My Fish Tank

[RandallNeighbour]

I know this is off topic, but I thought I'd post a movie of my marine aquarium. I ridded it of thousands of strands of a stringy coral called anthelia last Saturday and it looks a million times better tha it did before:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGAZI1sRGaQ

[blinkwatt]

Whoa! That's nice!

Just curious as to how much a super nice tank & set up like that would run? $5k?

[RandallNeighbour]

$5k is about right for all new equipment. However, I'd never buy new equipment. There's far too many people who dump this amount or more into a 150 gallon tank and then lose interest because they really have no passion for it.

My tank was $1200
My stand and canopy was $850
My metal halide and VHO actinic lighting canopy was $750
My sump and pumps were $200 (made it myself out of an old 55 gallon tank)
My chiller was $300 (but it's a crappy old one. New ones are $750)

So that totals up to $3750 if one had to buy a new chiller.

Now the contents of the tank really drive it up to the $5k mark:

175 lbs of premium live rock, $1000 (or more)
SPS hard corals, $600
Soft corals, $450
5 various kinds of fish, $350

I have four passions in life. The cause of Christ, driving Porsches, writing books, and this fish tank, in that order.

BTW, the tank does not take a lot of time to maintain because I don't fiddle with the critters much (re-arranging corals, adding fish, etc.). I do a 15 gallon water change every three or four months that takes all of fifteen minutes. I feed the fish and corals every other day very sparingly (2 minutes max). I also change out fresh water top-off bottles about once or twice a week because the tank evaporates about 8 gallons of water every seven days.

[Perfectlap]

a $4700 home for $350 fish?...boy you are a good host!

I use to have 10 cent goldfish in tank with cheap red pebbles.
when I was low rent before my Pcar days.

If its any consolation I have a $5,000 Bianchi bicycle with a carbon Campagnolo drivetrain. Talk about overkill.

[CJ_Boxster]

I use to have a 300 gallon tank with alot of live rock and mostly porcupine puffers, 1 lion fish, 1 yellow tang, and some other fish that i cannot remember, oh yes! i had a Cow face puffer which was bad ass looking, looked like a decapitated bulls head floating around and afew anenome's... By far my favorite thing about the having the fish was at nite when i turned off the lights and these little blue LED's lit the tank with a dark midnite blue looks, all the anenome's electro luminescent colors would glow in the tank.... I'd be glued to the tank for 15 minutes watching it. However i always had issues with water quality, if its not getting foggy, the pH levels were too low, or a fish was getting cloudy eyes, or a tang would get a skin desease and die.... tangs always dieing, puffers usually never have a problem.

Only pictures i could find of my fish were these ones i took so i can post them for sale 3 years ago.

[Uncle Bob]

Awesome, Randall. To see a complete living reef like that is truly a soothing thing to have in one's home. I've kept aquaria of some type for over 40 years now. Mostly South American and Africans, all freshwater. Salt is the only type I haven't had. My last 'aquaria' was in my backyard. Truly a labor of love and over 20,000 gallons.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/UncleBob1/Home%20backyard/Wedding01.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/UncleBob1/Home%20backyard/AllFinished10.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/UncleBob1/Home%20backyard/DSCN0005.jpg

Slideshow:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/UncleBob1/Home%20backyard/th_Wedding02.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v288/UncleBob1/Home%20backyard/?action=view&current=26063664.pbw)

[RandallNeighbour]

Bob, my tank has always been at my office, which is soothing for the days I sit on the phone all day.

Your water feature is AMAZING. I put in a cheezy 250 gallon pond and rock waterfall and it was really hard work. I do hope you paid someone to move all those huge boulders in place!

Do you have some nice koi in that pond, or what?

[bmussatti]

Randall, looks great...and your life passions are even better. A true role model. :)

[Uncle Bob]

Bob, my tank has always been at my office, which is soothing for the days I sit on the phone all day.

Your water feature is AMAZING. I put in a cheezy 250 gallon pond and rock waterfall and it was really hard work. I do hope you paid someone to move all those huge boulders in place!

Do you have some nice koi in that pond, or what?An aquarium is a very soothing influence indeed. I have had a business for (too) many years where I installed & maintained aquaria in offices, waiting rooms, restaurants, and homes. It was lots of fun, but a few years ago I got way too busy to keep up with it and gave/sold off all my clients.

Thanks! The pond was filled with triploid rainbow trout. They were just under 2 years old when we sold the place and over 26" long. Quite voracious feeders!

It was difficult to photograph them, but here's some:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/UncleBob1/Home%20backyard/Trout05.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/UncleBob1/Home%20backyard/Trout02.jpg

The whole house was a project....kind of like an extrem makeover on steroids! Before pics:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/UncleBob1/Home%20backyard/Beforelandscaping.jpg


OK, no more thread hijacking!

[[z0ne]]

I'm up at school or else I'd snap a picture, but, we've got about a hundred-gallon tank with two clownfish and living anenome. I really want to throw a blue tang in there, too.