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Good luck with the discus... it should be really awesome... if only i had a tank that big...............

For the bottom I'd go with clown loaches. Maybe throw some synodontis catfish in there after the tank is well established to take care of any algae. Synodontis have some cool designs.

Have you ever thought about the aquascaping? Live plants would be a nice addition and help keep the water cleaner.




[span class="edited"][Edited by FishNewbie 2004-07-14 15:51][/span]

Discus cost a lot of money. If you get yourself about 6 (about $300 maybe less) you may get them to spawn out the rest to fill the tank. Then you can make some $ by selling them. Senditive fish though. Do you homework on these.

I hope your mum realises exactly how expensive this is going to be! You'll have to have absolutely top of the line filtration, not only it is an enormous tank but it will need to look crystal clear all of the time - it's going to be a real focus in the restaurant after all, and it could put people off if there's bits of waste floating around! The maintenance of it will almost be a full-time job .

In fact, since you're thinking discus, I would consider scaling down the size a little. I know, it's completely the opposite to what we usually say but discus don't really need a 1000 gallon tank. If you have about half that it will still be a very impressive tank but not so prohibitively expensive. Also, discus really seem to prefer, and look their best in, planted tanks (unless they are breeding), and a 1000 gallon tank would cost an absolute fortune to plant - I'd say at least as much as saltwater. Even a 500 gallon is going to cost an absolute bomb - hey, even 180 gallons are too expensive for many people to nicely aquascape.

Also, I think you should be considering the effect of humidity with a tank that size. You'll need some dehumidifiers I'd say. All adding to the expense.

All in all, I think you and your mum both need to be 100% certain of what a tank like this will really take, both in terms of expense and maintenance. You certainly don't want fish dying in there! I'd be inclined to get a tank maintenance company in, as if you have school/ a job or whatever to worry about you probably won't be able to devote the time to it that it will need.


The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. - Oscar Wilde

Planting wouldn't take a fortune. Lighting would.

I think african cichlids would look very colorful. I also like the discus idea.

if it were my tank, i would be doing what i'm doing in my 65g.....

take a look at madagascan rainbow fish..they are very pretty

i would prob do

15 madagascan rainbow fish
4 blue acaras
6 bala sharks
RTBS
10 siamese algea eaters
L177 gold nugget pleco...0r 2
rusty plec
several species of synos
hoplo cats
fire eel

get some huge pieces of drift wood, rocks etc and i would look great

Also, I think you should be considering the effect of humidity with a tank that size. You'll need some dehumidifiers I'd say. All adding to the expense.

Air exchangers are better, or so I hear. They remove a lot of stuff out of the air, not just water.

I give this tank at least six months to get fully set up. A tank this large is nothing to mess with; the plants will put them back quite a bit of money, and of course the fish are going to cost more. IMO this is something that should be started way before opening time (ie. months) so that the tank can be stocked and then be allowed to stabilize.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

why not just buy a 10ft standard tank instead of this beastie tank, bye 3 canister filters and a bubbler make it nice and rocky and look around an by a breeding colony of Frontosa get your light and give it a blue tinge then watch them breed then you can sell the young for a 15us each when they get to a certain age there good looking fish and there will be slim to none aggression and the tank look nice get a few plecos and when u sell your Frontosa young after a few years you start making profits.

In a tank that size I'd recommend just one dwarf puffer.
] lol
j/k

No seriously, most people are talking about larger fish, I'd go with a huge school of cardinals, or two or three big schools of different tetras. You could probably get some pretty good deals too if you walk into a place and say " yeah, I'm looking for a couple hundred cardinals, think you could cut me a deal?"
Whatever you decide, it'll be awesome I'm sure.

i realy think that you should go with the african mixed tank or just like a tanganikanor maawi tank my self thtas definatly what i would do !

i still like the idea of the pirahana tank 30-40 of these beasties would look awsome. Think of the excitement of the little kids and and all the older people when they see them eating beef heart and swarming around it .

Yes, the sight of pirahna eating so violently does sound appealing..... thats a sure fire way of emptying your restaurant. Not the best idea I'm afraid.

my moms scared of piranhas well I never thought this would be easy at all and I never thought it was gonna be cheap. Yeah, this tank will be up when they're building everything up...it's being custom made into a wall I think...I know it'll be hard and expensive but I personally think it would be worth it because you know kids are gonna say "I wanna go to the place with the fishies!". I know I was always like that.


