High Tide Aquatics

Ashburn’s backyard 150g low maintenance tank

ashburn2k

Supporting Member
So here it is. Low maintenance and no heating or cooling, tank is topped off with float valve using RODI waste water reservoir. And I used the waste water for sw mix. So far everything looks good.

4 chomies, and a female clown.

Random zoa and palys.

1 rbta.

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That is a nice project :). But no heater and no cooling wonder how it will be long term. Also if it will rain what will happen then? Your water might overflow? And salinity drop?
 
That’s what I’m about to find out in winter time, but If they are slowly adjusted to the colder temperature? Nature doing it’s own thing? If my gold fish can survive, I don’t see why my clown in bigger tank won’t.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
So here it is. Low maintenance and no heating or cooling, tank is topped off with float valve using RODI waste water reservoir. And I used the waste water for sw mix. So far everything looks good.

4 chomies, and a female clown.

Random zoa and palys.

1 rbta.

2bbaa84b72f8af9d17bd71823f6cb986.jpg
cf27d81bdb18d5aa3339afb45be35003.jpg
11eeb900b0c3112aa2ec91c73882c040.jpg
331fd5856fd047af00103b0505bd5467.jpg
4253b06447213f3b23bcc90fc2ff5dd8.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
oh man -- you beat me to it!
 
Would be interesting to see where this goes, I know at one point way way back when I put a relatively small (27 gallon) tank in a room right in the direct sunlight and the tank temp exceeded 90 regularly (which happened to do solar physics or something because the room never got anywhere close to that warm), and it was full of soft corals like colt coral, palythoas, etc... and while they looked pissed off, nothing died (no fish though).

I totally would toss a tank in my greenhouse if I didn't have to worry about heating or cooling it :D

I know there's a guy in SoCal who has outdoor tanks, but those are plumbed into his main system, and he does have to occasionally get fans out and shade cloth but it has fish and SPS corals growing like wild. That said, I have a feeling that even the moderately cold bay area temps would probably kill that tank at least the corals.
 
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This is the temp chart for the outdoor tub, but first half was where I had it more exposed to the sun, where as now it’s being shaded half the day by the fence. We will see how it goes. Heat is never an issue but cold water.


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As a young kid I had a fish tank on top of a shed roof that i left some feeders ( goldfish) in for years. I never did anything to it other than make sure the water never evaporated dry. I didn’t even feed the fish. The water was green with algae, ( I think that was what the fish were eating). Long story short, the fish had no problems surviving for years till I eventually re homed them.
 
Stating what I feel should be obvious here. Goldfish are not the same as clownfish. I don’t think it’s gonna work with those temp swings. Hope you don’t torture more fish than what you have already...

not adding anymore fishes, this is also the tank for me to test out different coral's temperature threshold
 
Agree with other above, Temp swings are going to be pretty brutal on a tropical fish, most likely killing it.
So given the whole "ethical husbandry" thing with BAR, really not a supporter of the concept, sorry.
Please put a heater in.

Otherwise, I do like the idea of a low maintenance outdoor tub.

Suggestion : Salt water acclimated Mollies.
Herbivores, so the algae that grows will feed them, so less maintenence.
They can handle salinity drifts. Probably not a big direct rainstorm, but some rain.
 
there will be no salinity swing since the tank is on a auto top off, there's a translucent cover for the tank all the time to cover evaporation ( air gap for oxygen circulation ), also to block direct sun light.
so for the heat, does mollies handles the temperature swing better ? other wise i will just take the fishes out.
 
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