I have always been fascinated by marine life. I love visiting aquariums and that is why I wanted to get scuba certified. Sea life is beautiful. My cousins Dave and Trav have had the Saltwater fish tank hobby for a while. They are pro and have REALLY beautiful tanks.
When I went to Indiana to stay with my cousin Travis is the first time I actually considered getting one. I just stared at his fish tanks while I was there. He talked me into doing it. He told me it would help with my winter depression AND that because I have a cousin near me that is pro and has hook ups... I could get it for cheap. For the right price... I would do it. So I got together with Dave for a fish meeting.
Right after that we started looking at KSL and other websites to find deals on the perfect tank for me. I decided that I wanted the 29 gallon biocube. Perfect size for my living situation and a perfect starter tank for someone who doesn't know what they are doing. Yet it still has plenty of space to have a beautiful sea life display. We found one for a decent price. I didn't tell Dave, but I bought it and picked it up today. I drove out to Standsbury park to get it. It's far away, but luckily I was already in SLC for my eyelash/massage trade, so it was only an extra 25 minutes.
I got there and the guy took it all apart and put it in my car for me. I bought a few buckets the night before to transfer the water and fish and rock easier. It all fit in my little car... I was on my way home with my new hobby.
When I got home I was running late to go hiking with my friend Allison (blog post to come) and so I just took the bucket that had the fish and rock out of my car and set it inside and left everything else in the car while I left and didn't come back for several hours. I got home around 8 or so and realized that I needed to do something with all this stuff... but I had NO idea how to set it up and hadn't even decided where I wanted to put it yet. (Fort week makes it a little hard). So I took some pictures and sent them to Dave and said "Now What?"
He was surprised. He had no idea I was getting it today. He had offered to go with me to pick it up and set it up... but it was out in the middle of nowhere, I didn't want to inconvenience him. It was kind of late and he couldn't come over that night. He called me and told me to just put the tank in a temporary place and put the water back in and set it back up... otherwise the fish would die by morning. WHAT? I really didn't want to kill my new fish! Allison was over and was nice enough to help me take everything out of my car and put it in the kitchen. Almost everything was pretty heavy. We are strong girls... it's all good. So she also helped me take it all downstairs because I knew that is where I wanted the tank... I just didn't know where downstairs.
Dave was thinking that everything was still connected and that I would just have to put the water back in and the rock and fish and then just plug it in. WRONG! He asked me to send him a picture of that parts so he could tell me what I needed to plug in for sure so that the fish wouldn't die. I sent him this.
I didn't hear from him for a while after that. I started to worry. I just stared at everything like it was a puzzle. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe I shouldn't have surprised Dave and should have waited for him to go with me. A while later, Dave calls to come to my rescue. He tells me to get the heater... it looks like a Popsicle with a cord on it. Trying to put it together this way was going to be more difficult and take a while. Then Dave got smart and started to FaceTime me. I always forget about that because I never use it. Boy did this make things easier. By this time I had Allison and McKenzie there to help me because we had been watching a movie. So I had helpers which Dave referred to as my assistants. It took a little while, but Dave looked at my parts and instructed us via FaceTime which part to grab and what order to do things and what to put in when.
For the most part it went smoothly... and was pretty entertaining because there were 3 girls trying to put a salt water tank together who all had no idea what they were doing. There were a couple of mishaps. Like when Kenzie was picking up the live rock to put in the tank and the ends broke and the rock fell and we all screamed. Meanwhile Dave and Heather are in bed laughing at us. It was seriously funny. Maybe you had to be there... but we were all laughing... meanwhile Dave was trying not to laugh at us too much and trying to be encouraging and supportive. There was a fish in that rock that I hadn't seen... but the guy I bought it from said it was in there. Not sure how that rock dropping didn't kill the fish, but I saw it later... it's alive. Anyway. It took 3 of us and Dave instructing... but we put the tank together just enough that the fish won't die. It will have to do until Dave can come over and help me with the real set up. Can't wait for that. Until then... I'm counting this as a success! It was a fun and adventurous Saturday night. I love my family and friends. I wish I had that FaceTime recorded.
Can't wait for Phase 2 of my new tank! Travis will be so excited when he finds out I actually did it.
