LadAShark

I do everything DIY and I usually get everything over the internet. I live in a small town with few resources. I just completed a large 3D printer and everything was purchased over the internet. Much of it came from Europe and China.

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 one of many reasons I made the jump towards temperate marine hobby just due to the fact I could collect my own animals legally!

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.

SO when you say Reef Room do you mean equipment only? Or just lots of Reef?

 

 

Here is were I go to hang out sometimes.

I will post a couple pics before people post up their setups. I have seen some others separate Reef rooms and many will make my little closet look like piddle. Sometimes that deters me from posting them up but it really is always going to be a work in progress when you are die hard like I am, I need to accept that.

 

 

Most likely going to plumb in my larger tank I have inside and run the larger equipment in here...Or underneath anyways.

Where is your progress Clark?

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.

I have a buddy of mine that has been temp acclimating anemones from our coast to warmer water. He has been doing this for a bit over a month with 5 specimens and hasn't lost any. Last I heard he was in the low 70's temp wise and still climbing.

Yeah we have quite the nice anemones here haha.

Albacore Tuna off the oregon coast from late June until October most years.

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

 

Pssh....I collect myself. [emoji6]

 

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

Same here ;P

Oh absolutely it can happen with other fish. That's why I try to avoid fish like angels even the suppossed reef safe angels because it can only be a matter of time. Well at least you found the clam eater.

 

I also thought a clam was eating your tang when I first read this and couldn't wait to see a picture!????

I'm going to be getting a shark tank and well

Let'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.).

I have always wanted to do a cold water tank for tide pool type items collected at the coast. Pretty cool that some have been able to acclimate them to warmer temps, but I would rather have a chiller and know that they are at their normal temp and hopefully be able to create a cool little tide pool. A shallow tank like Powder Blue's would be perfect.

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.

I have had luck in the past with nems, hermits, and snails from tide pools. I started them at roughly 50 degrees. Increased the water temp by 2-3 degrees per week until I reached 78 degrees. Kept all specimens I collected for 4 months after reaching 78 degrees with no losses. After the 4 month mark I slowly lowered water temperature down to 50 degrees and then returned them back to tide pools after drip acclimation to ocean temperature. Was a fun experiment. I am not sure how they would do long term. Possible abnormal growth, shortened life span etc. I would be interested to see a long term study on this subject.

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.

When you get it up. I'll give you a hoard of them. Just PM me.

Thanks so much! Will do!

One of our Sponsors, Reef Cleaners, has Fuzzy Chitons. Ask if you can get a price break for buying quantities. They also have Group Buys. https://www.reefcleaners.org/aquarium-store/fuzzy-chiton

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!

Would you want abalone? Got tons of 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?

Are yoi transitioning from a large tank to a huge tank...or are you just diving right in to a 1k!?!? Why not? There are plenty of ways to do it cheaper, especially if you have skills. I have no skills.

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.

yeah by over a $100 monthly!!! obviously not only that pump, I was running a 400watt dual magnetic ballast with 2 halides and Power compact lighting. I couldn't tell you what on the tank was sucking the electricity.

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.

Who care what it costs it's your money spend it how you see fit. Good luck.

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!

I use a pond master pump on my tank. I works great, been running for 6 years!.

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.

Nope... That was like 6 or 7 years ago. Sorry

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

Sorry but this right here just is wrong................................Good luck with you build and do it the way you seem fit.

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.

They were showing this off at the 2013 manca show. Doesn't seem like it would take another three years to produce this item. I know it will be expensive and I won't be the on the block to own one. When a product takes that long to come to market it freaks me out.

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.