Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdahl!amdcad!decwrl!reid From: reid@decwrl.UUCP Newsgroups: alt.aquaria Subject: how much work is a marine tank? Message-ID: <164@bacchus.DEC.COM> Date: Wed, 2-Dec-87 02:38:44 EST Article-I.D.: bacchus.164 Posted: Wed Dec 2 02:38:44 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 5-Dec-87 18:39:59 EST Reply-To: reid@decwrl.UUCP (Brian Reid) Distribution: alt Organization: DEC Western Research Lines: 40 I am the happy owner of a 50-gallon freshwater aquarium, in which I keep a random mixture of happy and healthy fish. I am a tremendous believer in overkill technology to save labor, so my little 50-gallon tank has all manner of outboard filtering, precision temperature controllers, automatic feeders, timers to control lights and bubbles, and so forth. I spend about 1\-2 hours a week working on the aquarium, primarily in changing the water, cleaning algae off the glass, pruning the live plants, and so forth. 1\-2 hours a week is not very much work, and if I miss one Saturday's partial water change, the fish will not notice the difference if I wait until the following Saturday, or even the week after that. The fish are robust, the tank is large, and the filtration/purification systems keep the water relatively clean. I would really love to start a tropical marine aquarium, but I'm afraid that I might not be able to devote time to it as regularly as the saltwater fish need. I've read about 10 books about marine aquariums (don't you hate the word "aquaria?") and although they all spend a lot of time talking about what you have to do and how careful you have to be, none of them really gets down to the nitty gritty. So, I have these questions: 1) How many hours a week will I need to devote to the maintenance of a 100-gallon tropical marine aquarium if I stay away from the more frail species? I'm willing to put a lot of time into getting it set up, but I'm afraid that in the steady state it will need more time than I will be able to give it. 2 hours a week I can handle. 5 hours a week I can't. 2) How long can it go without attention? I travel a lot, and my wife isn't particularly excited about tending to my fish. Could a tropical marine aquarium be set up with automatic gizmos so that it could go a week without my attention? I'm willing to do a lot of custom engineering, building controllers, and that kind of thing, but if there is some measurement that needs to be made and there isn't a sensor for it, then there's no way to make an automated system. Brian Reid DEC Western Research