05/01/2011
A quick history of my fish-keeping career:
All my life I've been fascinated by aquatic creatures. My two favorite places to visit as a kid were NASA and any of the decent sized aquariums. My first attempt to actually keep fish myself ended in disaster. I had just graduated high school and moved away from home, so I thought my first apartment would be a perfect place to try setting up a fish tank. I got one of the 29 gallon kits from Petsmart, did no research whatsoever, and killed everything I tried to put in it for several weeks. Discouraged, I gave up for several years.
While living at my last apartment I actually started working in the fish department at Petsmart, and after a while decided I had a good grasp of the basics, and would try a small freshwater tank. It did very well, and when I moved into my house I set up a 56 gallon cichlid tank, which has been running perfectly for a few years now. I'd always heard how much harder/more expensive/time-consuming saltwater was to keep than freshwater, but when I saw the Nano-Cube for sale for under $50, I figured it was time to give it a try.
I did a bit of reading, put 15lbs of sand and about 10-12lbs of live rock in, mixed up some salt water (with conditioned tap water), put in a Marineland Stealth Pro heater, thermometer, a bag of Ammo-Carb, and let it sit for a month. Did a 50% water change, headed to the LFS and got a half dozen each hermit crabs and assorted snails.
Waited another month and 2 25% water changes, and got a Yellow-tail Blue Damsel. Aside from semi-regular water changes, that's how it's been sitting for the past 8-9 months.
I've since found some very good sources of information that have inspired me to get this thing going again.
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