What we all know

[florida joe]

Fish intrigue Chris Grevengood. Prior to moving to Naples from Detroit 16 years ago, he always kept fresh water aquariums. Scuba diving instilled the desire to have brilliant colorful fish darting in and out of living coral.
His 90-gallon salt water aquarium — with bowed front to better view the action — is home to a bright yellow lemonpeel angel fish with sharp blue accents; a royal gramma whose skin begins in dark purple and fades to yellow; a six-line wrasse with neon blue lines overlaying an orange body; and true percula clownfish, the endearing fish with orange with white stripes.
Grevengood wanted to try a salt-water aquarium, but knew that he had no time for the upkeep.
“It’s much trickier than going out into the ocean to get a few buckets of water, firing up the filter and voila,” he said with a laugh. “I do not have the knowledge or time to deal with the complexities. With a salt water tank it’s much more than getting the temperature and salt amount right.”
Grevengood’s aquarium looks like a piece of a reef moved from the ocean. Lettuce coral and colt coral sometimes fall prey to anemones that sting as they move, but everything combines to form a living and interactive source of wonder, including a sea urchin, Atlantic pigmy angel fish and a star fish, .
Patrick John Mellon, owner of Aquazone Aquarium Services, checks on Grevengood’s aquarium weekly. He might feed the fish, change the water, clean the water, add chemicals or bring supplies.
“I diagnose anything going on in the tank as far as algae issues, lighting issues, pump issues, temperature issues, and critter issues,” said Mellon. “When I’m not there, my clients are doing about 10 minutes a month of work, usually nothing more than feeding the fish and adding top-off water.”
Mellon loves his work. He was a hobbyist for 25 years before turning his passion into a profession. He has an actual reef tank, an aquarium devoted solely to coral and invertebrates, on the second floor of his home, and several holding tanks downstairs, approximately 400 gallons total.
Many hobbyists start off wanting a reef tank containing only live coral and invertebrates, but eventually yearn for colorful fish, some of which graze on coral. “As soon as you introduce fish, it’s a tropical fish aquarium and not a reef tank,” he explained, adding, “fish often graze on coral, which complicates things.”
The cost to have a salt-water tank professionally averages $200 a month, which entails four to seven hours of labor, according to Mellon, who says that business is off considerably as of late.

 

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“Aquariums are a novelty item, and novelty items are the first things to be cut back,” he reasoned.
He says that hobbyists can maintain salt water tanks well with considerable research and a bit of luck, but trial and error can be costly. His sole advice is to do a bit of homework prior to adding anything to the mix.
“Be careful of the grazers,” he advised. “You can spend thousands of dollars on coral and lose that investment by throwing an angel fish or tang into the mix. The person at the fish store will not always tell you either, because they’re trying to make a sale.”
Glenn Midnet, president, Design Group West, occasionally uses aquariums in interiors, but notes that the investment and upkeep required do not appeal to seasonal homeowners, making the enhancement in our market more attractive to commercial applications. A 350-gallon tropical fish aquarium installed in Design Group West’s elegant conference room, with an assertive dog face puffer and a blue regal tang with a vibrant blue body and bold black markings, captivates every audience.
“From an ******** design standpoint, a fish tank can set off any type of décor, from traditional to contemporary, from modern to Old World,” he said. “An attractive aquarium can be used as a sensational piece of wall art.”
Midnet notes that the aesthetic appeal of the underwater world is not the only draw. In homes, medical facilities and public spaces, fish tanks are therapeutic.
“Studies show that aquariums sooth peoples’ nerves,” he reported. “They can lower blood pressure and calm hyper-active children. I’ve even heard of doctors recommending the purchase of one to help a patient cope with an illness.”
Pat Hagedorn purchased a 125-gallon aquarium three years ago and had it installed in a wall to be viewed indoors and from the pool deck outside. The fresh water planted tank features growing plants and numerous fish. The impetus for the purchase was to give her seriously ill husband a project.
“He’d lost the ability to walk,” she explained. “I could wheel him over to the tank and he could watch the fish and tell me different things that needed to be done. It really was great for us.”
Her husband has since passed away, but she still enjoys the aquarium, which has about 35 fish, including extremely fruitful platies, flying foxes and three huge black and orange clown loaches.
Don Donagan, co-manager of Fish Central, set the Hagedorns’ tank up and stops in regularly to make sure that everything is in order. He maintains tanks for about 25 clients throughout Southwest Florida at approximately $60 an hour plus expenses. Salt water

 

[florida joe]

tanks cost more than fresh because the fish and coral tend to be more exotic and the equipment is a bit more sensitive, he said.
“Some install storage tanks outside of their house….for some of the salt water tanks. I’ve got one over in Royal Harbor that’s got like a 300 gallon drum sunken in the ground underneath the platform for his air conditioning unit. We put it there and ran lines underneath the house and underneath the tank and popped holes right up there so that the drain can go right out and the fill can go right in to do water changes.”
Other things for maintenance for salt water:
“A couple simple tests a week, and that’s about it. It’s a matter of testing and knowing what your parameters should be. It would be like taking care of a pool. What the PH is. What the hardness is. If it needs to be more acidic, you add muriatic acid to your swimming pool. It’s kind of the same thing with an aquarium; if your hardness or your PH is low you add certain types of buffers to bring it up. We also do free water samples, so people might want to know if their water parameters are right. We try to encourage everybody to do that before they get anything. So if something’s not where it should be, we’ll fix that problem first before we let them buy fish.”
You’ve got to be careful of the type of fish your buying depending on the tank type. If you want a reef tank, the wrong fish will eat the coral and the wrong fish will eat other fish:
“The staff here is really knowledgeable. When people come in and want to buy a fish, we ask them about 10 or 15 questions. What fish are in it? What size is it? What kind of coral? It’s not too difficult to figure out which fish get along with the reef and which do not.”
In between visits, Hagedorn keeps an eye on her water world.
“I’m messing with it all of the time,” she says with a laugh. “Having an aquarium really is a lot of fun.”