Aquarium?

[masraum]

Many years ago (early/mid 80s) my mom put a 10Gal tank up. We loved it. She ended up with 3x 10Gal tanks over the course of about 2.5-3 years. Having the multiple tanks helped with cleaning and water changing and stuff. I was a kid, but I remember it seemed like a fair amount of work. I'd love to have one, but I'm not signing up for the work involved.

[ramonesfreak]

its really not alot of work if you have close access to a sink that you can hook a python up to....syphoning into a bucket etc....is out of the question. No way.

otherwise, for me the stress is more about worrying about the animals health and wellbeing.

But, this hobby can turn into a rabbit hole. In the course of a week I went from 1 tank to 9 tanks and eventually now down to 7

I can change water on all tanks in just over an hour, which I do every Friday afternoon or Saturday morning

[masraum]

Originally Posted by ramonesfreak

its really not alot of work if you have close access to a sink that you can hook a python up to....syphoning into a bucket etc....is out of the question. No way.

otherwise, for me the stress is more about worrying about the animals health and wellbeing.

But, this hobby can turn into a rabbit hole. In the course of a week I went from 1 tank to 9 tanks and eventually now down to 7

I can change water on all tanks in just over an hour, which I do every Friday afternoon or Saturday morning

That's a lot of tanks and a lot of water changing. How big are your tanks? I'm guessing they are mostly smaller (10g) if for no other reason than seven 55g or 75g tanks would take up A LOT of space.

[ramonesfreak]

I have a 75, 55, 44 long, 33 long, 20 long, 20 long and 20 tall

All are in a single room in basement on racks

[jyl]

During Portland's ice storm in January, some people were without power for a week. Some of my friends have a whole menagerie of dogs, cats, chickens, fish, etc and they had to camp in their sub-freezing house the whole time, because they had to take care of their animals. All their fish died :-(

[dad911]

Originally Posted by ramonesfreak

.......
I came home from errands the other day and all my filters were stopped. Happens every time the lights flicker. Wife didn’t notice lights flicker or power go out so no idea but by the time I noticed, ide guess they were off 5 hours. It’s a lot of worry all the time

Filters lose prime? Would a computer UPS help?

[ramonesfreak]

My large Fluval FX4 fires up no problem. All the hang on backs do not start back up because in order to do so, the impeller and magnet must be perfectly clean....they never are

I have to take off the motor of each one and give the impeller a spin by hand and then re-fill the filter...what a PIA

I also have sponge filters in each one and a couple with moving bed biological filtration run on air pumps

longest i have had to keep the bare bones running in a power outage was last year for about 15 hours...generator ran out of gas after about 5 so I used my battery backup power bricks I use in my office for my computers and internet stuff to run air pumps.....saved me

[Rusty Heap]

For automatic backup power to come on for a fish tank during an outage, I've seen people use a relay and trickle charge with an inverter and car battery backup. Trickle Charger keeps battery maintained and feeds a relay that is constantly on. Lose Power, Relay disengages and then closes contacts to power 120 VAC low amperage devices like pumps and heaters.

[ramonesfreak]

I’ve spent a lot of time watching fish tank room tours on YouTube. This one I think, is my favorite. Well worth checking out

[Rusty Heap]

From my last 180g saltwater reef tank for many many years, I've graduated up to a 5 gallon fresh planted tank for next to my kitchen counter computer I use for hours a day.

Just got it wet a couple days ago, bought a couple handfuls of 5-7 species of plants from a guy on Craigslist, and shopping for planting substrate and fish soon.

Guy had a fishroom just like in the video but only ~25-30 tanks where he breeds angels and shrimp to sell.


Going to have fun with this one. Heck, a 20% water change is only a gallon of water. I think I can handle that.

Goal is a Lite Bio-load and little feeding with lots of plants should almost be a closed eco-system that self maintains itself.


5 gallon size is a perfect countertop unit at only a 8x16" footprint and 10" tall. LED lighting is cheap and super bright.



or



You can always build a double sided tank into your house wall so it doubles as a Window too.............

