Habitat - Indoor :: 120 gallon BEAST!

[scripta_elegans]

I moved it into the house and down the stairs into the basement with John. That was fine. It's getting it back up the stairs. They are super narrow, so only 2 will fit. Hence the creativity of solutions. The person on the lower side has to bear a huge brunt of the weight, and though both John and I are strong, 300 pounds is too much too lift repeatedly up the stairs. It might work, or we might drop it. I was on the underside on the way in, and it was all I could do to hold it. Hopefully he will be off work again sometime in the next century. It is THICK glass which is good, but not to lift. Also the fact that it's awkward and breakable doesn't help. I moved a sofa bed that was all of 350 pounds a few months ago, but we could drop that if we needed to. I learned a good lesson too. If you are going to rent a 3rd floor apartment, don't keep the sofa bed. We ended up not being able to get it through the door after all those stairs. We are still not very happy with her for not measuring first, as she couldn't lift it, and it was me and her brother carrying it.

[SpotsMama]

We just had new carpet put in throughout the house and the carpet people wouldn't move the aquarium. I don't know how much it weighs but it's too much for us (hubby and I). It's 100 gallons with a large oak stand. The people we know tend to be old and timid like us. So I called the aquarium shop that I got it from and they moved it for us. I drained it, they came and moved it, then the carpet people came and put the carpet in, then the aquarium people came again and put the aquarium back where it came from. It was $50 for each move, $100 total. Something to consider.

[DavidY]

That's nice that your shop offers that kind of service. It's important to empty an aquarium before moving it, and then to be very careful while moving it. A leaky aquarium doesn't make for a very good living room display!

[SpotsMama]

I don't think our shop actually intended to offer the service. I just begged and whinned and wrung my hands till they felt sorry for me and agreed to do it.

Whatever works I always say.

[DavidY]

[scripta_elegans]

I just asked for estimates from a couple moving companies here. I hope it's under one hundred dollars. That really might be worth it just to not have the pain of renting and coercing and carrying.

[SpotsMama]

Try an aquarium store too. Since they specialize in it they might do it cheaper.

[scripta_elegans]

I don't want to make Des Moines sound to behind the times, but I don't think we have any stores here that just sell aquariums. I did look quite a bit before I got one delivered.

[SpotsMama]

OK. Lots of businesses and restaurants around here have big aquariums. The aquarium stores not only custom make and sell aquariums, they also sell fish and corals and they'll set up very elaborate tanks - huge ones with reefs etc - and then maintain them monthly for a fee. These stores are fun to visit - it's like visiting an aquarium at a zoo. The current popularity of coral reefs in aquariums worldwide, however, is adding to the stress on coral reefs when people take pieces of wild ones for these artificial setups. The store people I talked to said they only sell man-made reefs, which is good. I hope they were telling the truth.

[DavidY]

There has been a lot of debate about the affect the aquarium hobby was having on the world's reefs. (sorry! here I go off-topic again...) Actually, as you were told by the person at the store, much of the live corals sold in the aquarium trade today are either captive bred here in the US (many by the hobbyists themselves...me included! ) or are "farm raised" in places like Fiji. It is very rare now for divers to actually remove live corals from the reefs since it is more difficult, more expensive, more risk of loss, and more illegal. Many countries ban collection in their territorial waters. Also the hobby itself has put a lot of effort into teaching native divers and collectors less destructive methods such as aquafarming and aquaculturing. Check out the http://www.amdareef.com/ website for more info.

The greatest threat to the world's reefs are being caused by global pollution and its effects on the environment (ie. global warming). Also the increase of tourism, causing over development of coastal properties, thus increasing the sewage and toxic and chemical runoff from land. Port destinations are dredging the harbors making them deeper for the bigger cruise ships to enter their ports, destroying millions of acres of delicate reef in the process. Compared to all of that, the hobby trade's impact is almost insignificant.

The nice thing about the saltwater reef hobby is that it is so expensive and complicated. It's much harder to jump into the hobby spontaneously and most of the pet stores that are able to keep their corals alive will provide decent education to help people get started.