(Topic ID: 232540)

Pinside Aquarium Club, The Other World Behind Glass

By SantaEatsCheese

5 years ago


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Topic Stats

  • 248 posts
  • 67 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 13 days ago by DanMarino
  • Topic is favorited by 38 Pinsiders

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There are 248 posts in this topic. You are on page 1 of 5.
16
#1 5 years ago

As many people on this site seem to be into pricey hobbies that can be done solo or as a group, I thought it was past time for a pinside "Aquarium Club". Freshwater, Saltwater, makes no difference. Show off those other world's behind glass!

I'll start off with my ~50 gallon reef, a Max-E 170 about a year old with 2 clowns, a tailspot blenny, six line wrasse, and pseudochromis. It's mostly soft coral but I've added in a couple of LPS. I worked at an aquarium store in college and am a fan of reef tanks and freshwater planted tanks.

Lets see those tanks!

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#2 5 years ago

Dont have any aquariums now but i love them. I used to have a 150 gallon aquarium and 2 other smaller ones. I was into Cichlids, African and South Americans both. Awesome hobby!

#3 5 years ago

I have a 125 gallon freshwater set-up. Had it for about 18 years. I used to have oscars, but just do community fish now.

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#4 5 years ago

Had a fresh setup, thinking about doing a saltwater tank, but not sure what extra equipment id need and the differences so i habe some research to do!

#5 5 years ago

After years of having fake plants and gravel, I like real plants and sand. Much easier to take care of.

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#6 5 years ago

First goldfish tank. More to follow.

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#7 5 years ago

I had maintained several freshwater tanks through my kids childhood.

I wanted to get a new tank now, after my stroke and three brain surgeries. But Veronika is not on board. Yet.

No worries I'm not in a hurry.

#8 5 years ago

Side note-
Did anyone ever read sandkings by George rr Martin?

It includes pets and tanks, in the future.

And total chaos.

Highly recommended.

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#9 5 years ago

92% liked this story. Impressive. This was one of the first science fiction stories I ever read.

14
#11 5 years ago

My 220 gallon.. about 15 feet from my...

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#12 5 years ago

I had a small 5 gallon tank and 1.5 gallon isolation tank for a few years. Live plants, a couple guppies, a few ghost shrimp, and an Otocinclus Catfish.

I enjoyed it while I had it, but eventually the fish died off, and I threw in the towel.

I couldn't seem to find some of the later photos, but this was when it was just getting started. I did remove the soda can after a while, lol
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#13 5 years ago

I have a 125 gallon tank with african cichilds and a 10 gallon juvi tank for the crazy amount of fry they create. Not the best decorated tank, and I need to put the background on, that's for sure.

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#14 5 years ago

I had a 150 gallon salt reef tank at my old house. I enjoyed the hobby, but gave it up soon after discovering pins. My pins have value when I’m done with them

#15 5 years ago

Traded a HUO Joust upright arcade game for an Oceanic 180 gallon bow front set up years ago. Salt water set up, chiller, crazy ass filtration, etc. Couldn't keep anything alive and hired a maintenance service that brought "special" pre-mixed water. Always wondered just how "special" the water was. Probably mixed from a local water fountain.

At any rate, probably spent a NIB Stern worth on parts, fish and coral. Key learning: Triggers eat everything. No need to ask how I know

#16 5 years ago
Quoted from Azmodeus:

Side note-
Did anyone ever read sandkings by George rr Martin?
It includes pets and tanks, in the future.
And total chaos.
Highly recommended.
[quoted image][quoted image]

Was a great outer limits episode as well.

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20
#17 5 years ago

240 Gallon Acrylic Planted Tank in my living room

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#18 5 years ago
Quoted from finman2000:

I have a 125 gallon tank with african cichilds and a 10 gallon juvi tank for the crazy amount of fry they create. Not the best decorated tank, and I need to put the background on, that's for sure.
[quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]

Thats the kind of fish i like. Looks pretty crowded in there though for Africans, do you ever have any fish kills? Africans need their space or they will get pretty mean with each other. Beautiful fish, makes me want to start another aquarium up.

#19 5 years ago

We redecorate our goldfish tank several times a year. No Christmas theme yet.

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#20 5 years ago
Quoted from Who-Dey:

Thats the kind of fish i like. Looks pretty crowded in there though for Africans, do you ever have any fish kills? Africans need their space or they will get pretty mean with each other. Beautiful fish, makes me want to start another aquarium up.

That's interesting. I have always been told that you want to keep African tanks crowded so they can't get territorial. When you say fish kills, do you mean one or more fish attacking another? To my knowledge that hasn't happened in my tank, but I don't watch them all that closely outside of feeding time. Also, if you noticed there is a bala shark in the tank that the Africans don't bother with at all. Kind of surprising.

