Rusty Mountain's Place on the Net

Welcome to my webpage. I'm a 54 yr young(?) retiree from Ashland, Ky. I retired from Bellsouth in Clover, SC, found my beautiful bride[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/rbmount/mobmain2.jpg[/IMG], and moved to Kentucky in July 2006. I am presently employed at Gibb's True Value Hardware here in Ashland. I will attempt to post information and pictures of my 90 gallon reef tank as I can. I started out in saltwater about 5 years ago when a friend of mine was killed in a wreck. Her husband was thinning out their critter collection and asked me if I wanted their saltwater setup. Well, that was the beginnings of an empty wallet. The 30 grew into a 46, then into a 90, then to a 90 and a 46. The flourescents evolved to halides, and the rest is history.

I did cut back to just the 90 after the move, both tanks were a bit to much for me, and it did cut down on space in the house, which my wife thanks me for.

I bought my 90 back in 2002 in  Gastonia, N.C. at a little store called Wet Pets. A nice place to visit, but as anyone will tell you, don't listen to shop owners (well, most of them) due to the fact their bottom line is sales. So, I bought this 90 setup complete with lights (first mistake) , brought it home, set it up and here we go.

I did cycle it like the books said, and the one thing that amazed me was when the ammonia raises to it's max level. How quickly it drops. So after my tank cycled, I began buying the fish and inverts for it, Back to the first mistake- lights. I was told the lights I bought would support anything I wanted to keep------WRONG. 2 55 watt vho bolbs and 2 55w actinics will NOT support anything I want to keep. Like everyone else, I wanted an Anemone-It died, I bought some coral-they died. Then I went back to the books I bought and found out these animals need light, and lots of it to survive. Well, the price of halides and vho hoods were out of site, I did find a site that liquidated fish equipment online. So I bought lights for $370, instead of the $1000, I saw on other online stores.