Marine tanks in aquatic shops

[northampton_matt]

From what I have seen, the marine tanks in my LFS seem much simpler than what everyone is discusing on here. Are these tanks only suitable for short-term holding or is there more to them than you can see.

Most seem to be standard tanks with good lighting, a pump/filter and a slightly different airstone???

I'd like a marine tank but dont have the space or money to get involved in sumps....etc.

Matt

 

[impur]

Well you can get around the space issue by starting a nano tank. My 10 gal nano consists of 2 powerheads, light, heater, and HOB filter only for surface agitation. Not a whole lot to it. In these sort of tanks, the live rock and live sand provide the filtration.

In your LFS, there may be a large system that you cannot see. Typically they will have PVC leading in and out of the tanks to a central filtration tank. This way all the tanks share a much larger volume of water. In a small tank only bad things happen fast. Head over to www.nano-reef.com and check out some of the 2.5 gal and 5.5 gal tanks.

 

[Teelie]

Depending on the set up at the store, the above method is probably what's in use or something similar. The LFS I used to work at was fairly simple though the tanks were set up in groups of two to a sump and shared a large filtration system to keep the whole stock from becoming sick.

 

[Doggfather]

Like what the others mentioned above, the equipment is usually hidden away to make it easier to for the customer to navigate around the store, by hiding it, it also stops customers from tampering with it which unfortunantly happens a lot in the lfs where i work.