Any home aquarium experts out there?

[Michlo]

Greetings all,

 

I'm thinking of setting up another aquarium. The last one I had next to my bed until a couple of years ago when a newly introduced fish ate the others before dying itself (little *censored*). I had put it away in the closet intending to set it up at a later date but then cracked it. D'oh.

 

So, I'm thinking of starting over from scratch but with a nice, unusual one, perhaps a corner unit. I did see an a site sometime last year that had spheres and connecting tubes so it was actually a bunch of tanks connected up and the fish could explore all over. Of course, now that I'm thinking of actually doing it, I can't find the site. heh.

 

I've not yet decided on cold or tropical water, but it will be freshwater, not salt.

 

Anyway, since I know we have a lot of varied experience out there, I just wondered if any experts had any advice or good shopping spots.

 

Cheers.

[Michlo]

Splash back to the top please. :)

 

Come on now, only 11 of you have looked at this? I thought we had experts on everything out there.

[Vagrant0]

Nope, most of those things, like shopping spots vary quite alot from one area to another. However, since we're talking about fish here, you're usually best off just doing some leg work in your area. The only sort of sea-life I would trust to any shipping company would be brine shrimp, and even that can be questionable.

 

As far as tanks go, personally I'm more inclined to believe that cooler, fresh water tends to be much easier to maintain, especially if you happen to be in an area with occasional power outtages, but doesn't allow for quite as many "neat" fish. It's really up to your personal preference though.

 

For species, you should try to plan things from your cleaners, things like snails, crabs, sucker-fish, and work your way up trying to select fairly hearty species that don't prey on those things or eachother. Given your ideas of a multi-sectional tank, a sucker-fish of some kind might be your best route. As it's been awhile since I've had the money to waste on a fish tank, that's about all I can really recommend. Don't be too afraid of getting a few goldfish though, while yes, most of them tend to die easily, I've had a few of them which lasted a good year or so. You might even want to start off with just a dozen goldfish, and then replace with other species when those ones die off, atleast then you have the tank and everything figured out, the filters working with the right amount of algae, the PH balanced, the temperature constant, and know what you're getting into before you start buying more expensive fish.

[jaysus]

dr moreau would be proud of you two :P didnt mom tell you that fishies have a soul too?

 

cant really recommend somin but when you said unusal form a bell rang... we once made a building model out of acrylic glass and it allowed us to form basicly any shape we wanted... just get some planes which will fit in your stove or maybe you got a bbq grill (allows for bigger planes) and heat em up... this allows you to bend and mold em... in our case we used a steel wire mesh base which formed a half sphere (deformed tho) and laid the acryl ontop, this makes the plane fall down and "melt" onto the steelmesh which can afterwards be broken out, this sadly results in "polygonal" look like that of an unsmoothed 3d model

personally if i had the bucks tho id go for a whole wall of an aquarium... must look awesome as a divider

[Michlo]

Thank you both for the replies (not that I really understood the one from Jaysus, planes? hehe).

 

I'll let you know what I eventually find though I know that I'll definitely be getting one of those gorgeous coffee table aquariums at some point later on. For now I want something for next to my bed.

 

Cheers.

[Vagrant0]

dr moreau would be proud of you two :P didnt mom tell you that fishies have a soul too?

 

cant really recommend somin but when you said unusal form a bell rang... we once made a building model out of acrylic glass and it allowed us to form basicly any shape we wanted... just get some planes which will fit in your stove or maybe you got a bbq grill (allows for bigger planes) and heat em up... this allows you to bend and mold em... in our case we used a steel wire mesh base which formed a half sphere (deformed tho) and laid the acryl ontop, this makes the plane fall down and "melt" onto the steelmesh which can afterwards be broken out, this sadly results in "polygonal" look like that of an unsmoothed 3d model

personally if i had the bucks tho id go for a whole wall of an aquarium... must look awesome as a divider

