Caring for these beautiful creatures

 In the beginning: 1997

( I decided to show you how

I started out.)

Don't laugh ok!

Before I new anything about Saltwater tanks

and ever considered having one,

I had fresh water fish and tanks.

I kept many Guppies, Mollies and the like since

I was in high school.

Then all of a sudden I met someone that had a Saltwater tank.

I thought boy, that is so cool.

But little did I know that he really knew nothing about keeping

a SW tank.

He had dead sand, fake corals spread evenly across the bottom

of barron sand.

And fish. Lots of big fish.

But I was hooked by the color of the fish and decided to try

my hand it.

I have decided to show you my first SW tank and

try to show you that I to new nothing about it, but trusted

my friend to help me set one up, in a DAY !

I wanted it now!!! I had a 20 long empty tank, and so

one day we decided to go to the fish store, buy the sand

fish and food.

That is exactly what I did, came home with it all, and oh

I also bought salt, just a bag of it per his instructions.

So he helped me place the tank in my home, added tap water

added the salt and used this funny plastic thing to make sure

we had the salinity just so.

But I had no idea how to read it or what to look for, so I trusted him

to do it for me.

Well, with fish in the bag, now floating on the top of

the water, (yikes I am embarrassed) I let them float for

Oh about 20 minutes then turned them out.

Wow, what a great looking tank.

But I had nothing to decorate it to make it purdy, so I said to my

friend.

Hey, I have lots of shells, how about I rinse them and add them

to the tank.

Ok, that will be fun, so that is just what I did, looked around for what

shells I had, found loads of them, rinsed them off and placed them just right

in my pretty new tank.

Now I had just the right fixture to, a nice fresh water fixture with one bulb,

boy was that bright and the fish looked so pretty under it.

I added a filter, hang on, to keep the water moving and clean.

Well, at the time, I thought it was way cool and took myself some

pictures of it to show my friends and so that I could look back

to see how it has gotton over time.

And yes folks, I am going to share them with just you,

but please , don't pass them around ok, keep them to yourself .

And now for the horror.

And of course, after a few days, I found out I needed

a nice Skimmer, but since I couldn't afford a big one, and this one

was really cute. I went with it, and heck, it goes right in the tank, now

how could I go wrong.

So people, that is how I started, stupid and in a big hurry for my

personal Ocean.

Of course, nothing survived it after a few weeks.

I also added an LTA from Petco that was so cute, but the darn

thing wanted to keep putting his foot into the sand.

That just wasn't right, so I kept picking him up and sitting him

on the rocks.

I lost him after 4 days because I had no idea that I had to feed him.

Nor how to make him happy.

So, there is the truth, the whole truth and the ugly part

of being uneducated and wanting it NOW.

Yes I am embarrassed but I found the need to show you

how it was way back then.

10or so years ago.