Vivarium or Aquarium?

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Being inspired by a recent thread about leopard gecko's, I suggested getting a vivarium over the weekend (2 females and a male in a 4 ft eventually), having done a fair bit of research on them over the internet. Her reply was that they'd be climbing the walls and stuff, until I pointed out they're terrestrial repitles without the sticky feet. Her son said reptiles are hard to keep, whereby I said leopard gecko's are the easiest - showed him a vid of one eating a cricket, to which he smirked.

The other alternative is a 4ft Discus community setup, as I have kept and breed fish before (partner wanted angelfish, but I hate them). Although it would be a little more sedate (with marbled hatchetfish, black neons, rummy-nosed tetras, and panda corys). Having taken my 1 yr old to his grandparents, he was mesmerised by their tank and kept trying to peek under the leaves, looking for fish. And he know's not to hit the glass.

So, which do you think would be the more interesting, as our flat's a little bland at the moment?
 
weeble said:
The other alternative is a 4ft Discus community setup, as I have kept and breed fish before (partner wanted angelfish, but I hate them). Although it would be a little more sedate (with marbled hatchetfish, black neons, rummy-nosed tetras, and panda corys). Having taken my 1 yr old to his grandparents, he was mesmerised by their tank and kept trying to peek under the leaves, looking for fish. And he know's not to hit the glass.

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Looks like the fish are winning.

Already done a successful malawi tank before I moved to London. Had Labidochromis, Psuedotropheus and a blue species with a big hump on it's head (can't remember the name). All breeding without cross-breeding in the same tank too. I do agree they are comparitively easy to keep.

Thought discus might be a good change and a little more challanging for me. Also, my little lad can watch the schooling behaviour. Although mouth-brooding is cool.
 
weeble said:
Looks like the fish are winning.

blue species with a big hump on it's head (can't remember the name).

that would be C.Moorii or malawi dolphin as it is commonly known :)

Theres always marines if you want a challenge :)
 
Gecko's 4tw!

We've had fish in the house as long as I can remember but I really want a Gecko.
 
needmorespeed said:
Theres always marines if you want a challenge :)
A challenge? That's a bit of an understatement! :)

Having said that, my tank has done quite well and it now operates without any external biological filtration. There's just a protein skimmer, at least 80kg of live rock and an external canister filter to polish the water. It has to be one of the most fascinating pursuits though. You can discover something new in a reasonable sized tank almost every day - there's always something going on.
 
LeoWyatt said:
any chance of some pictures phykell?
I'll have to look for some better ones but there's couple here from over a year ago:

Tank_Jan05_Web.JPG


and another from last April:

tank_151104.jpg


Lots more live rock in it now and huge Tunze Stream powerheads, etc.
 
Here's the sort of thing which you can get in marine aquarium:

porites2.jpg

Each of those "fan" things is an individual creature and the brown surface coating is the type of coral they make their home in. The red thing at the back is a "mushroom" and is another type of coral. Interstingly, they're animals rather than plants and actually move around the tank trying to find the best location. :cool:
 
Baby starfish:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/phykell/aquaria/babystar1.jpg

Minute jellyfish (couple of mm):

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/phykell/aquaria/jelly1.jpg
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/phykell/aquaria/jelly3.jpg

Leather coral

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/phykell/aquaria/leather.jpg

Slug (don't squish them - they can store palytoxin!)

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/phykell/aquaria/slug.jpg

This one is *amazing* (big picture warning), a spaghetti worm - each of the tendrils can stretch around 10" and are extremely flexible, searching for minute scraps of food. Fantastic watching them coil all the way back to feed the worm at the centre:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/phykell/aquaria/critter1.jpg

White coral:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/phykell/aquaria/whitecoral.jpg
 
needmorespeed said:
some great pics there are they all from your own tank :)
Yes but honestly, those pictures are nothing compared to some of the tanks I've seen as I don't really try to keep any particularly exotic corals or fish (yet). One day though :)
 
needmorespeed said:
that would be C.Moorii or malawi dolphin as it is commonly known :)

Theres always marines if you want a challenge :)

That's the puppy! Not sure I'm ready for marines, as I haven't kept a tank for 5 years. Thought Discus might be a good re-introduction to water quality and then step up to marines.

