Entries by Cassandra Brockett

As I mentioned, here's some pictures of the new Saltwater Pico Tank setup. Nothing too fancy, and they where taken with my phone, so unless someone asks for better quality pics, this is what you get

Saltwater Pico Tank Layout

Saltwater Pico Tank

Saltwater Pico Tank - Filter and Heater arrangement

Okay, so this weekend, the hubby and I decided to actually try catching up on a few things around the house, he'd bought a hot water filter so wanted to mount that, and I finally broke down and decided to start the saltwater tank.

Oh, and we found one of our local Best Buy stores has a home energy section so we have a local supplier of Insteon stuff now! W00t!

Anyhow, my saltwater tank...

So, wanted something tiny that I wouldn't want to put too much stuff into, but also wanted something big enough that if I can get the water chemistry reliable I'd be able to put something in it worth looking at. After spending the past few weeks when not trying to keep the new freshwater tank from crashing, I have been reading all the various saltwater forums I can find, and decided on a pico-reef setup. Originally I was going to just get one of the mini-tank kits, but after going to the LFS (Neptune Aquatics in Milpitas), I decided to just buy a decent scratch-build setup. Given everything I've read online, the reef-tank people all seem to think you'll always want to go bigger, and that's quite likely, though my house is small, but I bought using the idea that eventually I could use this tank as either natural filter or quarantine for the much larger tank if I decided to. Anyhow, here's the list of stuff I got:-

• 5 gallon low-iron glass tank
  
• Eheim ecco 35 (canister filter rated for around 35 gallon tank)
  
• In-Line water heater (rather than sticking one in the tank, this goes in the canister filter return so the water returning to the tank is the right temperature)
  
• Real Seawater with Container (trying to make it simpler to start the tank, by using actual seawater with all it's stuff rather than trying to make it and add the extra chemicals and such)
  
• Sand (large grain) and Rock
  

I'll probably post some pictures of the setup a little later in the week, but basically at this point, everything is in the water, now it's time to wait for the initial tank cycle. Using some of the frozen food the freshwater fish aren't interested in all that much to get the ammonia levels up.

And yes, entirely fishless/coralless/invertabrateless at this time I've never done saltwater before, and the water chemistry is the most important part of the tank, so if I can keep this going right, and get used to what tests need to be done, then maybe I can consider going up to a much larger tank and keep something living in it. And if I can get this going, I'll probably start chatting with some of the nano/pico reef people and see what recommendations people have for a minimal group of hardy critters for the tank. Hopefully I can get something that I won't even need to feed too much, as I've read up on people making entirely food self-sufficient tanks with saltwater... Though there is no way I think I'm able to do that myself, I think it, and it's counterpart the fully self contained nitrogen cycle tank is where I want to aim for. Though that just cuts down on what I need to deal with on the tank each week, it doesn't mean I get to ignore it

So, had a bit of a giggle today, and I still find it amusing... one of the webcomic artists I try to look at the pages of semi-frequently has been putting up images from some trip they went on. The way this person puts up these photos they do speech bubbles for the people... One of them pipes up with:-

Cthulustache Fezhtagn!

I just had to giggle, I can just see the elder god with a 'tache and a Fez

Okay, finally managed to get some pics of the aquarium, just been too busy I guess.

Now, the lighting is horrible as I didn't turn the main room lighting on so the flash on the camera triggered, and just about everything is Subject To Change(tm) *grin*, but that's basically how it looks. It's in our lounge room and is in a corner, but it's fairly visible from the entire room.

Okay, so first off, good news, got my memory upgrade for the laptop today. Overnighted from Crucial and it's exactly what they said, it arrived when they said, and it works just fine (in fact it's almost 2 points higher on the Windows performance score, and given this is supposed to be my travel/gaming laptop, improved performance is nice).

Next, as the package arrived earlyish, ran out before heading to work to the LFS.... bad idea... I'm going to write off completely the LFS near us, second time I've gone in there and the store person has basically told me that I didn't really want what I came in to purchase. Idiots, it's like they want to lose money or something, there never is anyone in the store other than staff from what I can tell, the tanks looks mostly healthy, but they don't seem interested in selling anything. Anyhow, anyone in Sunnyvale or the surrounding area, I'd steer clear of Aquatic Life Forms, and instead recommend you go a little further afield if you need something the big box stores don't have. So far I've been greatly impressed by Aquarium Concepts in Dublin, and Neptune Aquatics in Milpitas. There are some others in the south bay, but I don't like Dolphin Pet Village's staff (see other aquarium store rant *grin*), Seascapes appears to mostly sell livestock, T&T Marine Aquarium & Koi Pond is way out of the way, but appears reasonable, with a decent livestock selection, and the staff try to be very helpful and they are willing to order just about anything in.

And now, for another complaint of mine, shipping companies.... So I've ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon this week, mostly bits for around the house, and food supplies (Amazon has a neat selection of long-shelf-life food products, I feel like I've gone back in time and stocking the pantry from the mail-order company *grin*), however as I have Prime, I don't always get to select what shipping company they use for a specific shipment. Now, I have my issues with UPS (just had annoyances with them in the past), and Fedex has always been great to me, but the one that gets me most annoyed at the moment is ONTRAC.... I can't understand how they're in business, must be very cheap for people. This morning, just before heading out to the LFS, I hear what sounds like someone yelling outside, then a WHOMP noise, and so I open the door, and there's my package, tossed from outside my fence to the front door. Glad the contents turned out not to be fragile, but seriously? Throwing the damn package from outside the fence? Can't be bothered to open the gate and at least try knocking? The UPS guy even does that much! Oh well, rant at Amazon as well, telling them to please stop using those bozos, never know it might work, and the more people who complain about that sort of package treatment, the better off we'd be as the companies would stop using them.