Aquarium Timeline

hi to all you veterans out there. i thought it would be really helpful to all us beginners if you vets would give a timeline of a new fish tank; all the likely events and problems from first pouring in the water to a relatively stable tank. you guys are great!!

 

WoW! That's a great idea Roger! [smiley=2thumbsup.gif]

Hmmm... thanks. I for one am going to give this some thought.

 

i cant wait to hear what ya got for us! ;-)

 

hmmm let me think everything?

filled tank with water let emporer circulate for a couple of days (without filtration), added salt to saltwater levels

orderd lr over internet put uncured lr in tank and started cycle. added pwr heads. it cycled about a month (adding top off to keep tank filled during cycle) did a partial water change 1st one when cycle was finished (amm, trites, at 0), rearranged rock work to how we wanted it, then added sand to tank (dry sand) letting it soak in bucket made it little easier to add. after couple of days of letting sand settle blew rock off with  turkey baster, orderd det kit put in the tank let it go about 2 weeks or so

got lots of alge in tank added first fish lawnmower blenny (had tons to eat). had smaller tank already set up after 2 weeks started transferring fish. after all fish moved started moving sand over (already live sand)  cant remember time frame because to many to tell but film alge dissapeared, had to supplement lawmowers diet.

started with sargassam ( macro) tank looked like a jungle had to keep trimming it out,
started growing catapillar weed (macro not to bad looked kinda neat),
got  hair and slime alge (yuck) took a couple months to get rid of (stepped up waterchanges, added water flow) added trochus snails and fighting conchs finally got rid of both,
had a small break out of
bryposis alge kept pulling it out and more water changes eventually did dissapear (nusiance alge).
started getting brown calcium alge  was kinda neat lookin  and slow growing,
all dissapeard started getting grape capulera, bubble alge, red turf alge, and some bushy corraline, purple corraline and halmedia
(tang and lawnmower ate all the grape), have an emerald crab to keep bubble alge in check, bushy corraline dissapeared. regular corraline have to scrape off the front and sides of the glass now, red turf pull some out from time to time (emerald also eats some), and halmedia is in 3 spots i trim one the other 2 take off like mad, and razor capulera took place of the grape. added most fish within a year then started with a few corals and added skimmer after a year also. still do weekly water changes

im sure theres quite a bit i missed but that my down the road with alge story

 

This is a great idea, Roger!!! But, I'm going to have to think about it for a while. I've had so many tanks, and experimented with so many different types of setups that I need to sort things out before I can give you a "proper order" for doing things. [smiley=freak3.gif]

But, it is a great exercise FOR ME! I will let you know what I come up with. [smiley=thinking2.gif]