How do they do it?

[DeLgAdO]

any info on how public fresh water aquariums keep their aquariums so got dam clean and healthy for their gi-normous size??

and the manatee tanks at sea world, ive seen HUGE rtcs, pacus, pirarucu's, and silver dollars in the hundreds, and other various south american monsters . . . HOW THE HELL DO THEY FILTER THAT THING!!!! and how do they do water changes, do they do like 50% or more like we do? on a greater scale of coarse.

ive been pondering this forever.

pixs and info would be greatly appericiated

-Del

 

[Gr8KarmaSF]

The parent of one of the students that I teach used to do this at Marine World here in Cali. I will ask him on Monday, though my guess is that they simply have a diving schedule where they scuba and scrub regularly.

 

[guppy]

Thousands and thousands of little box filters, heheh. I got to see one of the filter/pump rooms at Stienhart Aquarium in San Francisco, it was huge and the stainless steel canister filters were as big as oil drums and longer. They also had uv tubes, trickle trays and I don't no what else and that was just one of the rooms for fresh water.

 

[DeLgAdO]

Thousands and thousands of little box filters, heheh

LOL!!!!!!

 

[darkemotion]

im sure they have a large filter to fliter each tanks and they probably do daily water changes which are probably automatic....

 

[sohfatfish]

I doubt they would do such regular water changes. It is not practical and would cost a bomb. They would probably have a series of denitrators in their filters. Also large tanks should be easier to maintain considering that there is more space for BB to clolnise in the tank, temp does not fluctuate much and that anything needed to affect the water conditions would be needed in large amounts unlike in an aquarium.

 

[Just1nK4ng]

I doubt they would do such regular water changes. It is not practical and would cost a bomb. They would probably have a series of denitrators in their filters. Also large tanks should be easier to maintain considering that there is more space for BB to clolnise in the tank, temp does not fluctuate much and that anything needed to affect the water conditions would be needed in large amounts unlike in an aquarium.

i agree with sohfatfish on that one

 

[beblondie]

undergravel filters and lots o air pumps

 

[redtailfool]

D check out Neoprodigys galllery for his trip on one of the aquariums.
It shows the size of the filters and will give you an idea how they make it
squeaky clean.

 

[rodneybur]

I used to work at a smaller public aquarium in Florida as a guide. It was called Aqua World. The crew was a close knit group so we always talked and hung with one another. In the back, away from the crowds and the tourists was a large room that we called "the ocean room". All the saltwater tanks, no matter the size, had pipes running to this room. In the corner was a large electrical box with a lot of lights and guages on it. It was fully automated and controled a large pump in the middle of the room. This is where all the pipes from the aquariums ran to. It was a large shiny pump and stood about 4 ft high. It also had several guages on it to monitor the water presure of the different pipes. Upon entering the room you could sometimes hear the droning whoosh whoosh if it was on. It wasn't over bearing and was no louder than normal talking voice. The aquarium pipes systematically entered the pump on the top. There was also a series of round filters fit in the pipes near the pump to "scrub" the water as it passed through. On the bottom side was a large pipe, about 2 ft in diameter, it also had a filter set in it. This large "holy" pipe was the essential part of the pump. It was the intake to the whole set up. It ran about 100 miles west to the ocean where the Aqua World pumped clean saltwater into their tanks on a daily basis. This is how we changed the water.