LadAShark

Yeah, I was gonna order stuff like glass from china because of how cheap it is ordering form there (even low iron glass). How much did shipping stuff from china/europe cost you?

I'm in the process of setting up a tank for some catsharks. I've been looking into vitamin supplements for these fellows, and I've realized that pretty much the only company that produces them is Mazuri. However, Mazuri's "serving sizes" or so to speak are HUGE. 900 grams of 1.5 gram pills that should be used 1.5 grams per pound fed. That's 600 pounds of food! A single adult cat/bamboo shark only really eats 10-35 pounds of food a year (depending on body weight, and several other factors). Non- free swimming sharks/rays are fed around 3-5% of their body mass at each meal, 2-3 times weekly. And from the numbers I showed you before, this does not actually come to a lot of food. Assuming 5 sharks that weigh 4.5 pounds (probably not, catsharks are much smaller) I would be be feeding a maximum 175 pounds of food (in reality I expect somehing more around 50 pounds, as I won't be feeding the maximum possible amount, and the sharks I intend to keep will be 2 foot at adult size, compared to the 4.5 pound shark I mentioned which is a ~3.5 foot shark). And these tablets go bad after 365 days, a year. Essentially this means that unless I am purposefully overdosing the sharks by 3 times in the case that I am way overfeeding, there is no way that I can make the most of a bottle of these vitamin supplements. Essentially, what I'm getting at is I'm interested in finding out whether there are other elasmobranch keepers here that would be interested in jointly purchasing and sharing this excess of vitamins? I mean, $100 a year isn't too expensive, but I'd rather not waste 2/3s of that. Other fish keepers could also look at the nutrition content of the pills/supplements and decide whether their tank inhabitants would appreciate the supplements as well. You can check out each supplement here: http://www.mazuri.com/shark.aspx The only real difference from regular fish supplements lies in the iodine supplement in the pills, as sharks/rays need iodine to survive. Otherwise it just contains vitamins A, B, D3, and other vitamins.

Double post woops

It's unfortunate that the critters that I like most, catsharks and carpet sharks, are generally either tropical or cold water, and finding any temperate ones would be costly. Otherwise I'd totally go temperate/coldwater. And there aren't many temperate fish that interest me, sooo I'm stuck with tropical tanks.

I'm trying to find more info about local stores and resources that can help with stuff like pumps, skimmers, glass, acrylics, you name it. Anything that you can build for an aquarium. I also feel like such a local list would benefit the extant DIY community in the future.

I thought I was crazy for pursuing a 1000 gallon FOWLR... But that reef tank looks insane. You could probably gaze at it for hours and still continue to discover life you missed when looking the first time...

I was already aware of how colder water was able to dissolve more oxygen. I was just wondering whether there were any exceptions in the Oregon coast. I didn't belive that there were, but I was curious to see whether any of you knew of any that could live long term. Oh well then.

Yeah we have quite the nice anemones here haha.

Any I'm supposed to keep one in a reasonably (like under 5,000 gallon!) aquarium how? Same here ;P

I'm going to be getting a shark tank and wellLet's just say the "reef friendly" butterflyfish, angelfish, and tangs are known to injure sharks and even potentially kill them (of course sharks like coral catshark, bamboo shark, etc.).

Some ocean critters have adaptations that allow them to live in multiple water temperatures. Usually if an animal can tolerate a different temperature and not die faster, then it really isn't unnatural for it to survive in such conditions.

That sounds awesome! If we could get these guys to do well, then we could perhaps just pass on having to buy other critters from elsewhere, using money and risking the death of a bunch of animals in the process.

As the title asks: are there any critters that are tolerant of warm water in the oregon coast? Particularly invertebrates that could be quarantined and acclimated to a tank. Though I doubt there are, it would be cool if some of them could actually be acclimated.

Thanks so much! Will do!

That's pretty cool! However, I was looking for a variety of chitons, so my request still stands! As long as they're not predatory, I want them!

Yes yes yes! I was planning on adding some abalone to my tank too!

Chitons are molluscs that have segmented shells on their backs, and I have heard that they're great for keeping the tank clean! Unfortunately, it's particularly hard to find them for sale! So I was wondering whether there was anyone here who would be willing to give me some when I start my tank in a few months?

You could say that I'm diving right into it, though I used to have aquariums in the past. My primary skills are in business, but I have some experience with being a handyman as I like to take care of all of my own plumbing and other issues. I also have some people who can help me. I think it could be much, MUCH cheaper. In fact, if I play around with importing materials, I could even drop my costs to effectively zero by ordering bulk and reselling stuff I don't need for below the market price, but that will take quite a bit of effort. I don't understand what you mean by "why not?" however.

The 400 watt would add about 350 dollars a year if you, like I, pay ten cents per a kilowatt of energy. There's 29 dollars a month for you. And I bet the pump made up the remainder.

Thank you! And thank you!

NOOOOOOOOOO! I wish I had my frag tank setup now instead of in several months. I wanted hammer corals pretty badly and that's a much better price than I can get online!

That's good news! I won't have to rely on the Cobalt Neo Flow's cheap prices and wattage then! It would be cool if I could get away with a single pond pump, but knowing how flow works in an aquarium I won't be able to if I want some random/chaotic flow.

Ah, oh well. That's fine too. Nonetheless, good news to hear. ... But you might have remembered the utility bills right? Did they go up by much? ;P

Morally? Or technically? If I'm incorrect about my information, then I will reconsider. But I'm finding glass to be a lot more expensive here than in china. I found a provider selling 19 mm (3/4") low iron glass for 10 dollars, per square meter... That's less than a dollar per the square foot. And the craziest thing is there are vendors that even sell cheaper, and meanwhile you look around here, and you'd be surprised to find 10 dollars per the square foot for the same type of glass. If it's not environmentally problematic, and if it's not hurting anyone in the process, where are the moral issues of buying from outside the USA in this global economy? Anyway, I'm currently searching for providers of low iron glass for under $5 a square foot. If I can find one I won't go to the effort of having a shipment from abroad.

I'll consider it if it's under $500, though I highly expect it will be more expensive than that. If it really, really can get my job done better than an apex, I'll get it for my upcoming tank.