changes. Patience. I purchased some water from the fish store and will use this when I do water changes:

Create a syphon, drain portion of tank, dump, and add new water.

Hopefully in a few weeks the tank will be good to add some fish.

Until then, I'll keep watching crabs and snails...

Like this crab looking for a new home to grow up in...

Watching

The Jets lose their lead. Stupid Colts. I hate you Peyton.

Mad Men

District 9

Playing

With my new phone - LG Env3, hooray for me.

Batman Arkham Asylum

Bioshock - sequel coming soon!

Listening to

Muse - Black Holes and Revelations

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus

Massive Attack - Splitting the Atom

Deftones - White Pony