VERY OT - My aquarium

Thatgrimguy

I mentioned my aquarium hobby and thought I'd throw some pics up of my last tank. I'm currently not keeping a tank as my house is too small and my time too sparse.  But for a long time this was my hobby.

hapster

Very cool.. I have a buddy that has a large saltwater set up, love watching the fish and coral when we are over there...

Thanks for sharing

Legume

Very cool.  I never graduated to salt but have had several freshwater in the past and they're just not comparable.  You're right about needing the time.

nolaegghead

Impressive set up.  Did you sell it or just storing for when you get space/time.

Watching fish makes me hungry.   I do feel calmer though.

Botch

I'll never have the time or patience, but LOVE looking at setups like yours; beautiful!  

Sea2Ski

Woweee. Beautiful.  I would love to have an aquarium like that, but I know the time and dedication needed is significant. Man, that is really well done. 

Thatgrimguy

nolaegghead said:

Impressive set up.  Did you sell it or just storing for when you get space/time.

Watching fish makes me hungry.   I do feel calmer though.

I have some of the equipment, but I sold all the corals and fish. I have a simple tank at my Hyundai store and a larger one at our Toyota store, but nothing like this. It took daily attention, every single day to get it to this point. I sold it when I moved onto my water property. This was in a townhouse with no view, lots more incentive to keep an aquarium.

Grillin_beers

Great now I'm going to buy a fish tank too.  Just kidding.  I have always loved fish tanks and hopefully I will get one soon. That's pretty sweet man. 

nolaegghead

We've had aquariums for years.  We're down to one.  It's not worth posting a picture (small, freshwater) - it's been very stable, fish usually die from old age.

Fred19Flintstone

nolaegghead said:

We've had aquariums for years.  We're down to one.  It's not worth posting a picture (small, freshwater) - it's been very stable, fish usually die from old age.

What about raccoon attacks?

RRP

My experience years ago is hilarious now that I look back. We bougth a small aquarium at a garage sale. It was dirty so I scrubbed it out using COMET. Rinsed it once, filled it with tap water, dumped in $10 worth of fish and found them all belly up the next morning! Talked with a friend who told me what I did wrong and he suggested buying a snail to keep it clean inside. Figured why just get 1 snail so I bought 5 instead! In six months time that aquarium was over run with snails!!! By then we were moving to a new home and my snail raising days were over and I sold the aquarium to the some sucker at a garage sale!

nolaegghead

Fred19Flintstone said:

nolaegghead said:

We've had aquariums for years.  We're down to one.  It's not worth posting a picture (small, freshwater) - it's been very stable, fish usually die from old age.

What about raccoon attacks?

All the raccoon invasions resulted in the 'coons going straight for the catfood.  Lower hanging fruit.

henapple

Nice 

Fred19Flintstone

We had a small freshwater tank.  My daughter decided to share her apple juice with the fish.  We had a few "burials at sea".  This is my kind of tank!

ibanda

Really beautiful setup. I had a 70 gallon African Cichlid tank years ago.

SGH

I saw that aquarium in person.  It was extremely nice. Hate to hear that it's gone man. It looked really good in your house. My wife absolutely loved it. 

Thatgrimguy

SGH said:

I saw that aquarium in person.  It was extremely nice. Hate to hear that it's gone man. It looked really good in your house. My wife absolutely loved it. 

You didn't see this bad boy. You saw my 90g that is now at our store. It was no where near this decked out. But thank you very much. I actually see it more now there than I did at home.

GregW

I've always wanted to have a saltwater tank. What keeps me from it is the specter of a $100+ fish floating belly up.
Your tank was really sharp.

Wolfpack

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i.ytimg.com/vi/HV0YNtFayEw/hqdefault.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV0YNtFayEw&h=360&w=480&tbnid=ktoSRcHdqszqjM:&zoom=1&docid=pfl6gC-SdMaFLM&hl=en&ei=gn2gVfKYPI6tyATx7LHYCg&tbm=isch&client=safari&ved=0CEIQMygeMB4

Wolfpack

Dang it lets try a still....

yummy fish- 

badinfluence

Very nice set up. I have been working on a 90 gallon set up for about 6 months. I have the tank, stand, hood, sump, power heads so far. Still need the lights 1200.00 and skimmer 550.00 then I can get it cycling. I want to do corals so before anyone says you can get lights cheaper....I know that, but I also don't want to kill the coral and clams that I really want in this setup. I will get there. Just might take another 6 months but I will get it done...lol

GregW

badinfluence said:

Very nice set up. I have been working on a 90 gallon set up for about 6 months. I have the tank, stand, hood, sump, power heads so far. Still need the lights 1200.00 and skimmer 550.00 then I can get it cycling. I want to do corals so before anyone says you can get lights cheaper....I know that, but I also don't want to kill the coral and clams that I really want in this setup. I will get there. Just might take another 6 months but I will get it done...lol

Coral is cool, but I understand it's one of the most difficult aspect of the hobby.

badinfluence

@gregw it is difficult for sure. The high intensity lights will help a lot. There is a pet store about 30 miles from me that salt water is there thing and where I have been getting everything for this set up. I told them I want to do this right the first time and not re think the equipment I bought. Sad to say I will have 5k into it before I ever get water in the thing. 

