Here is the story about our 30gal. saltwater aquarium:
We transformed our 30gal. fresh water tank over to a saltwater aquarium in the summer of '89. We are using the existing equipment we had been using all along, but are now starting to upgrade it into a reef(see equipment page). We started with used saltwater and some 'seed' substrate from a friend's tank, which really helps with cycling. We used 25lbs. of crushed coral substrate and then started adding the live rock a piece or two at a time (mainly because of limited funds). I never even thought about keeping tabs on how many pounds of rock I was adding each time. We have estimated that we have approx. 55lbs. of live rock (and still adding some from time to time). We chose not to use damsels to start with, instead we used fresh water black mollies. Mollies in the wild move in and out of saltwater to spawn and so can be easily acclimated to saltwater. There are three basic reasons why we choose to use mollies to cycle our salt tanks. The first reason is that they cost less than $2.00ea. compared to $5.00ea. for damsels. The second being that they are easier to catch if they are not wanted as a permanate resident. The third and possibly most important reason is that damsels can be aggressive and they are territorial towards new fish added later. I have found through experience that if damsels are wanted as part of a non-aggressive community tank, they shoud be added LAST after the other fish are well settled, and be sure to choose a lesser aggressive type of damsel. Once the tank was cycled, we began introducing new fish, one or two at a time over a period of several weeks. I had never dreamt that I would have my own web site and be telling the process of setting up our first salt tank, so I never thought of keeping track of the order of fish introduction. We have had a fish only with live rock tank since the beginning, but I am now wanting to move to the next level of marine aquariums by starting to upgrade my equipment and lighting. Once this is complete and all the water perimeters are perfect and nothing less than perfect, I'm going to slowing start the transformation to reef tank. During this process, I'm going to keep very precise records of all changes and additions as well as the results of each change and will update this site as it all happens.