[lsf911]

I have had tanks off and on for most of my life. For the last 12 years it has been a 100 gallon saltwater tank. I stocked it with a mated pair of percula clownfish, a yellow tang, and last add was a picasso trigger. Unfortunately, a few weeks ago my triggerfish died. I had him 11 years, great fish. Acted like a dog but in water, I could feed him by hand! The rest of the crew is 12 years old now and for the first time, the clownfish laid about 100 eggs, now I have to figure out how to handle that.

Is it a lot of work? It can be when things are off. But if you keep up with the water changes it's really not that bad. For power outages, you can't wait too long before using a generator or something to keep the filters going or the good bacteria will die off and that would be catastrophic to the eco-system for sure.

Is it for everyone, absolutely not, but it can be rewarding.

[ramonesfreak]

Lost one of my older Boesemani rainbows today. This morning i was having my coffee watching tanks before turning on the lights. Fish was fine, hanging among the plants near the top. Turned on light and he started spinning and splashing and basically having a violent seizure. Still breathing but upside down I took him out and put him alone in a 10 gallon hospital tank. Gave it about 5 hours and no improvement, just slow breathing and upside down so I had to euthanize him.

Ive had him 5 years and the only thing I did different is I turned the light on at 6am, about an hour earlier than I usually do. Im guessing he was still deep in sleep and being at the top, the light blasted him in the eyes and now he is dead and I am left wondering what I did wrong. This hobby is full of ups and downs.

[Tobra]

How long is a rainbowfish going to live? Not much more than 5 years.

[Alan A]

Originally Posted by Chocaholic

Jeez...they’ve been making toilets for years that have a shut off valve so when the tank fills to it’s designated level, it shuts off and doesn’t overflow. Can it be possible that this century-old technology hasn’t yet found its way to aquarium filters?

You never had your bathroom toilet shutoff stick and flood while you were out because your kid blocked it at the same time? You got lucky…


I have a video of it pouring water out of the ceiling and it’s not pretty…

[Rusty Heap]

After 25 years of salt water reef tank.........i totally sold off several garage bays full of old gear, tanks, and fish live-rock.

Enjoying my present 5 gallon fresh planted nano tank with some loaches and neon tetras.

Local pet store was going out of business and I got two 10 gallon and two 20g longs which are sweet size at 12x12x30.

I'm going to plumb it with several Sand Waterfalls.............never heard of them before? I hadn't'. VERY Cool Effect.

Basically you recirculate fine white sand lifting it up from a basin through a tube, spitting the sand out up top which then waterfalls back down over plants and rocks to the storage base and spat back up. You can buy them on Amazon or lots of fun DIY on YouTube.


https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qQCRzhF2y20?feature=share


https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=50eae9b505889d1f&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS943US943&sxsrf=ACQVn08dBuPOgcgLEYVR0RTpUfNd9pXphg:171215960 2803&q=sand+waterfall&uds=AMwkrPvnHlxJbL024PZ_hmdBmeVzl2rWjjgVQwAodWWpi7 pO_ngdfNPUXzdr7oIp2NSHXnhto0mT7E570uIX7j5_vLrGkPpu kYPb0wvkiobTB98V_Mr5sQI9HsbtaXkSJLq3_YhgYyBLWaNiMq vFNFG-TAHgvJP2hM_ycehQYmc2vzd4ccUqQhgOIJyOEbH0q864To5b0i 1p3ZnSeoYcQHtcmwaNpGUiZ9uYQ5Gxz_c9TJHOrgYTtF3CzEaU hxKH2s3TGFJZQhq6hhizKmEZ8NCIRyWRWFijyJnt26T517xoDu yb4QZ7PKH4FXxX52UyQk7FXDbKpOwc&udm=2&prmd=isvmnbtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj3ybHHs6aFAxWyGjQIHYkSCpIQtKgLegQIFxAB&biw=1920&bih=919&dpr=1









Any Pelicans tried out a Sand Waterfall Before?