Nice pics btw phykell - do the other organisms just 'appear' or do you have to buy them, like the spaghetti worm? I really know little about marine tanks atm.

Fish are still winning...any gecko/vivarium pics anyone?
 
weeble said:
Nice pics btw phykell - do the other organisms just 'appear' or do you have to buy them, like the spaghetti worm? I really know little about marine tanks atm.
The larger mushrooms and corals you have to buy but you'd be amazed at what just appears. A lot of it comes in as "hitch-hikers" on the live rock and can be as mundane as the odd feather duster but still beautiful (a small worm similar to the ones on the rock in the picture) to things like the spaghetti worm in the picture. There are some amazing hitch-hikers though, like small corals, starfish, brittle stars, worms, mantis shrimps, all sort of tiny crustaceans, sponges, fan worms and so on. Typically, you'll put (say) 10kg of live rock and then watch over the next few days as the life which it brought in with it, makes its presence known :)

LeoWyatt said:
Phykell, is it an expensive thing to setup? Always wanted my own reef :D
Unfortunately yes, though you can get a good setup for under a thousand pounds if you're careful and do your research and bargains can always be had as well. The cheapest option is to start off small and buy larger 2nd hand tanks, selling off the stuff you don't want. Live rock is extremely expensive, up to £15 a kilo or even more so just 50 kg of the stuff for a relatively small tank (small being 240 litres in the case of marine) will cost you £750! It's worth it though, as the live rock performs your biological filtration and is a must for a serious attempt at building a reef system. Lighting can also be expensive - my lights are quite basic but they're 4xT5 tubes in an overhead luminaire rated at over 200W with marine white and marine actinic on separate circuits which let you have them on timers so you can have a bright blue illumation at night-time - very aesthetically pleasing :) Having said all that, marine aquaria are great for people who build PCs as the amount of equipment boggles the mind and makes building a PC look pretty easy. You can go the whole hog with sumps for building up the micro-organisms in your system, external protein skimmers, Tunze stream (starting at) 6000 litre/hour powerheads, external cooling, metal halide lighting, wave makes, ozonisers, etc. Great fun, and I do reckon that a lot of people do it just for the fun of building their systems up. The end-result is just a bonus.

The good news, for you anyway, is that for livestock you just so happen to be close to Grappenhall in Warrington which has *the* best source you could want. He does great live rock for around £7.50/kg, and his corals and fish are in top condition and often half the price of other shops.
 
Leopard Geckos require a little more caring then Crested Geckos, they Need extra heating and a larger tank. Bit more expensive too. If your going to buy a Gecko go for a crested Gecko. They do not need a vivarium as big as a leo and no additional heating is required, they will live happily at room temperature. Just provide the viv with lots of cork bark and a few plants, and vary the diet from Crickets to Mealworms.
 
Think the fish have won, on the grounds of colour and the 3 dimensional aspect. Would be more appealling for a 1 yr old, I think. Although I will investigate the gecko's at a later stage.

Gonna go with the discus setup, and maybe one day graduate to marines, as what Phykell says below interests me.

phykell said:
Typically, you'll put (say) 10kg of live rock and then watch over the next few days as the life which it brought in with it, makes its presence known.....Having said all that, marine aquaria are great for people who build PCs as the amount of equipment boggles the mind and makes building a PC look pretty easy.

However, just wondering how to figure out stocking capacity (for tropicals), as I used to work on the following:
Length * Width / 10 = total fish length.

I assume the above isn't the current way of figuring stocking levels now, so just wondering what you use?
 
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