how to balance between home - family and aquaria hobby ?

HumanBean

Dovii
MFK Member
Nov 4, 2014
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Toronto Ontario, Canada
Not married and no kids, but the girlfriend put up a fight over cost, space, maintenance, and smell. The key to making it work is to do it right and plan everything to be little to no active maintenance. Make sure there are backup systems to reduce the risk of overflows or stagnant water. Try to balance tank size, turnover rate, plants, lighting, and number of fish to help stabilize water parameters and keep the tank clean. Automate everything you can. Since I am in an apartment I cannot easily run a drip system, but if I could I would and it would eliminate the last bit of regular maintenance I do. I know some people are opposed to automation, but remember, you can always turn it off and do the steps manually if you have the time, but if your wife/girlfriend/kid asks you to do something, saying you need to take care of the fish is often a poorly received excuse...

I run 3 planted tanks (120g, 55g, 30g) and spend no more than 30 min weekly on them (usually less). Even my girlfriend spends more time than that watching them! My tanks will all be perfectly fine if I completely neglect them for 2-3 weeks with the systems I have in place.
Thanks. Would you like to share how you did automation around aquarium ?
 

pops

Alligator Gar
MFK Member
Nov 24, 2013
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WA
sounds allot like my sister telling me how to raise my kids, i have been raising kids for 26 years, but she has all the answers. she has never been married and never had kids. she is 61 now, I am 55. and she still has all the answers. rriiiiggghhhht.
 

pops

Alligator Gar
MFK Member
Nov 24, 2013
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and i think about it, why in the wild world of sports would I take myself out of the equation for caring for my fish. that's half the hobby.
 

matseski

Gambusia
MFK Member
Mar 30, 2014
107
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United States
For me, its about being able to enjoy my fish instead of doing the repetitive tasks of taking care of them. I have a very busy schedule as a graduate student and it can be hard to find time to do top offs and feeding. Especially with a planted tank on a strict lighting schedule, it becomes even harder to be home regularly when the lights are on. It is not uncommon for me to only see my fish a few times per week and I often spend a few weeks at a time out of the coubtry, so in order to have them they must be fairly automated and very easy to be maintained by my girlfriend/friends when needed. My systems all have automatic feeders and top off systems with temperature monitors on the heaters and float switches to activate air pumps if the main pumps fail and extra emergency drains. They are pretty heavily planted so that reduces the number of water changes (I do about 20% every 2-3 weeks). I have worked pretty hard to try to balance the fish to plant to light ratio to try to help stabilize the water parameters and reduce algae growth. However, I do admit to still keeping it too heavily stocked so I cant completely forget about it...my bad. I am also in the works on an aquarium controller that can monitor up to 3 tanks and send alerts if something is awry weather it be leaking, a plumbing blockage, heater failure, or pump failure. The hardware is done, just working on the software. It is not that I have taken myself out of the equation of caring for my fish, but that I have built my aquarium systems to allow fish to fit into my lifestyle. As a graduate student I cannot afford all of the expensive automation equipment so I largely build my own which is very satisfying for me. I realize that this is not the same as having kids, but just an example of how you can use some ingenuity and a little planning to allow fish into your lifestyle.
 
Last edited:

HumanBean

Dovii
MFK Member
Nov 4, 2014
1,851
479
107
Toronto Ontario, Canada
For me, its about being able to enjoy my fish instead of doing the repetitive tasks of taking care of them. I have a very busy schedule as a graduate student and it can be hard to find time to do top offs and feeding. Especially with a planted tank on a strict lighting schedule, it becomes even harder to be home regularly when the lights are on. It is not uncommon for me to only see my fish a few times per week and I often spend a few weeks at a time out of the coubtry, so in order to have them they must be fairly automated and very easy to be maintained by my girlfriend/friends when needed. My systems all have automatic feeders and top off systems with temperature monitors on the heaters and float switches to activate air pumps if the main pumps fail and extra emergency drains. They are pretty heavily planted so that reduces the number of water changes (I do about 20% every 2-3 weeks). I have worked pretty hard to try to balance the fish to plant to light ratio to try to help stabilize the water parameters and reduce algae growth. However, I do admit to still keeping it too heavily stocked so I cant completely forget about it...my bad. I am also in the works on an aquarium controller that can monitor up to 3 tanks and send alerts if something is awry weather it be leaking, a plumbing blockage, heater failure, or pump failure. The hardware is done, just working on the software. It is not that I have taken myself out of the equation of caring for my fish, but that I have built my aquarium systems to allow fish to fit into my lifestyle. As a graduate student I cannot afford all of the expensive automation equipment so I largely build my own which is very satisfying for me. I realize that this is not the same as having kids, but just an example of how you can use some ingenuity and a little planning to allow fish into your lifestyle.
Excellent. I am guessing its the audrino chipset you are working on to get this monitoring system going.
The way I look at it. Less work you need to do in terms of maintainence, more time you can spend looking at the fish. And a system like this comes very handy if you have multiple aquariums going.
 
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