Time for some animals!

Ended up working late and didn't get home till almost 7:30 last night. Luckily the fish store is open till 9. I was looking for a Royal Gramma, but they didn't have any at Aquarium Village. Most of the good fish that were starters are jumpers and I wanted to be able to keep the hood off the quarantine tank to help keep it cool, since it's in the basement and pretty hot down there. I ended up heading back to Petco where they had 2 I had seen the night before.  So I also picked up my clean-up crew (10 snails and 10 hermit crabs) at Aquarium Village in addition to calibration fluid for the refractometer.

So I get the fish in the water and the snails in the main tank after some acclimation. Now I decide to play with the refractometer. I put the calibration fluid and I see that I'm off a little bit. I adjust and re-test the quarantine and the display tank. The display tank is great at 1.025, but the quarantine looks like it's less than 1.020! Damn, I knew I should have mixed the extra salt water last night!

I started up the pump in the salt water barrel, and added up my salt. Gave it around 30 minutes to mix and did a 2-3 gallon water change. Managed to get the quarantine to 1.021 which at least is the orange zone on the hydrometer... Woke up in the middle of the night and did some more, and again this morning. I'm now at 1.023-1.024 and our Royal Gramma definitely looks a bit better. Every time I come into the room though, she runs and hides behind the heater in the tank. I can spy her from the doorway, but it would make a horrible picture... I'll try and get a good shot soon.

In the meantime, here's some snails and hermit crabs to look at. They've been having a feast in the display tank and definitely doing their job!