The journey begins...

Okay, so it's 2006. Bridget and I just bought a condo in late November and of course, after finishing some of the initial house work, my focus now shifts over to the fish tank setup/display/shrine. Let me just say, this hobby is expensive. If you are thinking about starting a salt water tank, make sure you do your research and know what you're getting yourself into!

We actually thought about getting a dog for awhile and while I love dogs in general, I realized that I would not have done nearly as much research into various breeds of dogs and their personalities as I would have with the different species of fish and their personalities. I mean, you could adopt a nice dog and/or one that may have been abused. Either way, you would probably gain a loyal friend for life. With fish, it's a bit different... no research leads to mistakes and one little mistake means your new purchase may be eaten by the current tank mates and/or one of the fish will show off like its a dolphin and go carpet surfing after it jumps out of your tank. Most marine fishes are at least $15 - $35 dollars so these displays of show-off are not really welcome... but I digress...

If you're currently thinking about buying "Nemo" fish and/or "Dori" fish please make sure you know what you're getting yourself into. Did I say that twice already? Make sure it sinks in... Some good resources I've been hitting up on the web are the forums at www.reefcentral.com, the forums on www.thereeftank.com, and for livestock references, I've been using the store www.liveaquaria.com.

Okay, so on to the picture... After about a month or so of scouring the forums above... checking out the "For Sale" section on Craigslist, forums of for sale items at local fish/reef clubs, and even eBay! I finally found a deal I was happy with to jump back into the hobby. I didn't want something too high maintenance at first as I wasn't sure if my budget would allow it and I didn't know if I was ready to handle all the issues that come with keeping lives-in-a-box living. So after much research, I decided I wanted to do a nano tank.

Yes, nano is the new big! Nano is hot right now... but nano for a fish tank is a bit different than a iPod nano or nano-technology. Anyway, I thought I would start by getting a JBJ Nano tank and/or the Aquapod nano tank. Both tanks come in 12 gallon and 24 gallon sizes and both come with pretty much all the accessories to keep marine fish alive in a small space. For laymen purposes, the JBJ Nano tank is the first generation and the Aquapod (which is still being released as of this writing) would be the second generation. The Aquapod is supposed to have been developed through learning and fixing the mistakes of the JBJ Nanocube, but it seems like the Aquapod is still prone to cracking, leaking and it also has electrical issues. This is where research paid off... while the first impressions were great, further research showed that these tanks were cracking and lives of both fish and humans were destroyed. That's no good. I think the verdict is if you buy something with bended glass corners, you better make sure that nothing was stressed during shipping.

Anyway, what I ended up buying was a used Eclipse 12 nano from a guy moving away from the area. I must say, this guy knows his stuff and he had a beautiful tank when I bought it. Hardly any hair algae and lots of purple (coraline) algae. I bought the whole setup for $200 and this is what it had:

- Eclipse 12 gallon system with PC lighting upgraded via a Sunpod retro-fit thingy. (Basically it has better lights)
- A gold striped maroon clown
- A blue damsel (will be gone when upgrading)
- A yellow and purple dottyback (will be gone when upgrading)
- A skunk cleaner shrimp
- Various mushrooms on live rocks
- 2 species of toadstool coral, 4 small pedestals
- A bubble anemone
- 2 headed candy cane coral
- Various snails
- Various blue legged hermit crab
- Orange sea star
- 3 stalks of xenias
- 2 Floridia ricordias
- Various zoas
- Green carpet coral? I forget the real name or friendly name...

The one thing I was surprised about was that the guy doesn't use his heater and that this tank did not have thermometer on it. Guess what I ended up buying the day after I got this tank? Anyway, this is a long post so I'll continue a bit later.