Fella --
Rather than advise on fishes, I'll tell you what I'd like to create if I had the space for a giant tank. An aquarium that looked like the edge of a harbour. I've explored habitats like these in the wild in the UK and US, and seen brackish water beasts of all kinds, from puffers to manatees.
What I have in my mind is a wooden pier with legs made from upright bits of wood. This would be along the back half of the tank and create the shade. The background would look like a harbour wall, with barnacles and oyster shells and whatnot stuck to it. Lots of algae! The floor of the the tank would be rocky with lots of broken seashells. Now the lighting is the important bit. Needs to be a distance above the tank so that light shines down onto the water and creates the ripple effect, while producing lots of shade under the pier. Perhaps a bit man-made detritus would be put on the bottom of the tank, like those fake anchor chain segments, just to give the thing a focus point.
I'm not sure how all of this would be created, but I imagine that a school of monos or scats cruising in and out of the shady area and around the vertical pier pilings would look awesome.
Cheers,
Neale
I've thought of this before! I've said to my girlfriend in the past how it would be brilliant to have a tank that looked like the end of a jetty or pier. I always envisage wooden stilts from top to bottom in the tank, with that nylon style twin reache just blowing around in the current. It'd make for a great tank because it would be like a direct slice of nature, cut straight out, and you could use the pier to hide all the filter mechanics. It'd be quite different to, to have a tank replicating nature, with man made influence. But yes, I agree entirely, it's just the logistics that scare me on that one a bit. Where does one buy a pier these days?
I've also seen something quite similar in a display tank at the birmingham sea life center. It was a small exhibit (and my favourite by far), that was a pier leading out into a small section of water, with a few archers, monos, scats and a red looking eel. It had great potential.
My biggest worry with the tank I want to do (other than the heinous amount of salt I'll need) is finding the fish I want in the right salinities. I love columbian shark cats, and I love GSPs, but I also really like knight gobies. Then of course there are eels as well, I've been watching a "gymnothorax" eel at an LFS recently (he hasnt sold for over 6 months) and he looks great too, even for a very grey tropical fish.
Scats and monos I've never bee a great fan of, but they're essential really. I imagine in a big tank, with lots of swimming room they'd have a much better personality than all the ones I see in freshwater at shops being kept with neons. And archers of course really speak for themselves. I've always enjoyed fish with interesting behaviour (I think that explains why I keep tanganiyikan cichlids and oddballs) but archers would probably take the biscuit.
But yes, I agree that making the tank look great is essential. In a brackish tank you could almost lay a brick wall, so I'll need to look at an option for doing that, cheaply, and without weighing in at a literal ton.
Craig
