This Sunday I had the pleasure of getting together with about a dozen members of my local reef club and going on a "tank tour."
In other words, we rented a 15 seater passenger van and met at the mall at 9 in the morning and visited each other's houses until 6:30 that evening.
What a great time. Honestly, I haven't had as much fun in a long, long time.
The variety and diversity of systems in itself was remarkable, but just seeing about 2 dozen different tanks and hearing how long they've been set up, how the owner maintains them, etc. was the equivalent of a 2 day workshop on keeping saltwater livestock. One of my personal favorites was seeing a plenum networked system of several 20 gallon tanks and hearing how the owner plans on making a 172 g display tank on the floor above and plumbing them all together.
But the best... Jesus, I wish some of you guys had been here to see this, you would have blown a gasket. It's hard to put into words, but it was like visiting Seaworld in someone's house. The guy had a total of 900 gallons all connected by this unbelievable plumbing and "greenhouse" algae pipeline that pumped an incredible amount of water into the tanks. This was the closest thing I've seen to a simulated real ocean outside of a public aquarium. He engineered this bucket system that dumped thousands of gallons of water into the display systems per hour. Incredible to watch, and if only you guys had seen the corals and this one tube anemone...
Here's the website... http://www.reefeyecandy.com/pan5tanks.htm
That's a display of the main room, check out www.reefeyecandy.com for the rest, including the ins and outs of how it works, but good luck navigating it, lol.
It was a great experience and I really learned a lot. For instance, Larry, the guy who owns and operates the Seaworld I mentioned above, has a pet green brittle star he keeps with his algae that he takes out all the time to either wow or scare guests. This thing could easily wrap around a basketball and its central disc is the size of a baseball.
He gave out some corals and I got some really nice pink zoanthids. Watching him pull off a rock and shatter it with a hammer and chisel for one showed me that zoos can be in the air for quite some time, and they are hardy as all get-out. One day later in my vase they look like they've always been there.
I'll post some pics below...
In other words, we rented a 15 seater passenger van and met at the mall at 9 in the morning and visited each other's houses until 6:30 that evening.
What a great time. Honestly, I haven't had as much fun in a long, long time.
The variety and diversity of systems in itself was remarkable, but just seeing about 2 dozen different tanks and hearing how long they've been set up, how the owner maintains them, etc. was the equivalent of a 2 day workshop on keeping saltwater livestock. One of my personal favorites was seeing a plenum networked system of several 20 gallon tanks and hearing how the owner plans on making a 172 g display tank on the floor above and plumbing them all together.
But the best... Jesus, I wish some of you guys had been here to see this, you would have blown a gasket. It's hard to put into words, but it was like visiting Seaworld in someone's house. The guy had a total of 900 gallons all connected by this unbelievable plumbing and "greenhouse" algae pipeline that pumped an incredible amount of water into the tanks. This was the closest thing I've seen to a simulated real ocean outside of a public aquarium. He engineered this bucket system that dumped thousands of gallons of water into the display systems per hour. Incredible to watch, and if only you guys had seen the corals and this one tube anemone...
Here's the website... http://www.reefeyecandy.com/pan5tanks.htm
That's a display of the main room, check out www.reefeyecandy.com for the rest, including the ins and outs of how it works, but good luck navigating it, lol.
It was a great experience and I really learned a lot. For instance, Larry, the guy who owns and operates the Seaworld I mentioned above, has a pet green brittle star he keeps with his algae that he takes out all the time to either wow or scare guests. This thing could easily wrap around a basketball and its central disc is the size of a baseball.
He gave out some corals and I got some really nice pink zoanthids. Watching him pull off a rock and shatter it with a hammer and chisel for one showed me that zoos can be in the air for quite some time, and they are hardy as all get-out. One day later in my vase they look like they've always been there.
I'll post some pics below...
