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Aquarium Hobbyist Makes Lifejacket for Diseased Fish

by | Jul 22, 2013 | DIY, Fish, Science, Too Cute

Unless you’re a heartless Snorkel Bob supporter, you are really going to enjoy this heartwarming story about a beloved goldfish. Einstein, the fish, was stricken with a dibilitating disease that prevented it from being able to swim. All the fish could do was go belly up and sink to the bottom. The fish’s owner, Leighton Naylor, couldn’t sit idly by while the fish suffered, so he fashioned a life jacket out of air tubing to keep the fish swimming upright and off the tank’s gravel bottom. Naylor claims that the fish wasn’t too efficient with the buoyancy aid at first, as Einstein would swim into objects and get stuck. Because of this, Naylor made the aquarium a little more disabled fish friendly by removing a lot of the decor that only served as obstacles. Since the implementation of the life jacket and rearranging the decor, Einstein has been doing well. He cannot swim to the surface to eat, but is fed through a tube that is lowered into the water. It’s stories like these that show the more loving side of aquarium keeping. Most of us take great pride in our tanks and get attached to each and every fish we keep, regardless of what type of tank you have or how long you’ve been in the hobby. Story via: I F*cking Love Science and Buzz Patrol

Man Builds 20,000 Gallon Reef Tank in His Living Room

by | Jun 26, 2013 | DIY, Fish, Tanks

Picture from Kenosha News Just when you thought you’re 300-gallon beast of a reef tank was something to be proud of, some dude goes and builds a tank large enough to rival the display reefs of your local public aquarium. A recent Kenosha News story highlights the 20,000-gallon living room reef of Bill Wann, a local entrepreneur who may have never been diving, but has expressed his love for marine life in a very bold way. In terms of size, to say this aquarium is massive is almost an understatement. It measures 24-foot-long, 10-foot-wide and 10-foot-deep. Holding the water back are 12″ thick concrete walls and 2.5″ thick acrylic viewing windows that measue 6 feet by 10 feet. The 20,000 pounds of live rock was sourced from a mine in Montana, with almost a ton of sand coming from the Bahamas. The 20,000 gallon reef tank, which is the largest privately owned residential aquarium in North America according to the news story, was started back in 2006 when Mr. Wann started to build his home. Like most aquarists, he had to design the house with the aquarium in mind, but obviously the planning for this tank had to be a bit more intensive. He literally built the house around the tank, making sure to include a very elaborate and nearly self sufficient filtration system. The entire system is controlled by a computer system that Wann built himself, and it features redundancies and backups in the form of huge backup generators to make sure the aquarium never stops functioning. Below is a video from the news story. It isn’t of the best quality, but it does give some behind the scenes footage of the tank’s filtration system.

Why Dose Vodka?

by | Jun 7, 2013 | Corals, DIY, Equipment, Fish, Science, Tanks

The majority of us know at least one fellow reefer who swears by dosing his/her reef aquarium with vodka. This seemingly counterintuitive act is often believed to have beneficial effects on the overall health and appearance of one’s reef aquarium.…