Sarra
Rock Stacker
So, I have... Done some fairly off-the-wall aquariums. I've done 2.5g frog tanks (dwarf african frogs, so... Just one of those lil buggers is happy in that small of a tank), 5g freshwater, a dual tank 20g total capacity salt tank, and I helped set up and maintain a 355g freshwater tank for my old employer. Who after 4 months, decided to switch over to salt. Which was absolutely a blast.
I've been thinking about getting back into the aquarium scene. A new salt water specialty store just opened up, and they have some pretty fantastic stuff.
Then I look back at the crashes, expense, mixing, measuring, awesome stuff dieing, and the salt residue that never actually came off the wall.
Oh. Then there was the unmitigated disaster that... Well, I hate even thinking about. It was something new, something different, I wanted to try. Something everyone, not just a few people, but everyone on the Salt fish forum I was on, told me NOT to do.
I did it anyway.
It was awesome for a few months...
I got some crabs from the local pet store (not the kind that require special shampoo, and not the dry land type, either). The store had them in purely fresh water. I did research before getting them, and found they actually prefer... Brackish water.
You see, fresh water is pretty easy. You get good potable water, check the PH, salinity, ammonia, nitrates, etc., and if everything is good, you use the water.
Salt water is somewhat harder, but you can buy filtered ocean water, which takes most of the trickery out of keeping everything in balance (I still tested it, and I ran a siphon drip to add it, instead of dumping it in).
But brackish is neither. It's actually... Everywhere between fresh and salt. I opted for somewhere towards the exact center of that range. I had a salinity device that actually went from a little past ocean salt normal (brine?), to totally fresh. So, I could get pretty close to what I wanted.
As I said, it was fun at first. The crabs thrived, and were happy as hell. They like to actually venture out of the water, so I had some neat little fake ceramic logs for the to hang out on. I put a dish of fresh water up at the top (a re-purposed gecko water bowl, hah) and they would go in that from time to time.
And then, one day, it was 109 degrees F, the power went out, and I wasn't home. When I did get home, before getting out of the car, I could smell it. My neighbor had actually called the police, it smelled so bad.
I had a tank crash, due to an extreme surge in temperature... The house was 125 degrees inside when I got home, and the AC had popped the circuit breaker (I had to replace several fuses and a computer, as well).
I tried to clean the tank after... Disposing of the remnants of the tank. The crabs were dead, and there was a black algae in the water.
I threw the expensive ceramic branches out, because they were ruined.
The gecko water dish? Ruined.
The actual glass that the tank was made of?
Ruined.
How ruined?
I put pure bleach in it. 10 gallons of it. I let it sit until it actually ate the tank's sealer off and started leaking. That shit grew INTO the glass.
So... I lost about $900 worth of electronics, and about $250 worth of aquarium gear.
But the bug is back...
Or should I just get another gecko?
Or maybe... I could adopt a Pet Rock.
Hmmmmm...
PS: I never lost all of my salt stock. When I was 'done', I donated it to a guy who was doing conservation. Or something.
I've been thinking about getting back into the aquarium scene. A new salt water specialty store just opened up, and they have some pretty fantastic stuff.
Then I look back at the crashes, expense, mixing, measuring, awesome stuff dieing, and the salt residue that never actually came off the wall.
Oh. Then there was the unmitigated disaster that... Well, I hate even thinking about. It was something new, something different, I wanted to try. Something everyone, not just a few people, but everyone on the Salt fish forum I was on, told me NOT to do.
I did it anyway.
It was awesome for a few months...
I got some crabs from the local pet store (not the kind that require special shampoo, and not the dry land type, either). The store had them in purely fresh water. I did research before getting them, and found they actually prefer... Brackish water.
You see, fresh water is pretty easy. You get good potable water, check the PH, salinity, ammonia, nitrates, etc., and if everything is good, you use the water.
Salt water is somewhat harder, but you can buy filtered ocean water, which takes most of the trickery out of keeping everything in balance (I still tested it, and I ran a siphon drip to add it, instead of dumping it in).
But brackish is neither. It's actually... Everywhere between fresh and salt. I opted for somewhere towards the exact center of that range. I had a salinity device that actually went from a little past ocean salt normal (brine?), to totally fresh. So, I could get pretty close to what I wanted.
As I said, it was fun at first. The crabs thrived, and were happy as hell. They like to actually venture out of the water, so I had some neat little fake ceramic logs for the to hang out on. I put a dish of fresh water up at the top (a re-purposed gecko water bowl, hah) and they would go in that from time to time.
And then, one day, it was 109 degrees F, the power went out, and I wasn't home. When I did get home, before getting out of the car, I could smell it. My neighbor had actually called the police, it smelled so bad.
I had a tank crash, due to an extreme surge in temperature... The house was 125 degrees inside when I got home, and the AC had popped the circuit breaker (I had to replace several fuses and a computer, as well).
I tried to clean the tank after... Disposing of the remnants of the tank. The crabs were dead, and there was a black algae in the water.
I threw the expensive ceramic branches out, because they were ruined.
The gecko water dish? Ruined.
The actual glass that the tank was made of?
Ruined.
How ruined?
I put pure bleach in it. 10 gallons of it. I let it sit until it actually ate the tank's sealer off and started leaking. That shit grew INTO the glass.
So... I lost about $900 worth of electronics, and about $250 worth of aquarium gear.
But the bug is back...
Or should I just get another gecko?
Or maybe... I could adopt a Pet Rock.
Hmmmmm...
PS: I never lost all of my salt stock. When I was 'done', I donated it to a guy who was doing conservation. Or something.