When I went to Indiana to stay with my cousin Travis is the first time I actually considered getting one. I just stared at his fish tanks while I was there. He talked me into doing it. He told me it would help with my winter depression AND that because I have a cousin near me that is pro and has hook ups... I could get it for cheap. For the right price... I would do it. So I got together with Dave for a fish meeting.
Right after that we started looking at KSL and other websites to find deals on the perfect tank for me. I decided that I wanted the 29 gallon biocube. Perfect size for my living situation and a perfect starter tank for someone who doesn't know what they are doing. Yet it still has plenty of space to have a beautiful sea life display. We found one for a decent price. I didn't tell Dave, but I bought it and picked it up today. I drove out to Standsbury park to get it. It's far away, but luckily I was already in SLC for my eyelash/massage trade, so it was only an extra 25 minutes.
I got there and the guy took it all apart and put it in my car for me. I bought a few buckets the night before to transfer the water and fish and rock easier. It all fit in my little car... I was on my way home with my new hobby.
When I got home I was running late to go hiking with my friend Allison (blog post to come) and so I just took the bucket that had the fish and rock out of my car and set it inside and left everything else in the car while I left and didn't come back for several hours. I got home around 8 or so and realized that I needed to do something with all this stuff... but I had NO idea how to set it up and hadn't even decided where I wanted to put it yet. (Fort week makes it a little hard). So I took some pictures and sent them to Dave and said "Now What?"
He was surprised. He had no idea I was getting it today. He had offered to go with me to pick it up and set it up... but it was out in the middle of nowhere, I didn't want to inconvenience him. It was kind of late and he couldn't come over that night. He called me and told me to just put the tank in a temporary place and put the water back in and set it back up... otherwise the fish would die by morning. WHAT? I really didn't want to kill my new fish! Allison was over and was nice enough to help me take everything out of my car and put it in the kitchen. Almost everything was pretty heavy. We are strong girls... it's all good. So she also helped me take it all downstairs because I knew that is where I wanted the tank... I just didn't know where downstairs.
Dave was thinking that everything was still connected and that I would just have to put the water back in and the rock and fish and then just plug it in. WRONG! He asked me to send him a picture of that parts so he could tell me what I needed to plug in for sure so that the fish wouldn't die. I sent him this.
I didn't hear from him for a while after that. I started to worry. I just stared at everything like it was a puzzle. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe I shouldn't have surprised Dave and should have waited for him to go with me. A while later, Dave calls to come to my rescue. He tells me to get the heater... it looks like a Popsicle with a cord on it. Trying to put it together this way was going to be more difficult and take a while. Then Dave got smart and started to FaceTime me. I always forget about that because I never use it. Boy did this make things easier. By this time I had Allison and McKenzie there to help me because we had been watching a movie. So I had helpers which Dave referred to as my assistants. It took a little while, but Dave looked at my parts and instructed us via FaceTime which part to grab and what order to do things and what to put in when.
For the most part it went smoothly... and was pretty entertaining because there were 3 girls trying to put a salt water tank together who all had no idea what they were doing. There were a couple of mishaps. Like when Kenzie was picking up the live rock to put in the tank and the ends broke and the rock fell and we all screamed. Meanwhile Dave and Heather are in bed laughing at us. It was seriously funny. Maybe you had to be there... but we were all laughing... meanwhile Dave was trying not to laugh at us too much and trying to be encouraging and supportive. There was a fish in that rock that I hadn't seen... but the guy I bought it from said it was in there. Not sure how that rock dropping didn't kill the fish, but I saw it later... it's alive. Anyway. It took 3 of us and Dave instructing... but we put the tank together just enough that the fish won't die. It will have to do until Dave can come over and help me with the real set up. Can't wait for that. Until then... I'm counting this as a success! It was a fun and adventurous Saturday night. I love my family and friends. I wish I had that FaceTime recorded.
Can't wait for Phase 2 of my new tank! Travis will be so excited when he finds out I actually did it.
3 comments:
Awesome Tracy! But now you will have to get pet sitters when ever you leave on adventures ;) I guess it's a good thing you live with roomies!
I had to do that anyway with my Beta fish. Just a few more fish to feed.
Who knew that putting a tank together would be so hard?? I'm glad you didn't kill your little hiding fish.
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