Warning: Aquariums Are Addictive

A couple months ago I started reading about fish tanks and looking into getting one. About 6 weeks ago I went ahead and did. I got a 16 gallon bow-front aquarium kit (came with everything I was supposed to need).

When I was a teenager my best friend and I had fish tanks and we went through a lot of freshwater fish in the 4 or 5 years we kept our tanks. My favorite fish from back then were the green spotted pufferfish that he had in his 20 gallon tank. So that is what I decided I wanted to get.

These are considered a brackish water fish (not freshwater, but not quite as salty as marine saltwater). That meant that they had to be kept only with other fish that could live in brackish water. Turns out that puffers are pretty much the only brackish water fish that are very interesting. Which meant that I only had a few options for the puffers' tankmates. We got 4 mollies, but the biggest of the 4 chased everything else around the tank, including the tank (I thought I would have the opposite problem), so they went back to the fish store after just a few days.

So I started looking into what other options I had, and I came across a website where someone was talking about how they had successfully acclimated their green spotted puffers to full marine saltwater. I have always wanted a saltwater tank with clownfish, so I started figuring out what it would take to make that happen. As you can imagine, it isn't that difficult to make the water a little saltier, and it's not all that hard to raise the pH to the level that saltwater aquariums require. So I decided to do it, and started pretty much right away.

At first it seemed really easy. Over the course of several days I raised the salinity of the water to the desired level (a specific gravity of 1.025). Then I watched the puffers for a few days to make sure they were acclimating. With this accomplished, what I should have done was just enjoy the tank for about a month while everything that had just changed and been added to the tank settled in and the little ecosystem established itself.

But what I did was run out to the fish store in search of some new fish. And above you can see what I came home with. Now, for anyone who isn't a seasoned saltwater aquarium aficionado, there are several problems with what I got...made worse by several things that I did (and didn't do) as an over-eager newbie.

First, that really pretty fish on the left is called a mandarin dragonet. This is one of the best-looking fish in the world (the pic doesn't do it justice, the colors are much brighter and prettier in real life). It also happens to be one of the most difficult fish you can have in your aquarium. Mostly because they only eat live food, in the form of tiny little creatures called copepods. Those who keep these fish establish a population of copepods in their tanks that will sustain a mandarin, which requires about a 100 gallon tank, and usually a refugium (I won't bother explaining it thoroughly, but it's a separate tank that is hooked to your main tank with pipes and pumps and usually includes a sump system and extra filtration). Needless to say, I was unprepared to care for this little guy.

Second, that starfish you see...very pretty, right? I thought Tiffany would love a pink starfish, so I got it. Here's the problem. My tank is only a few weeks old at this point, and starfish need a pretty well established tank, and preferably a reef tank with lots of live rock and coral. I have none of that, except for the 5 lbs of live sand in the bottom of the tank, which hadn't had time to cure and really become healthy live sand yet. Another problem, I have come to know now, is that starfish are extremely sensitive to changes in pH, salinity and other changes in water quality, and require a very long process of acclimation when they go into a new tank. I used a very short acclimation process, and probably sent this poor creature into shock right away.

The other fish is a benggai cardinal. These are supposed to be a pretty hardy fish, and should have been well suited to my tank if the conditions were good.

Unfortunately, because of the foolish way I had added these fish, they all died. The starfish was gone within about a day. Then the mandarin a few days later. And the cardinal was gone within about a week, after looking awful for several days. I'm still not sure what it was that killed him, and I don't think I will ever buy anything at that particular fish store again.

Anyway, with that bad experience out of the way and the lesson learned (don't ever buy a fish without first doing lots of research), I started reading a lot about saltwater fish tanks and the different species of fish that could thrive in my tank. And the next fish that I brought home would be a much happier experience.

And here they are! I was getting some other supplies one day at the local fish store (not the one I got the other fish from, this one is great, and the people who work there are helpful and actually know what they are talking about), and they had a whole bunch of these little tiny ocellaris clownfish. These have always been my favorite fish, and my research had told me that they were perfect candidates for my tank. So I was talking to the guy at the fish store (I think he is the owner, but I'm not sure) and he told me that these were locally bred, and that made them about as hardy a fish as you can get. They are also young enough that they haven't even developed into their permanent sex yet, which means that buying a pair of them that will live together would create a mated pair. All clowns are born female and then when they find a mate and pair up the larger one forces the smaller one to become a male. So these two will be a couple all of their lives, and I could choose to breed them if I wanted to.

More reading online lead me to decide I needed a clean up crew for my tank. These are usually a mix of snails, crabs, hermits and shrimp that eat the waste at the bottom of the tank (leftover food and detritus) and keep the sand and glass relatively clean for you. So back to the fish store I went to see what I could find.

And this time I came home with 2 electric blue legged hermit crabs and a very photogenic azure damselfish. And I had no problems at all with these guys, so I went back the next week to look into getting some more hermits. They only had one electric blue hermit at the store, so I got him and...

...I also got one of these little guys. I haven't gotten any good pictures of the one I have yet (mostly because he likes to hang out in a cave in my tank where he can't be seen), but once he gets used to his surroundings and starts hanging out in the open more often, I'll get some pics of him as well. I also got a couple little snails that were only $1 a piece and cruise around the glass cleaning it up. I'll be going back to get about 6 or 8 more of those little snails, too.

So that's where it's at now. I am really going to try to lay off making changes for a while and just enjoy the tank the way it is. I'd love to add some live rock and then some corals and an anemone or two, but I will have to wait a while before I take on anything more with this tank (my wife thinks I'm crazy, and I've got to quit spending so much time and money on the fish for a while).

I told you, aquariums are addictive. I'm pretty sure saltwater is an addictive substance.