So back to the LFS I trekked and this time I picked out the live rock myself! I tried to find rock that looked interesting and had "stuff" growing on it. I bought about 20 more pounds and raced to get home and put it in my tank.

I was not disappointed. After doing some minor rearranging, letting the dust settle overnight so to speak, there was more to see in the coming days. I found some sea squirts, more halimeda, more tiny fan worms, and some hitch hikers! Got a couple...

A week had passed and my PH, SG, and temp were all stable, so it was time to shop for my live rock.

I don't know if others have this perspective, but in 1997 when I was shopping for live rock it seemed that what was available was always uncured. Maybe it was just the LFS I found that had the biggest selection of "anything" at that time, but their huge rock tanks were stinky. Today, I rarely find uncured rock at the LFS.

My big decision - how much live rock...

So now that I made the commitment to start up a marine tank I needed to do some reading. My first books were The Book of the Marine Aquarium by Nick Dakin, Dr. Burgess's Mini Atlas of Marine Aquarium Fishes, and The Manual of Marine Invertebrates by Martin Haywood & Sue Wells. What I had to put out to buy the books made me realize this was going to be an expensive hobby! LOL.


I also hit the internet as much as possible. One thing I definitely learned and that holds...

When digging through and cleaning out some files, I found my original "tank log" that I used when I first got into keeping a marine tank.

The year was 1997, and I had helped my daughters set up a small freshwater tank in their bedroom. In doing that, I got the fish bug and decided the family room MUST have a fish tank too. But not just a regular fish tank...a saltwater tank. So the decision was made and the studying and planning began!

To be continued...