Well anywho, thanks you guys, I forgot exactly how hard this would be. So anything else I should know about?



Thank you all very much!

oooo I forgot...discus only go for about 10-25 bucks here dependin on which one you want and they're all beautiful.


and if I say things that don't make sense or repeat myself I'm sorry, I'm very very sick...stupid pizza hut...

How about a school of red pacus?

I've seen one that was almost 3 ft long at a petstore...scary lookin things and also non-fishy people will think they're piranhas

Angelfish!!!

i think angelfish are nice and they are pretty too. i got some angels a few months ago and i was in love instantly. they are really fun to watch and are so graceful in the water and look nice in a well planted aquarium. they also each have their own little personalities.

mine follow me around in the aquarium when i walk around the tank always having that look in their eyes as to say, "hey, wheres the food???"

kj fishy-finn <*)))><
20 Gallon Album
5 Gallon Album

hundreds of albino cories!

Sounds like it will be an awesome tank, whatever you put in it. Good luck with it!

How about

20 Bala sharks

12 clown loaches (6 regular and 6 polka dot (cool fish if you can find em))

10 Siamese algae eaters

10 boesmani rainbows

10 of some sort of red rainbowfish

60 green tiger barbs

1 blue whale

how about this:

20 discus (various strains)
1 BGK
2 elephant noses
50 cardinals
50 silver tip tetra
50 neons
50 amano shrimp
6 - 10 clown loaches


that would just be



6x2x2 - Firemouth and Oscar Tank
30+ royal pythons.

Back in the game after 4 years out ..

hmm angels sound like a good idea, how about a tank full of altums? I also like the cichlid idea, but having those arouned would get rid of the idea of planting the tank. Discuss are nice, but one good screw up and its 100 dead discus-6 grand in fish or more, dead. Whats got me curious is how long its going to take to cycle the entire thing.

since you are getting a tank that big and are prepared to spend a lot of money on it why not go marine?

Although I like all of the freshwater ideas, I think saltwater would be nicer. It also would impress people much more. A 1000 gallon saltwater would be a dream! I don't think the cost would end up being so much different for the equipment. Just think about it...*sigh*

[span class="edited"][Edited by CRclownfishy21 2004-07-18 12:14][/span]

but would the salt not be a hell of a lot of money? and then the lighting and then the fish and corals!

IMO the only way to go is a Malawi tank. There are so many gorgeous large Haps around (Ahli's, Venestus, Moori etc) that would be awesome in that tank. All you need to decorate the tank is tons of sand for substrate and perhaps four or five large rocks. Big fake plants would also work well. Smaller Haps such as Aulonocara would also be great in there. You could go all male and keep about 40 big 6 - 10" haps, or you could go with a school of 4 or 5 different types (say 2 males and 6-8 females) if you wanted to breed. These are very hardy fish that ask for nothing more than a 30% water change once a week and good filtration. I would finish it off with 8 Clown Loaches and about 5 Bristlenose.

I love SA cichlids too but I just don't think they are the best choice for a restaurant.

Also, there is an "establishment" lol here in town that has about a 500 gallon Malawi tank... looks fantastic.


[span class="edited"][Edited by fishdude 2004-07-18 15:14][/span]

[span class="edited"][Edited by fishdude 2004-07-18 15:19][/span]

Hey
Yeah thats what i would go for but only thing is dont get to meny aulonocara as they tend to me a wee bit agressive but for the others then your ok i would go for five rocks i would say get laods of rock (make sure that the floor can hold all that weight) and make the sand about 2-4 iches deep.
you could get about 50-55 haps in there and that tank would be bril but get a very good stand/wall. If its a costom made to fit into a wall then your going to have to paint the back of the wall the colour that you would like .
anyway get pictures on of it (any pic of any fish)
i would love to see a tank that big and im sure that other people will aswell good luck
Darryle

From personal experience a restauarant fish tank should be a reflection of the owners, thus the tank should be kept clean and all inhabitants should be in good shape. I would recomend smaller fish such as tetras, showy livebearers, and angelfish. Larger more agressive fish may have ragged fins and attack on another(a dead fish is definitely not what a customer wants to see), yet if the fish are small more activity can occur and any dead ones will not be too expensive. Also the cost of upkeeping and purchasing many large fish will be a complete nightmare as opposed to smaller fish constantly multiplying that will be extremely cheap. Also if your tank becomes overpopulated fish could be offered to be "adopted" by a customer where he/she pays so much toward the fish display and thus can participate fully in the tank mantainence as well as have one particular fish to call their own. Also you could sell excess fish to a lfs to make extra money.

