NOM!

Back in July Dean became a 90-gallon saltwater fish aquarist after shit-canning our 55 gallon freshwater tank. I was against the whole idea - it's expensive and a shit-ton of work. He finally broke down and said "But Tara...It's been my life dream for 20 years to have a tank like this." He was drunk and being ridiculously dramatic when he said this, but if your husband is going to pull out that "life dream" bullshit, you just say "yes".

Fast forward about 3 months. The tank is rocking. Everything looks beautiful. All of a sudden - death. Everything. Everything dead within weeks. WTF? We bought top of the line shit. Followed every little instruction. Read books. Researched on countless websites. Enlisted the help of the expert fish store owner...The water tests out perfectly for any test kit that could be found. Hundreds of dollars in fish and coral down the shitter...The "told ya so" backlash began.

A couple months after that we started calling the tank "Auschwitz". (Perhaps a poor taste joke, but that's us). Dead fish swimming. We bought several fish after any remedial action we could think of and they'd quickly die after a couple days. Hubby was about to give up and just make it a rock tank. I told him "the fuck you are - you're figuring this out." It was a sore subject. After several stops to the local fish store, the owner finally offered to come to our house and check things out. He was baffled too by our countless conversations.

On a Thursday about 2 weeks ago he stopped out and looked everything over, tested yet again and found nothing wrong. He asked Dean some questions about the nutrients he had been adding to the tank and BAM we have an answer. The bottle on the iodide says 2 capfuls every 2-3 days, not 5. For whatever reason, Dean had it in his head that it was 5 capfuls of iodide every 2-3 days. He had been adding more than double doses for several months. I guess after about 3 months it built up to lethal levels capable of wiping out any life (except for hermit crabs and snails.) Fuck-in-A.

"So are you happy that you got it figured out finally? Or pissed that it was all your fault for not reading instructions?"

"I'm happy that it's figured out - but it's the coral's fault for needing all those nutrients."

Yep - the man has a hard (impossible) time accepting blame, but that's alright. I accepted that a long time ago.

Well after much frustration, much expense, and a 70 gallon water change - we're back in action. We said "fuck you" to corals and we're going with a fish-only tank.

Here's our first-post-Auschwitz inhabitant - a Snowflake Eel. He's fat and happy and about a foot long. And over time he'll be joined by a puffer, lionfish, and trigger....

NOM!