14
#21 5 years ago

No current pics of my tanks on my phone, but here are some of my koi pond. It's around 7k gallons.

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#22 5 years ago

I learned a new word working on our big tank: Iwagumi.
http://aquascapinglove.com/basics/introduction-iwagumi-layout/

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#23 5 years ago

Had a 120 gal saltwater tank with fish, even a seahorse. Once I added the necessary lighting for the coral, maintenance went thru the roof. Major work keeping it clean, too much for me to enjoy after awhile.

#24 5 years ago

I’d post my tank, but I’m embarrassed. My coral is half bleached. I will however post a picture of my automated water change setup.

The computer was just there for initial programming. It’s all handled by the Apex now.

Left side is saltwater, right side is RODI. When it gets low, I get a text and it suspends water changes. I open a few valves, throw in some salt and viola’ the water changes resume.

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#25 5 years ago

Hi all

We do aquariums for a living. This is an aquarium we just competed in Pennsylvania

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#26 5 years ago
Quoted from Mayboyz:

Hi all
We do aquariums for a living. This is an aquarium we just competed in Pennsylvania [quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]

Wait, isn’t this like some of those TV shows. Aren’t you supposed to throw 38 fish in an uncycled aquarium?

Seriously though, I love the peninsula and I’m happy not to see any fish in an aquarium that was just finished. Thanks for not sacrificing fish for the sake of cycling the aquarium.

#27 5 years ago

How do they just toss all those fish in a new tank on those shows?

#28 5 years ago
Quoted from gliebig:

How do they just toss all those fish in a new tank on those shows?

They do it and then they all die and dont record that part.

I hate those shows since it's all fake and the majority of them are maintenance nightmares.

1 month later
#30 5 years ago

Oh this is sweet! I was really into aquariums before I got into pinball. I think at one point I had 7 different tanks set up. I'll have to look back and see if I can find any pictures. I had a nice 20-gallon reef tank with a few clown fish and shrimp, and my favorite was my discuss tank that also had a fire eel named Stewie and a Ghost Knife named Mr. Giggly.

My reef tank was my last one and my heater went haywire while I was gone on a vacation and killed everything, I didn't have the heart to start over.

#31 5 years ago

Glass 100%. Acrylic scratches too easily and only makes sense when you are talking about an extremely large tank. Are you looking at saltwater or freshwater? Fish tanks are one of those things that plummets in value once they have been used. I would strongly recommend looking at craigslist fish tanks. My old 92 corner came off of craiglslist... $100 with filters and stand included.

If you are looking at something a little more high end (and saltwater) look into the "Red Sea" tanks. I've had good luck with mine (but am currently battling a cyanobacteria outbreak... grrr).

10
#32 5 years ago

I have a 75 gallon and a 5.5 gallon freshwater planted tanks. They're about 5 yrs old. Boesmani Rainbow fish, Roseline Sharks, BN plecos and Clown loaches in the 75 gallon; a small school of white cloud minnows in the 5.5 gallon.

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#33 5 years ago
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#34 5 years ago

Nice setups all! Love seeing the tanks. I used to spend a lot of time on reefcentral and nanoreef, but after 10 years experience I pretty much have checked out of arguing reef science with people. Lol

#35 5 years ago
Quoted from Genjuro:

Nice setups all! Love seeing the tanks. I used to spend a lot of time on reefcentral and nanoreef, but after 10 years experience I pretty much have checked out of arguing reef science with people. Lol

I was on nanoreef too, haven't been there in years. Tried to log in the other day to find pictures of my old tanks and couldn't get into my account.

#36 5 years ago

I have a 10 gallon tank built into a wall. The tank is nothing special but the bloodparrot living inside is my pride and joy.

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#37 5 years ago
Quoted from Tsskinne:

I was on nanoreef too, haven't been there in years. Tried to log in the other day to find pictures of my old tanks and couldn't get into my account.

Yeah, pretty much my entire tank journey is on nanoreef. From my first biocube, to a solana 34, first custom, second custom.. etc.. I used to run multiple tanks for QT, grow out, display, etc.. but at this point I've tapered my desires to have tank of the month and just put in what I know is easy and 80% as beautiful as the hard stuff. Pinballs break, but at least they don't outright die and cause your other pinball machines to die as well.

Pinball RTN and apoptosis is not a thing!

2 weeks later
#38 5 years ago

I finished setting up my Alk dosing pump about a month ago and have it dialed in. It runs for 32 seconds every hour. Alkalinity has been between 7.88 and 8.18 dKH for almost a month with no intervention. The plan is to tackle Calcium next, but I'm out of relay outlets on the EB8 in the basement. My options are start moving equipment under the tank and using the relay outlets on the other EB8 (no thanks), or purchase a EB4 for $120.

