RENTERS - How big is your tank?

[Dr4gula.f32]

I am a renter that longs for a larger tank. Right now I have a 75g cichlid tank on the left of the living room, and a 65g AIO reef on the right. The reef is very very full, but I want more! I was thinking of turning the cichlid tank into a reef. But then I start thinking about what happens the day I need to leave? All for naught? I have not had many long term goals in my life. This reef, is one of the first, maybe the first. When I started it, I knew it wouldn't be what I truly wanted for a long time. Here we are 5 years later and it is slowly turning into my vision. Things are growing into each other, and it no longer looks like I just placed things in spot and took a photo. I anticipate some corals will breach the surface in the next few months! To break that all down at some point in the future seems like tons of pain. I even went so far as buying a HOB overflow box and tossed around the idea of removing the AIO compartments. I recently ditched that idea though because I would destroy my colonies trying to rework the inside of that tank!

Tons of huge tanks local on Marketplace! And I have a spare bedroom if I wanted to be REALLY stupid with it. But that room has only an outside entrance on a different floor of the house. So I wouldn't be hanging out in there much and certainly wouldn't get to look at the tank during my daily routine.

Unsure what to do.

How big is your tank RENTERS?

 

[Terry Le]

8 feet x three feet x 2 feet high. 375 gallons reef

 

[mcarroll]

To break that all down at some point in the future seems like tons of pain.

I read somewhere that the average age of a reef in the wild is 7 years. Somehow knowing that helps me think about things like this.

 

[Subsea]

I read somewhere that the average age of a reef in the wild is 7 years. Somehow knowing that helps me think about things like this.

That does not seem correct. If it is correct then we all need to start wearing gas mask and oxygen tanks.

As an infant in the 1960’s, I watched for 50 years as production platforms off the Louisiana & Texas GulfCoast became coral reefs.

 

[Subsea]

I am a renter that longs for a larger tank. Right now I have a 75g cichlid tank on the left of the living room, and a 65g AIO reef on the right. The reef is very very full, but I want more! I was thinking of turning the cichlid tank into a reef. But then I start thinking about what happens the day I need to leave? All for naught? I have not had many long term goals in my life. This reef, is one of the first, maybe the first. When I started it, I knew it wouldn't be what I truly wanted for a long time. Here we are 5 years later and it is slowly turning into my vision. Things are growing into each other, and it no longer looks like I just placed things in spot and took a photo. I anticipate some corals will breach the surface in the next few months! To break that all down at some point in the future seems like tons of pain. I even went so far as buying a HOB overflow box and tossed around the idea of removing the AIO compartments. I recently ditched that idea though because I would destroy my colonies trying to rework the inside of that tank!

Tons of huge tanks local on Marketplace! And I have a spare bedroom if I wanted to be REALLY stupid with it. But that room has only an outside entrance on a different floor of the house. So I wouldn't be hanging out in there much and certainly wouldn't get to look at the tank during my daily routine.

Unsure what to do.

How big is your tank RENTERS?

Obviously, we threw pragmatic out the window. Something like structural weight bearing loads and building code.

I perused a few of your threads. Do you plan on moving in the next few years, because if you are then you are making work. Unless you are in the business of selling colonies, I may have missed the point.

 

[mcarroll]

That does not seem correct. If it is correct then we all need to start wearing gas mask and oxygen tanks.

As an infant in the 1960’s, I watched for 50 years as production platforms off the Louisiana & Texas GulfCoast became coral reefs.

I'm not sure what your first comment means.

We think of reefs as being long-lived because they can be long-lived.....Great Barrier, et al. We don't think those long-lived reefs are average tho, do we? No....one of them is even the Nᵗʰ Wonder Of The World....the extreme non-average.

Most new reefs get washed away (or buried) in storms early in their life.

Artificial reefs are useful because they (the successful ones, anyway) provide anchor points that do not wash away and are large enough not to be buried.

This isn't the original article I read this in, but it contains the information:

From: "Storms in Coral Reefs" https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118937099.ch7

 

[Subsea]

“Most new reefs get washed away (or buried) in storms early in their life.”

I am sure the above is accurate. Depending on location, changing environmental conditions wipe out newly established reefs. However, there are many established reefs that are thousands of years old.

“Artificial reefs are useful because they (the successful ones, anyway) provide anchor points that do not wash away and are large enough not to be buried.“

Offshore production platforms provided a wealth of food fish of every size including 500-1000lb grouper. The platform cross members provided surface colonization while allowing circulation thru its matrix and at the same time provided both cover to
“hide in” or “ambush from”. As a child I caught red snapper half my weight and cobia longer than me. They all lived there along with a complex reef of corals and filter feeders.

We often went out 80 miles before the continental shelf dropped off. Once, we brought a crew of scuba divers to a platform in 80’ of water. They speared fish attacked to a ballon so as not to get dragged among the structural beams covered in coral and barnacles.