Fish don't have a soul, only people do... Silly. Says so in the bible. Ok, religious argument aside, while yes, it might seem a bit questionable, just consider that those fish which you buy, and who would die out within a week, would have likely dies within a week no matter who had purchased them. They might have even died sooner if the person buying them didn't know the first thing about having fish. You'd be surprised how few people know to acclimate a fish to a tank before adding them in, and that often that sudden change in water temperate or the chemicals in the water are enough to give something like goldfish their fabled short lifespan. If you want to go pointing the moral finger, point it at those people who breed fish, or anything for sale, afterall, that life would not exist without that person's greed, and who was egotistical enough to place a value on the life of another creature... But that's really marching down a whole other, technically crazy, avenue. Best to just say what is, is, and ignore any moral consequences or dilemmas in the case of those things which are already sanctioned in society as being acceptable. Things live, things die, that's just kinda how it is.

 

The problem when working with something like an aquarium is that certain materials, especially most adhesives, can eventually start leaching harmful chemicals into the water. I would carefully research all the materials you would plan to use if you're wanting something more custom. There's nothing worse than spending a few hundred dollars on fish that you just end up killing because of the chemicals which built up from the materials the tank is made of, or for that matter, having an aquarium which gets cloudy panes because the material starts to break down.

[Michlo]

/snip

The problem when working with something like an aquarium is that certain materials, especially most adhesives, can eventually start leaching harmful chemicals into the water. I would carefully research all the materials you would plan to use if you're wanting something more custom. There's nothing worse than spending a few hundred dollars on fish that you just end up killing because of the chemicals which built up from the materials the tank is made of, or for that matter, having an aquarium which gets cloudy panes because the material starts to break down.

 

Very true. I certainly shan't be building anything myself as Jaysus seems to be suggesting and one would hope and expect a company crafting them would have to be careful of such things lest they not remain in business long. heh

 

Cheers.

[jaysus]

@planes

not like jet planes :P more like flat rectanqular things

 

@chemicals

you indeed need to be careful bout that

but seeing that most big public aquariums (like osaka's ando cube thing... forgot the name but its bloody amazing) use acrylic now it seems to be the way to go nowerdays... its lighter, cheaper, more resistant to pressure and can go over longer distances, the newer types are partially coated with carbon or somin to protect the surface from scratches

buying it is prolly easier but how cool is it if a gal asks in the morning sun where you got that freaky aquarium shes starring at the whole night and you can answer "i did it myself to impress gals like you" :D

 

@moral

mmmh i mean i agree with you but i also disagree abit... these people who farm and catch em are doing it cause they can live from it and they can do that cause people buy the fishies

i often put fishies i catched but which were too small to eat and too harmed to go back in the river in a small pond in my parents garden... ok most got eaten by birds or cats but well one could put those in an aquarium instead... there are often wonderful fishes in your neighbourhood like i once catched a krautsnapper in that tiny river behind my parents house or a fishingrodfish in a fjord in norway... these are particullary cool through prolly not suited for the low pressure of an aquarium... red, blue, green and shiny plus lots of strange dangling things on the head... cool fish

[Michlo]

Thanks for the clarification there, Jaysus. It had crossed my mind that you were trying to tell me to melt model planes at one point! hehe

 

As for your last, my Step-Dad (sorry, hated Step-Dad) was an obsessed fisherman so he took me a couple of times. Apart from the fact that it is boring as hell, I've no desire to put the fish through more trauma than they've already been through. Would YOU want to be ripped from your world by a hook in your mouth? :P

 

Cheers.

[Vagrant0]

Would YOU want to be ripped from your world by a hook in your mouth? :P

 

Cheers.

A little off topic, but your comment made me think of alien abductions as being the work of karma.

 

Anyway, yeah, fishing for fish isn't an option for most people, especially when most of those fish tend to be swimming in polluted waters. And because they exist in polluted waters, adding them somewhere like a clean fish tank would likely be more of a shock than the whole hook in the mouth thing. It'd be like taking a bum from new york and dropping him in some semi-tropical paradise.