[span class="edited"][Edited by 2004-07-18 16:06][/span]

20 Bala sharks

12 clown loaches (6 regular and 6 polka dot (cool fish if you can find em))

10 Siamese algae eaters

10 boesmani rainbows

10 of some sort of red rainbowfish

60 green tiger barbs

1 blue whale

If only Blue Whales wouldn't eat about half of those fish.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

what are blue whales or are you all taking the mikey?

They're joking. About the mammals that can get to be approximately 100 feet long. Even a baby one wouldn't fit in a 1000 gallon tank (I've seen 2000 gallon tanks and they would be too small too)

><>

Well as for a sw it wouldnt be THAT expensive. If you do weekly 20% w/c's that would be a bucket of instant ocean a week. Thats like $40 Thats with WEEKLY w/c's. You could probably limit yourself to about once every 3-4 weeks for a w/c if you stocked it like an 800-900 gallon tank or if you added about 100 puonds of LR. I mean $40 a week could get expensive but $40 a month isn't really that bad. Excpecally for a business and it would probably help the business tremendusly. Though then you would have to deal with pricey fish. Though they are near the price of discus.

They're joking.

It's hard to tell when Cetopsis sp. are also called Blue Whales...

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

Well for a tank that size I would go with goldfish...but hey that's me...

Here is a restaurant that specializes in fish (live) maybe contact them?

http://www.downtownaquarium.com/home.htm

"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle

8 Bala Sharks

8 Clown Loachs

3 Plecos

100 Tiger Barbs

Maybe mbuna would look good in a tank like that. Can you imagine a wall with electric yellows, haps, etc... maybe you could even throw in some peacock bass in a tank that big!

><>

Why not a deep sea bass or something?

if you do go with freshwater.. make sure that you dont get bristlenose plecos. you dont want the peopel eating throwing back up.

Get a common, Acually in a 1000 gallon, you may be able to have a few (hopefully they wolnt fight)

how about a frontosa tank. then have actinic lighting and that would look cool

You should be able to keep a full blue whale in there if you up the size to 1200 gallons; that gives 1 inch per gallon, plenty for a whale If you'll notice i keep a dolphin in a tuna can just fine. Anyhow, joking aside, if you go marine you should probably have a 1,000 gallon artificial reef sitting underneath that thing, and someone who's very experienced with SW fish. You'll also be paying the same ammount and more for the fish as you would for discus, plus the additional costs of a SW tank.

I think a planted tank filled with Discus and Angels is the best way to go. Expensive, yes, but if you're going to be buying a 1000 gallon tank, don't "waste" it on ordinary, cheaper fish.

BTW i have seen a tank at a store in Indianapolis that had to be around 1000 gallons. It contained:
1 Giant Gourami
1 Arrowana
4 Managuense Cichlid
1 unidentified (to me) central american cichlid, possibly Motaguense
1 Needlenose Gar

i know how to settle this long thread and get it all over with......

1 neon tetra!

-jim

How about just plastic fish that get blown around the tank with powerheads?

Hiya guys,

I might be throwing a spanner in the works but I read somewhere that the restaurant is gonna have a bowling alley? That's gonna make it pretty noisy won't it? My arowana jumps even when I shake my bottle of vitamins too hard. I'd say you might end up with a bunch of stressed fishes there...

enzo1947 you cant keep angels and discus together

my moms weird...ok now here are the new requirements lol this is gettin on my nerves a little bit. Ok, colorful fish, not too big not too small unless it's a school of them or something. She wants it planted so I need fish and plants for the tank. It'll prolly be around 2 wpg and shes throwing out the bowling alley idea...you wouldn't believe how expensive that is (or maybe you would i dont know).

Thank you all so much for all your help I really appreciate it.

