Couldn’t believe it. It burned for 4 hours and died.
We now have a new lamp, and we took the metal halide’s ballast apart to be sure the starter hadn’t blown. Must have been new-thingie-syndrome.
One more trip to the Valley, but this time at least we came back without additional purchases.
Bummer. Where’s the quality workmanship? (Fish) lives depend on it. Wonder if any of the people assembling those things ever thought about that? I often wonder if people assembling things ever think about the end user. This could prove to be crucial to quality construction when it comes to space travel. And let’s face it, living in a aquarium is kinda like space travel for a fish. 🙂
I just want to say, that’s a gorgeous horse in your avatar. And I wish there was (were?) a way to see people’s avatars bigger.
This is as large as I’ve been able to get them: I increased their size by about half again. But I’m limited by WordPress and the design of the theme.
Yep, there are places and times you don’t want an equipment failure. A marine tank relies on 2 things: light literally feeds the corals: they EAT sunlight (photosynthetic); and the pump sustains the oxygen level, without which everything dies. In a marine tank, you can have dieoff within a few hours of a main pump failure. Mine is better balanced than some: I keep within safe params, and mine has had to withstand a power-out of 8 hours, with no problems, but some are in trouble at 3.
Probably not on the market yet, but LEDs (I think) are the future: they’re low voltage, so safe for humans and fish; easily waterproofed (think rope lights); use similar phosphors to fluorescents; are so bright they can be dangerous; and are available in black light as easily as any other color.
New-thingie-syndrome = “infant mortality”.
No additional purchases!? What fun is that!
THey are on the market, but lighting just so we can see is not what tank lights are for—though of course that’s useful. I’m not sure they can deliver the spectrum that corals use. Maybe they can. The MH bulb I’m using is gauged to reproduce the solar spectrum available at a 30 foot ocean depth.
You’re very right, CJ. LEDs and the phosphors they stimulate can produce a great number of frequencies, one at a time. No way are they black body radiation.
On the power backup, I would *guess* that the major issue is aeration rather than filtering or light. You could hook an aerator to a common PC battery backup and get a good length of backup.
Aeration is the big deal, definitely. I have a dedicated honking great power back up down there anchoring my pump, but if facing a lengthy outage, I’d go for an air pump and aerating stone. Some people have run inverters on their car batteries, you name it.
And on one really sore-handed trip back in the 60’s, without the advantage of plug in pumps you can use in a car—I kept my fish alive from Baltimore to Oklahoma City by sitting in the back seat using a manual squeeze bulb, plugging in a regular pump at night.
After I got to Oklahoma City and had the tanks setting up in my room about half a week later, with water circulating and getting into condition, I went out with friends, came back home, turned on the lights, and found I had lost all my favorites: pump failure. The only survivor was Philip the piranha and some guppies. I was very upset.
The guppies were alive only because they bred fast enough to keep Philip fed! 😉
Yep, there was a joke routine going around, reporting Nikita Kruschev as saying, at a dinner party, re choice of dessert, “Oh, don’t mind me: I’ll have a piece of everybody else’s.”
Well, at the time we were studying Philip of Macedon, and I mimicked the record, regarding Philip and Greece.
And then we rescued the piranha. Poor little thing, about the size of a quarter, was lying on the sand, pinned by a rock, he looked half dead, and I offered the fish store fifty cents for him. We brought him home, put him in our overpopulated and weedy guppy tank, and pretty soon he was much better.
He lived in that tank until we moved, and by then he was about 3″ long. He was, as predators go, very neat, and not at all wasteful. He’d target one guppy, and would pursue it, oblivious to all else, sometimes for over a minute around the tank. When he got it, he’d be satisfied for a day or so, and then he’d hunt down another. He never bit anything he didn’t mean to eat, and the guppies went on multiplying like crazy. The population was still in balance.
When I moved home from college, Philip got his own tank, since he was starting to make a dent in the population. So he started getting a diet of chicken, beef, pork, etc. And when I finally lost him he was full-grown, with a beautiful red bib and a mouthful of very impressive teeth. Cleaning his tank was an adventure, but he was really very shy, and would hang well back when I was working on the tank. I just kept an eye on him, because he could move and strike like a missile once the idea crossed his mind.
I also made sure he was well fed—stuffed to the gills before I put my hand in there.
Philosopher77, thanks for your comment on the horse. I don’t mean to go off topic, but I have a few horses, and this is my stallion. His name is A Cool Passion. I’d send you pics if I knew how to get your email addy. BTW, I love your avatar dog, too!
Beautiful fellow: don’t blame you for being proud of him.
Thank you!
CJ, I had a friend whose home was hit by a tornado while he and his family were away on vacation (fortunate in some respects, I guess). I had previously given him a 55 gallon aquarium as a gift, including all pumps, filters, heater, lights, etc. And fish. Sadly, with the power outage caused by the storm, the fish died. Some environments truly are vulnerable. Glad your fish are happy and healthy, especilly considering the work you and Jane have done to keep them that way!
I’m lucky to have several friends who, if we had a power out, would come over and do something. Mostly call me and ask what to do. The thing we OUGHT to do is spring for a generator, now that we have a house, and could both use and store one. It’s a real balancing act to keep a marine tank self-sustaining in a power-out: the first to go are usually tangs, followed by angels, followed by other large-ish fish. Tangs are like little ram-jets: they swim fast in mid-ocean, sucking oxygen from a large water volume. They have a ferocious need for oxygen, and they’re terribly vulnerable to ich (they ordinarily stay far from the sand and rock where it hangs out) and to oxygen deprivation. Angels are right behind them, especially the larger angels. And of course if you have a large fish buy the farm in a tank with no aeration—the water quality/oxygenation goes south fast. It’s real sad. And heaven help you if you have an anemone: if one of those checks out in a tank, it’s major bad news, fast.
