Well, I think I went and found the coolest idea ever: crush Bill Wann's 20,000 gallon tank with somethings over 10 TIMES THE SIZE OF IT! I actually found a cheap alternative to an aquarium, but the catch is that it's got to be native fish (pretty much). A big in-ground swimming pool - you have TONS of space for aquascaping, and as long as you live waterfront (hello guys!), all you need is the pool, some big PVC, a few intakes, a few outputs, and one BIG pump (along with another one for backup). This could be incredibly cheap - thousands, if not tens of thousands less than Bill Wann's tank would've costed. Aquascaping would be the best part of this though - this is quite literally a tank you can swim in, along with snorkel, scuba dive, and even kayak.
If I were to do this, I would have an awesome native aquascape. In the shallow end of the pool, going from the start of the shallow end to the middle of the dropoff, there would be an actual dock, built from salvaged dock parts or from scratch - this would allow for a place to put down scuba/snorkeling gear, a feeding platform, a viewing platform, and of course structure for the fish (and possibly a place to rig up a kayak, probably nothing big enough for that though).
So aside from that, there would obviously need to be sand in the bottom, maybe just something easy like play sand since it's illegal to just take sand from the beach and aragonite is really expensive.
Next, does anyone know what the NC jetties look like? If you don't, look them up because that's my next big idea. Get some rocks from there (well the same rocks they use - don't just take them from the actual jetty), and build underwater structures and caves with them.
There would have to be a tropical island in the middle near the deep end - I could keep a colony of green anoles on here, along with crabs and maybe some other stuff.
Possibly false coral inserts, but those are really expensive and won't look too natural. Probably going to stick with natural stuff - oyster shell structures. Free and easy to find very large ones. If you've noticed, pretty much all the decorations are really cheap/free.
That's about enough for decorations, since the fish still need space to swim. Now for the fun part - the actual fish! Sharks would be the center attraction when you're looking from the top, but once you go below there's more stuff to be seen.
First off, there's got to be some kind of schooling fish that can survive with the sharks (at least for a little while). I'm planning on mangrove snappers, cigar jacks, and blue runners.
Next, there's got to be stuff that will come up into the shallow end regularly so that it's not so boring. The answer is simple - rays. I'm thinking yellow, atlantic, and southern stingrays, with the barbs humanely trimmed for safety purposes.
There's got to be a fun, interactive fish to feed and watch at times, and the answer is simple - tarpon. I haven't found a source for these yet, and I don't think it's legal to just catch ones. However I know of people that have them so it can be done. I think a pair would suffice, maybe 3.
Now for a few more fish to chill around/in those rock structures. A goliath grouper (bumblebee grouper to most aquarists), and a pair of green morays. Awesome fish to see when diving, so why not eh?
A CUC is the next thing, right before the best part. The obvious answer here is big stuff that's easily found, easily collected, tough, and free. Horseshoe crabs (somewhat easy to find here) starfish (tons of them wash up during the summer onto the beach, so easy pickings there) and conchs/whelks (easy to find in the salt marshes). Starfish because they're cool and can pick off bad stuff in there, whelks and conchs for algae and diatoms, and horseshoe crabs to pick up food scraps from the bottom (well anything the jacks and snappers and smaller rays don't get to first that is).
Now for sharks. I've got 6 species that are common in NC and I want to own. The sand tiger shark, because they're big, docile (for a big shark at least), and they'e got the cool factor going for them with the teeth. The nurse shark, because I've always wanted to own one and they are actually pretty cool when they're massive. Blacktip sharks, because they're big ORV sharks that will cruise around and be aggressive feeders. Sandbar sharks, for the same reason as blacktips. Blacknose sharks, for the same reason as the last 2 except they're smaller to provide some variety. And bonnethead sharks, because well, they're hammerheads.
So what are these guys gonna eat? Well, this part's cheap too - since the fish are native, they can be fed entirely wild-caught native baitfish. The big sharks, eels, tarpon, and grouper will require big meals - these can be caught in about a week, and we can get enough for a year and just freeze them. This would be easy fish to catch like bonito, catfish, blue and rainbow runners, ladyfish, leatherjackets, spanish and chum mackerel, pinfish, pigfish, other porgies, mullet, small stingrays, seatrout, and grunts. For everything else, small fish (anchovies, ballyhoo, bumper, croaker, flying fish, herrings, menhaden, silversides, mullet, mojarras, perch, pilchards, pigfish, pinfish, sardines, scads, grunts) and invertebrates (clams, blue crabs, land crabs, fiddler crabs, cut horseshoe crabs, rock/stone crabs, lobsters, mussels, sand fleas, scallops, shrimp, squid, worms). So basically anything that can be caught, if it's legal I'll either feed it fresh or freeze it and save it for later.
