Sea Water

[herefishyfishy]

I just recently found a 20 gallon tank in my garage and decided to set up a reef tank. I put about 12 gallons of homemade salt water in, and 6 gallons of sea water in. Also, I put sand and crushed coral in along with some some sergeant majors and other little fish and some live rocks (dont tell anyone), all which I got out of the ocean.

Will my tank be messed up because of this? Can I still put corals and other fish in after the tank cycles?

Thanks,
Alex

 

[ostrow]

Besides your cavalier approach to threatened ocean resources being rather deplorable, if you have "some" seargent majors in a 20G tank you are asking for trouble, and it sounds like you have other fish in addition. Not a promising start on many fronts, I'm afraid.

 

[crazie.eddie]

I put about 12 gallons of homemade salt water in, and 6 gallons of sea water in.

Curious what do you mean by homemade salt water? Did you use sea salt from an LFS and mixed it with water?

Also, the 6 gallons of sea water...Is this actually water you obtained from the sea?

 

[herefishyfishy]

sorry, its water made from Red Sea Salt and "Actual" water from the ocean.

 

[Hazmat]

Is this your first SW tank?
what kind of equipment do you have running in the tank?
This is a bad way to start a SW reef tank.
20g is waaaaaayyyyy to small for a reef. I think you need to stop and rethink what you plan on having in the end result. Reed the pinned threads in this forum.

Hazmat

 

[RamJet]

Its a 20 gallon, but that is still way to small for a beginner. The thing that really sucks here is that the fish were free of charge beings that he took them from the ocean. This means that he does not have an investment in them and more than likely will proceed with what he is doing and kill the fish. As some-one who is going out of my way to save as many fish as I can, a diver of 18 years, and ex-law enforcement. This really pisses me off.

I agree whole heartedly with Ostrow, he had a very nice way of putting it, however I am angry and nice words seem difficult to come by.

 

[Hazmat]

Thanks Ramjet fixed it

Even so 20 is way too small for a reef....... It is hard to reply to post like this cuz you don't want to sound like an A$$ but you don't want to see people doing this kind of thing. I will give this guy the benefit of the doubt and assume he has no knowledge in SW, but hopefully he will read this thread and do lots more research before continuing.

Hazmat

 

[herefishyfishy]

I've been thinking... and I'm gonna return the fish and other ocean belongs back to the ocean and start a new tank with cured live rock and some "live" sand from my LFS. This way i'll have more of an investment as Ramjet pointed out and I dont have to worry about anything bad entering my tank from the sea.

 

[RamJet]

I had some cooling down time and wanted to come back to this post.
I am happy that more and more people are getting into salt water, but there is a right way to do it and a wrong way. There are people who pay for a licence to collect from the ocean. Because they are having to pay for it, and the live stock, sand, rock, ect... is their lively hood, not to forget about the DNR keeping an eye on things, they have a vested interest in making sure there will be future stock. They in turn whole sale it to a pet store, which the pet store in oder to resell it must keep it healthy.(Most pet store owners are not in it to make a quick buck, or to get rich. Most LFS develop out of an over-grown hobby/love for animals.) It is in their best interest to keep fish fed, happy, and healthy. Go to the store, learn as much as you can about them, buy them, take them home and fall in love with them. Know their personalities, habbits, study evey last scale and care for them like they were children. When they get sick, sit up all night and worry about them, do everything you can to make them feel better. If a filter stops at 2 a.m. get out of bed and get it going, they depend on you!
HAVE A VESTED INTEREST IN WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!!!

 

[Erika_4404]

your trying to play people for fools don't think people are that stupied you have another post with the stupiest questions if any one get this far in the post don't bother it's a hox.

 

[herefishyfishy]

Atually, lol, this one is a serious post. The other one though is a fake, I was just trying to get some laughs going, the posts seemed to be to serious. But anyways, Im serious about getting into this hobby and was aware of the risks of using ocean water and sand.

Thx,
Alex

 

[RamJet]

"the posts seemed to be to serious" Alex doens't know me very well yet.

 

[Erika_4404]

Don't put up fake post your just acting stupied because if you really want help why dupe the people your asking for help... if you want to get laughs talk to ramjet ... he will tell you how to get laughs.