Ok by too big I meant something that won't eat somethin like a full grown swordtail or something...so medium to smallish kinda fish. This is the final decision now. I have $500 on fish to work with but I'm getting a new and better job soon so don't worry about that I guess lol. Don't be afraid to throw in an ugly fish or two either just like 80% colorful fish

20 discus (various strains)
100 cardinals
50 silver tip tetra
50 neons
50 amano shrimp
6 - 10 clown loaches


6x2x2 - Firemouth and Oscar Tank
30+ royal pythons.

Back in the game after 4 years out ..

Greenmonkey51: Are you sure you can't keep them together? I have seen it done in larger aquaria at an LFS near me.

the angels carry a parasite that doesn't affect anything but discus. ask it in the discus forum and they'll agree with me. i have seen it posted many many time not to mix angels and discus

Hiya GNR,

I might have missed it but what is your filtration set up gonna be like? Might help for the guys here to know so as to advise you if it is effective enough. You are having a 1000 tank but you will need to have a place to hide the filtration right?

Anyway about the bowling alley idea? I would not know how much it costs but I have not seen anyone do it over here, imagine your family eating with the booming of bowling balls in the background.

Looks like you are fixing to have a great tank for everyone to talk about. Wish I had a tank that size and funds to stock it. I might just go crazy with a few Asian Arowanas in there... It's OK guys... Just dreaming here. No chance I would be able to do such a tank in the near or far future.

Be sure to post some pics of your completed work OK?

gnr


how much will the total cost be?

after EVERYTHING

BEST SETUP

Scrap the whole 1000 gallon idea....

Get 6 tanks of about 55 gal size. (And maybe a sump) 3 on east side, 3 on west side.. Have a diff themes in each tank. Some planted, some with sand, some with plants, some just rockwork... One gourami tank , one african cichlid tank, one with angelfish, plants and neon tetras. Maybe a 120 gal tank with a school of pictus catfish, one with koi ??? The ideas could go on and on...



The Amazon Nut...

Koi in a 120? That's not gonna work because koi can get over three feet long... goldfish would be fine though... even in a 55...

[span class="edited"][Edited by superlion 2004-07-23 00:51][/span]

><>

total cost for the restaurant and lanes...about 3 million. now thats a big loan. I'm not sure about the filters yet so hey if you have suggestions for that too then let's hear em. My mom won't go for the multiple tank idea since she already has her plans made and is having it built into the wall and making sure it will hold n blah blah etc.

i would say 3-5 fluval 404 external filters would do maybe]?

ok ........ i would say get 2 x 4ft sumps ........ also 3 x fluval 404's places in diff areas of the tank or u could get eheim cannisters

6x2x2 - Firemouth and Oscar Tank
30+ royal pythons.

Back in the game after 4 years out ..

just get use the same filtration they do for ponds. hide the pump in the tank

I would do African cichlids, purchase Texas holey rock and stock the crap out of it. However I would recommend that your mom hire someone to start this thing up. You are to new to the hobbie to undertake something of this size. You can't just hook up a couple canister filters and think all is going to be well. It will take a large filteration unit with overflows and large pump(s) (I like Dolphin AmpMaster Pro). I have a 700 in my home and I use a swimming pool filtration unit on it with a 100 gal wet/dry!!, I purchased the tank from AquaArt. The tank orginally was Saltwater and it took over 3 months to completely cycle it. I kept it that way for 4 years, I got into breeding freshies and coverted the tank to fresh. I have had it fresh for the past 3 years. I currently have Frontosa's and Peacocks in it, even some open water victorians and its doing great. The problem with the fish the others are talking about is the fish waste that come from them, the larger Central and South American fish (that is). Your water will tend to be discolored unless you religiously do water changes and filter cleaning weekly! You will have to replace about 20 to 50 gal of water a week from evaporion. So match your fish with your pH. If you have 7.6 water, I would stay away from Discus... Also, this is a public tank, so stay away of shy species. I could go on and on, but I hope I have helped.

[span class="edited"][Edited by 2004-07-24 20:17][/span]

or just go to the beach and get rocks from there but but them into boiling hot water for 1-2 hours then srub them then do it again then that should be you goos luck (thants a hell of alot of money:%))

Fancy gold fish are the way to go...bright pretty, begin small and get bigger...would be awfully nice...

"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle