The FTIC Aquarium The timeline...

	June 22, 2005 - The cycle begins. I boosted my girlfriend's 29 gallon tank. We threw in 40 pounds of live sand and 20 gallons of distilled water, mixed with sea salt.

	Cloudy, isn't it?

	Let's hope the filter and protein skimmer can clear it all up.

	June 23, 2005 - All clear. Well the filter cleaned everything up nicely.

	June 24, 2005 - Rocking. Payday's here, so we went to the Fish Store and bought $112 in live rock. What does a hundred clams look like in rock? Here it is. Not too impressive, is it? This stuff is ripped off the reefs of Fiji, hosed and scrubbed down, and shipped over here with the bulk of it still teaming with life.



	Just wait until it cleans up...

	June 27, 2005 - Screw going slow. I am really the most impatient person on the planet. The water levels all looked pretty good, so I convinced myself we needed a source of ammonia. Without something pooping in the water, all of our expensive bacteria would surely die off. We took our lunch break again at the fish store where we purchased 4 snails, 5 hermit crabs, 2 clownfish, and a tiny little damsel.



	We got the clowns as a pair because they are supposed to be very social with their own kind. I think this is the farthest they've been apart from each other since they've been in here.

	I cropped the other one out so this one would look a little more independent.

	"Wait up, Nemo!"

	Aren't they cute? I think we need to name these little guys. Since they are office fish I probably should discuss it with my co-workers about it, but I'm thinking something along the lines of "Alan Greenspan" and "Paul Volker".

	Alan and Paul get acclimated to their new environment.

	Oh yeah, and while I was shooting some pics of the live rock the damsel squeezed in there. I prefer to call him the "God Damsel" because the are notoriously a pain in the ass. This one is really small so he hopefully won't be a problem, but if he starts anything I'm gunna pay a frat boy to eat him. I think we should name him "Jaws".

	July 02, 2005 - And then there was light! I finally got the light for the tank. Boy, eBay kicks ass. I tried a bunch of different camera settings in the next couple pics, so I'm sorry that they kinda stink.

	Blurry, but this is the tank with the "moonlights". They run at night so simulate... um... the moon. They really look pretty killer, I wish the camera could pick them up better.



	Here's a hermit crab under the actinic lights. They are really blue, and come on an hour before the daytime lights to simulate sun-up. They run along with the daylight lights all day and give the tank a cool color while helping out with the photosynthetic organisms in the tank.

	Another crab.

	This is a baby bottlenosed dolphin. Oh, wait. That's another hermit crab.

	Closeup of some rock. I don't think there is anything actually in there.



	If you look closely in the center of the picture you can see a tubeworm. He hangs out of hit tube waiting for something good to eat. If you move too quickly around it the little guy sucks back into his tube.

	Closeup of our Mexican Turbo Snail. He's about the side of a golfball. His name is Frank.