Then again I could keep manually dosing Calcium, but when everything else is automated you start to get lazy.

#39 5 years ago

With my work schedule I could never get a tank to stay nice for long. I tried auto feeders, auto lights, a bunch of stuff. Something was always broke by the time I got home, and either the tank was wrecked, or something had died. Not worth it.

Maybe some day when Im retired...

#40 5 years ago

I'm not sure how long ago that was, but things have come a long way. Almost everything can be automated these days. With redundant systems and text alerts, it's pretty easy to maintain a reef tank.

I change filter socks, empty my skimmer cup, clean the glass and feed my fish. If it wasn't for the fact that my sump was under the tank, I could automate the filter socks and skimmer cup. Once a month or so I have to turn a few valves and dump in a bag of salt.

#41 5 years ago

My old mbuna tank.

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#42 5 years ago
Quoted from Spyderturbo007:

I'm not sure how long ago that was, but things have come a long way. Almost everything can be automated these days. With redundant systems and text alerts, it's pretty easy to maintain a reef tank.
I change filter socks, empty my skimmer cup, clean the glass and feed my fish. If it wasn't for the fact that my sump was under the tank, I could automate the filter socks and skimmer cup. Once a month or so I have to turn a few valves and dump in a bag of salt.

LOL. No way I am spending that kind of dough on something that MIGHT work while I am out of town.

Also, Im a fresh water guy. Salt water is WAY too much work.

23
#43 5 years ago

Running two saltwater systems with over 800 gallons. One reef tank and one fish only. I have the filtration down to a science for minimal effort.

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#44 5 years ago
Quoted from SantaEatsCheese:

Glass 100%. Acrylic scratches too easily and only makes sense when you are talking about an extremely large tank. Are you looking at saltwater or freshwater? Fish tanks are one of those things that plummets in value once they have been used. I would strongly recommend looking at craigslist fish tanks. My old 92 corner came off of craiglslist... $100 with filters and stand included.
If you are looking at something a little more high end (and saltwater) look into the "Red Sea" tanks. I've had good luck with mine (but am currently battling a cyanobacteria outbreak... grrr).

A cyanobacteria outbreak,caused me to leave the hobby,close to 20 years ago! I had a 90 gallon reef tank,and I lost a ton of live corals corals,from the outbreak. I tried a ton of water changes,but I lost the battle.
The hardest part,was selling my clown fish,that I had for seven years. I miss the little guy.

#45 5 years ago
Quoted from Chitownpinball:

LOL. No way I am spending that kind of dough on something that MIGHT work while I am out of town.
Also, Im a fresh water guy. Salt water is WAY too much work.

It's not that it might work, it does work. I've been running a controller for years and it's saved my ass quite a few times.

As for being too much work, that's not true at all. It takes me literally 5 minutes to set up the water changes for a month. About 5 minutes to change the filter socks once every week or so. Another 5 minutes to empty the skimmer cup every week and a minute or two to clean the glass.

Other than that, I test once every few weeks for Ca and Alk, which takes all of 5 minutes. All in all, under an hour a month is a good estimate.

Quoted from ralphs007:

A cyanobacteria outbreak,caused me to leave the hobby,close to 20 years ago! I had a 90 gallon reef tank,and I lost a ton of live corals corals,from the outbreak. I tried a ton of water changes,but I lost the battle.
The hardest part,was selling my clown fish,that I had for seven years. I miss the little guy.

Things have definitely changed in those 20 years. The hobby is light years away from where it was back then. Cyano is pretty easy to get rid of now with something like Chemiclean.

3 weeks later
#46 5 years ago

My African Cichlid tank is severely over crowded. If anyone is interested in taking some of them off my hands please LMK. Located in Bloomingdale, IL. I know this is a long shot, but wanted to offer them up here before I went to Craigslist.

#47 5 years ago

I used to have multiple tanks, including a 90 gallon salt water tank and a 45 gallon fresh water tank. I miss having a tank but space makes is limited where I now live.

#48 5 years ago

Opened the koi pond yesterday.

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10 months later
#49 4 years ago

Time to revive this thread. After 1 year of growth all is well. Sd off rocks in foreground after quadrupling in size and bought some Riccordia. All other coral is the same. May lose the leathers soon.

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#50 4 years ago

No pictures yet, but I'm actually waiting to hear back if the stand is done for my new 150 mixed reef. Maybe later I'll post some photos of the 17 gallon freshwater guppy/shrimp/plant tank.

-Hans

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