Saltwater art at its finest!

This post is dedicated to my husband's new hobby...or should I say OBSESSION! Lately, everything out of this man's mouth is aquarium related, and he has even gotten to the point where he dreams about tanks. This sure is one expensive hobby, but hey, it could be worse. At least he's at home and I get to admire his artwork!

My underwater camera is out of commission at the moment being repaired by the good 'ol Geek Squad guys at Best Buy. These are all pics from my iPhone, but they turned out much better than I expected!

He built this beautiful custom light hood to match the stand!
Next, we added nearly 150lbs more live rock
The next challenge was to aqua scape it and make it look beautiful!
We since have added another big rock to fill in the top
Our first coral was in with the rocks we purchased and we brought it back to life. Meet our Zoanthids.(Nothing fancy, but they were free!)
Now to MY coral! This is my bouquet of Daisy Polyps! Thank you hubby!
Our brittle star. Cool, yet creepy.
Frogspawn coral! This will be a hit with our future clown fish for Lucas!
Green Star Polyps. Looks like grass and it adds so much color to the tank!
Pom Pom Zenia! It was hard to capture a good picture, but they pulsate and look like flowers!
This is Shrek, our sea hare!
He is by far the craziest little creature I've ever seen!
Our first fish! We got three of these little Chromis
Montipora cap! Excited to see this thing grow!
ANEMONE!! We custom ordered this guy. Has a beautiful red foot and vibrant blue tentacles!
Isn't this amazing?! What's even crazier is to see this thing eat...and poop. It still weirds me out that it's alive!
Camel Shrimp-really neat guys! They went crazy when we added in the anemone and fought over the poop.
Red Legged Hermit Crab! (Found him in the rocks too)
Can't forget the little guys...our little pyramid snail!
Ninja Star Snail
Sea Shell Snail

And our big guy covered in hair algae!

We also have a pair of peppermint shrimp, but they are nearly always in hiding. It's so amazing to check the tank every morning and see what's grown! I swear, we rarely watch T.V. anymore because we're always watching the tank...such a nice way to wind down the day. He's almost convinced me to convert our Cichlid tank to a saltwater as well, but we'll see. We may possibly start a small frag tank and grow some corals!

Lucas is so interested in this adventure as well! Any time we get into the car he asks to go to the fishie store, and when we're there, he runs around pointing everything out. I'm amazed at how much he knows and that he can actually distinguish specific fish, coral, or inverts. He's going to be a Saltwater Pro before he turns 2! A few nights ago, Levi was drawing Lucas pictures on his little doodle toy. He did the basic run down of animals and then started in with the fish, snails, starfish, etc. Then he drew this...

Lucas immediately yelled out "ANEMONE!"

Yep, Levi is one proud daddy!

Saltwater Scientist

So I had no idea when my husband decided to get a saltwater tank that I was going to be the scientist behind the curtain. Learning about the process and maintenance of this tank has been insane...we're literally going to have a little eco-system in our living room! We found a beautiful 90 gallon corner tank on craigslist for $500 and learned later that it was made from on of the top of the line companies (and is valued at $1200!). There is still so much to learn but I'm slowing jumping on the band wagon. Levi has been studying hard and relaying to me what I need to know, but I'm sure that it's going to be quite the adventure. We were also fortunate enough to find another killer deal on craigslist last week. We found a guy (who happened to live in on of the wealthiest parts of Anchorage) who was relocating to Florida. He advertised that he was looking for someone to buy his HUGE lot of goodies, so we immediately snagged it up! After getting all of the products home and looking all of them up online, we realized they valued at over $1700...and we only paid $300! And mind you, most everything was new or in near perfect condition. If you can't tell by now, I LOVE a good deal!

We have the filtration system, the reverse osmosis machine, protein skimmer and the lights all set up. It's been filled with water and after it reached the correct temperature we added the salt, sand and live rock! The rocks require time to "cure" and so we've been forced to leave the tank alone for a while now. The rocks are constantly changing every day and growing the bacteria it needs to help our tank thrive. I know I'm a dork, but I never thought I'd be so excited about bacteria! I'm also learning about all of the chemicals levels that I will need to test for on a weekly bases (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, salinity, etc.) WHEW! What did I get myself into?

But I suppose the most exciting news is that we finally added our first live animals into the tank last evening....4 little snails! I was off taking a chemistry exam but Levi said that Lucas was just infatuated with them! The tank set up has been a project for the boys and Lucas has taken such an interest in it. I can't wait to see his reaction once we're ready for fishies! We've been researching and picking out all of the corals and living creatures that we'd like to add to it and honestly, I'm starting to get impatient! Levi has constructed the entire layout in his head and he is going to screw the rocks together to form such an amazing landscape. I really can't wait to see it up and going! But for now...we wait.