SC#11 What would you try?

what to do with a new tank

  • same thing

    Votes: 9 11.3%
  • major improvements

    Votes: 31 38.8%
  • completely different

    Votes: 35 43.8%
  • other

    Votes: 5 6.3%

  • Total voters
    80

mogurnda

vaguely present
Apr 29, 2003
5,383
0
0
DC
Visit site
If you were to start a new tank today, what would you do? Would you get a bigger (or smaller) version of what you have, and maybe try different livestock? Do you you're doing, but make equipment changes? Or would you try something completely different? As always, explain your answer.
 
Last edited:
Major improvments, starting with a larger tank. A 55g tank is just large enough to give you the impression you can do a lot, and just small enough to stop you. A 125g is what I want next, colony of Frontosa. If I am successful with those, then next a marine tank.
 
I'm already planning for setting the 120's back up in CA! We'd like to try a native marine species tank in one, sort of a tidepool tank, and then the other may end up being an angel tank.
 
Currently with a 10 gallon. If I got a new tank it would be a 55 gallon as it's what the space permits. I'd do something completely different stocking it with MBwana, mainly Yellow Labs.
 
Being so new to this hobby and after researching until the cows came home I think the things that I would do different are a bigger tank.....125 or so and go with a drilled tank with sump/refugium of about 55 g. Who knows. That and possibly find a bag full of cash on my way home from work to pay for it all........ :laugh:
 
if i had the time and space, and one day i will, i would love to have about 25 20gallon tanks all plumbed together as nothing more than a breeding setup. some percs, some bangaii and some dottybacks to start with. then maybe try to figure out some of the smaller fish that dont readily spawn in a tank. thats my official would like to do before end of my life goal.
 
I Agree with Jessie

I would like to turn my 30g long FW into a SW, and then link it to my 2 20g FOWLR, and to tie them all together with a 20g fuge. Or maybe use the 30g as a fuge w/DSB

Of course I would love to get a large tank, but time, $ , and space are limited. I will expand when I buy a house, but for now I rent.
 
Major improvements.

1. Much larger tank. Currently have a 55 and would like at least a 180 or so. I'd be looking for a tank that's more wide (I'd rather have a tank 6' long and 2' wide than 8' long and 16" wide). I think this would give me more options for aquascaping a reef.
2. Definitely metal halide lighting, which would then allow me to get more sps corals (I'd love to have a tank of acropora and other sps like this
3. Have a sump / refugium. Theoretically I'd turn my 55 into a sump/refugium, but maybe would get a larger size to go along with the huge main tank.
4. Closed loop system for circulation. Definitely. I have come to despise power heads and the suction cups that (only when I'm home) keep them attached to the tank glass. I'm sick of coming home to find a power head laying in sand and creating a whole dune system in my tank. Or worse, finding one has fallen into my colt coral and sucked a whole chunk through the intake screen (requiring me to cut the coral to free it). Really, really hate it. I mean, really...hate it.
5. Additional fish that I can't get now (due to tank size and me having to move in about a year, and also because they're wayyyyy too expensive) but would love to have. Chevron tang , mystery wrasse , and a helfrichi firefish.
Also would love to have a mandarin goby, and with my mega-system I would be able to sustain one.
6. Calcium reactor. I dose b-ionic regularly and add kalk for top-off water, and I still struggle with maintaining calcium levels in my current set up (beginning to think it's the fault of instant ocean salt mix, which I'm looking into changing).
7. Chiller. Since I'll be living somewhere in the carribean (this is a day-dreaming thread, right), I'm probably going to need one.
 
I would have same livestock, but get a bigger tank. It seems over time I always geta bigger tank than my previous one... its addictive hehe.
 
AquariaCentral.com