I am am not a saltwater virgin though I have had them in the past but Nothing of this quality.

GregW

badinfluence said:

@gregw it is difficult for sure. The high intensity lights will help a lot. There is a pet store about 30 miles from me that salt water is there thing and where I have been getting everything for this set up. I told them I want to do this right the first time and not re think the equipment I bought. Sad to say I will have 5k into it before I ever get water in the thing. 

I am am not a saltwater virgin though I have had them in the past but Nothing of this quality.

Are you looking at LED lights?

Thatgrimguy

badinfluence said:

Very nice set up. I have been working on a 90 gallon set up for about 6 months. I have the tank, stand, hood, sump, power heads so far. Still need the lights 1200.00 and skimmer 550.00 then I can get it cycling. I want to do corals so before anyone says you can get lights cheaper....I know that, but I also don't want to kill the coral and clams that I really want in this setup. I will get there. Just might take another 6 months but I will get it done...lol

You should look very hard at using a T5 set up. On a 90g you can get ATI bulbs and a 4 or 6 bulb sunpower fixture in the $500 range and it will literally grow anything in the world. Many of the best reef tank setups in the world are under quality t5 setups.

The leds that are in the range you are talking are fantastic, but there have been a lot more successful tanks under t5s. You do get dimming and control that you can never get on a t5 setup for cool morning and night settings. But that doesn't help the coral in any way.

YYZegger

Beautiful looking Tank!

YukonRon

Very cool hobby. I have known a lot of folks that had tanks. Kept adding and enhancing, getting different sizes, the latest gadgets, upgrading the holders and displays, tryin new things in them.....wait, this seems familiar to me somehow.....Like Us Freakin' Eggers!!!!!
nice tanks, very complex and beautiful!

RRP

YukonRon said:

Very cool hobby. I have known a lot of folks that had tanks. Kept adding and enhancing, getting different sizes, the latest gadgets, upgrading the holders and displays, tryin new things in them.....wait, this seems familiar to me somehow.....Like Us Freakin' Eggers!!!!!
nice tanks, very complex and beautiful!

I agree about the similarity. In my case I threw out hundreds if not thousands on snails I raised over 6 months...but now I have no qualms about paying $10 for a tiny can of "escargot" from France! I gotta wonder how many billions of dollars I would have been worth if I just kept my garage sale acquarium for $10 and $2 worth of over sexed snails years ago! 

YukonRon

RRP said:

YukonRon said:

Very cool hobby. I have known a lot of folks that had tanks. Kept adding and enhancing, getting different sizes, the latest gadgets, upgrading the holders and displays, tryin new things in them.....wait, this seems familiar to me somehow.....Like Us Freakin' Eggers!!!!!
nice tanks, very complex and beautiful!

I agree about the similarity. In my case I threw out hundreds if not thousands on snails I raised over 6 months...but now I have no qualms about paying $10 for a tiny can of "escargot" from France! I gotta wonder how many billions of dollars I would have been worth if I just kept my garage sale acquarium for $10 and $2 worth of over sexed snails years ago! 

That is funny. Unfortunately, I have the same sort of problem with rabbits. I do not raise them, but our neighborhood is loaded with those garden nazis. They keep breeding in our yard, there are dozens. The only other city I know that has a rabbit population larger than Louisville, is Köln.

Thatgrimguy

Thank you all. I really miss this tank. It was 6 foot wide, 30"tall and 24" front to back. There were something like 25 fish in there and over 50 coral specimen. And one HUGE rugby ball sized clam.

dougcrann

Never had a reef tank, other than a small 35 gallon gig. I had a 125 swim tank, with the plate filtration. What a nightmare. Did my 12 hours at the USPS one night, got home at 1 in the morning.  Tank just didn't look right. Spent the next 7 hours catching fish, draining the tank and cleaning the sludge from under the plate. Didn't lose a fish. Also had a 300 gallon swim tank with overflow boxes. Absolutely loved that tank. Was clear enough that you could read a newspaper thru it...long ways...tank was 8' long. Had some pretty fish. Had a porcupine puffer that liked to be petted. Wish I had the $$$ and was set up to do it again.