This is stil far into the planning phase, so anything I'm wrong about feel free to correct me on. Dimensions are still being planned, as well as actual numbers for stocking.
Cheers
-Drew
If I were to do this, I would have an awesome native aquascape. In the shallow end of the pool, going from the start of the shallow end to the middle of the dropoff, there would be an actual dock, built from salvaged dock parts or from scratch - this would allow for a place to put down scuba/snorkeling gear, a feeding platform, a viewing platform, and of course structure for the fish (and possibly a place to rig up a kayak, probably nothing big enough for that though).
So aside from that, there would obviously need to be sand in the bottom, maybe just something easy like play sand since it's illegal to just take sand from the beach and aragonite is really expensive.
Next, does anyone know what the NC jetties look like? If you don't, look them up because that's my next big idea. Get some rocks from there (well the same rocks they use - don't just take them from the actual jetty), and build underwater structures and caves with them.
There would have to be a tropical island in the middle near the deep end - I could keep a colony of green anoles on here, along with crabs and maybe some other stuff.
Possibly false coral inserts, but those are really expensive and won't look too natural. Probably going to stick with natural stuff - oyster shell structures. Free and easy to find very large ones. If you've noticed, pretty much all the decorations are really cheap/free.
That's about enough for decorations, since the fish still need space to swim. Now for the fun part - the actual fish! Sharks would be the center attraction when you're looking from the top, but once you go below there's more stuff to be seen.
First off, there's got to be some kind of schooling fish that can survive with the sharks (at least for a little while). I'm planning on mangrove snappers, cigar jacks, and blue runners.
Next, there's got to be stuff that will come up into the shallow end regularly so that it's not so boring. The answer is simple - rays. I'm thinking yellow, atlantic, and southern stingrays, with the barbs humanely trimmed for safety purposes.
There's got to be a fun, interactive fish to feed and watch at times, and the answer is simple - tarpon. I haven't found a source for these yet, and I don't think it's legal to just catch ones. However I know of people that have them so it can be done. I think a pair would suffice, maybe 3.
Now for a few more fish to chill around/in those rock structures. A goliath grouper (bumblebee grouper to most aquarists), and a pair of green morays. Awesome fish to see when diving, so why not eh?
A CUC is the next thing, right before the best part. The obvious answer here is big stuff that's easily found, easily collected, tough, and free. Horseshoe crabs (somewhat easy to find here) starfish (tons of them wash up during the summer onto the beach, so easy pickings there) and conchs/whelks (easy to find in the salt marshes). Starfish because they're cool and can pick off bad stuff in there, whelks and conchs for algae and diatoms, and horseshoe crabs to pick up food scraps from the bottom (well anything the jacks and snappers and smaller rays don't get to first that is).
Now for sharks. I've got 6 species that are common in NC and I want to own. The sand tiger shark, because they're big, docile (for a big shark at least), and they'e got the cool factor going for them with the teeth. The nurse shark, because I've always wanted to own one and they are actually pretty cool when they're massive. Blacktip sharks, because they're big ORV sharks that will cruise around and be aggressive feeders. Sandbar sharks, for the same reason as blacktips. Blacknose sharks, for the same reason as the last 2 except they're smaller to provide some variety. And bonnethead sharks, because well, they're hammerheads.
So what are these guys gonna eat? Well, this part's cheap too - since the fish are native, they can be fed entirely wild-caught native baitfish. The big sharks, eels, tarpon, and grouper will require big meals - these can be caught in about a week, and we can get enough for a year and just freeze them. This would be easy fish to catch like bonito, catfish, blue and rainbow runners, ladyfish, leatherjackets, spanish and chum mackerel, pinfish, pigfish, other porgies, mullet, small stingrays, seatrout, and grunts. For everything else, small fish (anchovies, ballyhoo, bumper, croaker, flying fish, herrings, menhaden, silversides, mullet, mojarras, perch, pilchards, pigfish, pinfish, sardines, scads, grunts) and invertebrates (clams, blue crabs, land crabs, fiddler crabs, cut horseshoe crabs, rock/stone crabs, lobsters, mussels, sand fleas, scallops, shrimp, squid, worms). So basically anything that can be caught, if it's legal I'll either feed it fresh or freeze it and save it for later.
This is stil far into the planning phase, so anything I'm wrong about feel free to correct me on. Dimensions are still being planned, as well as actual numbers for stocking.
Cheers
-Drew
