Creatures great&small
New Member
Just introducing myself to R2R... Am a mom of 2 wonderful kids, 10 & 11, and we wanted the family hobby of a saltwater tank. For the 10-year old's bday, we put a 20 gallon in her room 2 mos ago. Hindsight 20/20, we made all the mistakes and even ones that we haven't read about. Here's a new one for ya... Our family has several pets and we also foster at-risk animals from local humane society, so... after I put on the flea/tick meds on all our animals and washing my hands thoroughly afterwards, I didn't realize that petting my dogs would get the stuff back on me and then sticking my unwashed hand into the tank is big no-no. Result, of course, massive extinction of "good" bacteria and livestock. My kids had named them all and were in tears even when the anemone died. The purple urchin was the sole survivor of the fiasco. We have a mom&pop LFS who were very helpful in getting our tank back on track. Just added a firefish, royal gramma to it. Am very, very hesitant to do anything more at this point. Thankfully, we do much better with the terrestrials. Am at R2R to learn, learn, learn...can't have dying livestock and crying kiddos again...
