I have a story about a guy I knew who tried a 20 gallon reef tank in his dorm room over the summer term. This was one of my brother's suitemates from the year before, a spoiled kid who flunked out his first semester than came back for the summer, and consequently flunked out again this past fall term.. Anyway, when I heard he was interested in starting up a tank, I was pretty excited. I took him to a couple stores, tried to give him a lot of help and friendly advice, and here's what happened...
The tank he got was a nice 20 gallon standard. He bought a bag of aragonite sand, Instant Ocean, a hydrometer, some cheap test kits... and that's about all he did that was kind of on track. It all goes to hell from here...
He didn't listen or even read the email I sent him that my buddy Flave had sent to me to help me get started with my ten gallon nano. He bought lava rock instead of live. Red heavy base lava rock, the kind you see in freshwater with holes. And... fish. That's right, two clowns and a royal gramma. He bought them before the tank was even set up.
He didn't listen to a thing I'd said, then later on acted like I was too paranoid and cautious!
To "cycle" the tank, he bought Cycle. The girl at the fish store told him that's what they used on all their tanks to get it going... yeah, right. And then... he was apparently "researching" on the internet the night before I came over to see the tank and he heard a whole shrimp put in the tank will speed the cycle along. So what I see the next day is 2 plump decaying cocktail shrimp on the sand...
... or the pieces of them he tried to feed the carpet anemone.
He bought the anemone on the second day. I nicely tried to tell him he was going too fast and things would spin out of control, but he was having none of it. So... I shut my mouth and sat back to watch the train wreck.
A day later he ordered 15 pounds of live rock from an online retailer. It got there a week later. Amazingly, the fish are still alive, and so is the anemone. The anemone is looking horrible, but it's still alive.
The live rock arrives and he puts it in... and this is what he blamed on his tank falling apart, the live rock. It was "uncured," he said.
The clowns get ich and he tries to get in touch with me to put the non sick one in my tank. I say no. The sick one dies, the other one gets ich, then dies, then goes the gramma, then the anemone melts down and turns the whole tank the color of rotten milk.
What galls me the most about this guy was he kept getting in touch with my brother and acting like he was doing me this great favor by offering a "trade" for my ten gallon tank for his larger 20... I never got the details, but knowing this guy, the deal would have consisted all of my corals and fish and good stuff in my tank for all the dead and dying crap in his disaster.
The sad thing is I'm not kidding. This is a true story.
Can anybody top that one? Or bottom it, rather? heh heh
The tank he got was a nice 20 gallon standard. He bought a bag of aragonite sand, Instant Ocean, a hydrometer, some cheap test kits... and that's about all he did that was kind of on track. It all goes to hell from here...
He didn't listen or even read the email I sent him that my buddy Flave had sent to me to help me get started with my ten gallon nano. He bought lava rock instead of live. Red heavy base lava rock, the kind you see in freshwater with holes. And... fish. That's right, two clowns and a royal gramma. He bought them before the tank was even set up.
He didn't listen to a thing I'd said, then later on acted like I was too paranoid and cautious!
To "cycle" the tank, he bought Cycle. The girl at the fish store told him that's what they used on all their tanks to get it going... yeah, right. And then... he was apparently "researching" on the internet the night before I came over to see the tank and he heard a whole shrimp put in the tank will speed the cycle along. So what I see the next day is 2 plump decaying cocktail shrimp on the sand...
... or the pieces of them he tried to feed the carpet anemone.
He bought the anemone on the second day. I nicely tried to tell him he was going too fast and things would spin out of control, but he was having none of it. So... I shut my mouth and sat back to watch the train wreck.
A day later he ordered 15 pounds of live rock from an online retailer. It got there a week later. Amazingly, the fish are still alive, and so is the anemone. The anemone is looking horrible, but it's still alive.
The live rock arrives and he puts it in... and this is what he blamed on his tank falling apart, the live rock. It was "uncured," he said.
The clowns get ich and he tries to get in touch with me to put the non sick one in my tank. I say no. The sick one dies, the other one gets ich, then dies, then goes the gramma, then the anemone melts down and turns the whole tank the color of rotten milk.
What galls me the most about this guy was he kept getting in touch with my brother and acting like he was doing me this great favor by offering a "trade" for my ten gallon tank for his larger 20... I never got the details, but knowing this guy, the deal would have consisted all of my corals and fish and good stuff in my tank for all the dead and dying crap in his disaster.
The sad thing is I'm not kidding. This is a true story.
Can anybody top that one? Or bottom it, rather? heh heh