What I do, being originally (mostly) from Oklahoma, the land of frequent power-outs, is stick mostly to gobies and blennies in a 54g, because they have a low oxy demand in the first place, and respire slowly; they’re nearly immune to ich, and are usually peaceable with anything except their own species. I’ve never tested my tank’s power-out durability: as aforesaid, I know it can go 8 hours. Whether it could go days—hard to know, and I don’t want to find out. I’m suspecting it might go a day. Maybe 2. Fish and corals can take a week or two of darkness, cold down to 62 degrees, (actually helps: better dark and cold than too hot: your leeway is greater)—and if you have no lid (I don’t have) and a fairly large surface area, you’d extend your time considerably.
The outdoor koi pond has a large enough surface we probably could do without the pump at most times of year. But when you get a lot of algae growth, that can get problematic. I keep a close eye on the pond when the temperature gets to 90, and when it hits 100 degrees, I watch it really closely. But the fact our night-time temperatures are in the 60’s and rarely do we have 100 degree days and 80 degree nights—that helps.
Real generous gift, a 55 with all fittings: your friend should be very grateful, and I do hope he got it up and running again. The fish hobby is one real hard to get over: I used to have koi, freshwater and marine down in Oklahoma, then swore off all of it successfully for 3 years. Then we moved to an apartment down the road from one of the best marine shops in the Pacific NW. Sigh. We were doomed. Now we have one 55g reef, one freshwater guppy/betta tank; and a 4000g outdoor pond. 😆 hopeless, I tell you. We didn’t intend to do it.
ROFL! I KNOW how addictive the fish hobby can be! And yes, my friend did get the tank up and running again. We mourned for the dead fish, but moved on.
I grew up in the backwoods of Oklahoma, so most of my fish experience when I was young was just catching them for dinner. Over the years, though, I have had many tropical aquariums and have raised koi in ponds. I have never done saltwater, mostly because I tend to move from place to place pretty often and I don’t want to harm fish just because I can’t seem to stay put. Horses and dogs move with relative ease, but fish don’t handle it so well. One day, I plan to settle down and get more fish. I’m sure I’ll be asking for advice when that happens!
One of the neat things in the salt hobby is that proper dealers will trade and give credit. I just took Mr. Tang and Mr. Pistol Shrimp back to the dealer, who will re-sell them and give me credit. When I break up the big hammer coral, I will give it to him, and as he sells the pieces, he will credit my account, and the coral will end up growing in 10-15 other tanks. This is why I say Do Not Buy Wild Colonies: leave those to the experts, who will frag them and sell them to many tanks. When you can grow a coral from palm-sized to the size of a soccer ball in 2-3 years, senseless to do otherwise. Since clams and some fishes outlive US, you plan to trade them on…or dispose of them in your will.
The only thing I’d say is when you start, link up with Reef Central and get help before you start/buy equipment.
I got a small tank and a few gold fish for our children a few years ago, and was immediately enslaved to maintenance, but I really loved them. It was very peaceful to sit in front of the tank early in the morning with my coffee and watch them and listen to the bubbles. The fish were really for me, of course, how often do parents do that? We kept a few of them going for about a year and then the last one died, and then the tank fell off the shelf on which it was being stored pending acquisition of more fish and broke so that was the end of that. But I would love to try again sometime, maybe with fish requiring a little less cleaning up after. I think salt water is beyond my meager level of ability, though.
I had, at one point, a 10-gallon freshwater tank, in which I had zebra danios, cardinal tetras (think larger neons), cory cats and oto cats (the cleaning crew), and neon blue dwarf gourami. It was also a heavily planted tank, with lots of java fern and java moss. Quite honestly, if you can’t do a marine tank, I say try a planted tank. It adds an extra dimension to the tank, allows you to carry a slightly heavier fish load, and makes things slightly easier for a beginner. Unfortunately, I had to leave that tank with neighbors when I moved. As others have said, fish don’t move well.
Of course, there are apparently people who take this to extremes, and go for a tank with mostly plants and just a few fish. And some with no fish at all! And you can get into fancy plant arranging and trimming if you want to. But here’s a website with a good discussion of the different types of planted tanks. http://www.aquatic-eden.com/search/label/aquascaping%20basics And now I am pondering trying an “el Natural” tank… that might be doable… only question is “where would I put it?”
I thought you’d like to see my favorite shot of my aquarium.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v240/mattjhamblin/gardingfish.jpg
Great. Can I see a fin sticking out of his mouth?
😆
Kitteh looks like a cougar on a rock.
that is one handsome cat. I haven’t seen those markings before, they look like watered silk.
The cat’s name is Pestis Maxima, we call him Max. I first met him at my son’s house. Max was putting his nose up mine and wanting some attention. My daughter-in-law’s cats didn’t like Max so we too him home with us. He lives up to his name, though.
Pestis Maxima. That would be “The Great Plague.” 😆
That is a very good description of my Max!
Tank proliferation can be hell. We ended up with 5 tanks in a one bedroomed flat at one point. Then we stopped buying fish that were incompatible and giving them their own tanks when things didn’t work out…. Just a 100 gallon freshwater tank now entirely stocked by peaceful vegetarians and two extremely dwarf cichlids. Nothing rips each other’s fins off. It’s blissful.
At one point we had a 300 g corner koi pond, a 10′ long planter box waterproofed and converted to fish, a 300 g freshwater, 20 gallon salt, 100 g salt, and a 50 and something else I forget. The place sounded like a waterfall.
But we did have fun with it.
Yup, that’s exactly what happens when you get fish! LOL One day I hope to have similar problems. Sigh. 🙂