"tanked" the show

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baby1-

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it doesn't appear that they use ro di , or even cycle the systems, has anybody else noticed that?
 
It may have been edited.
I do wonder how they get away with certain things though, like cutting up a wall to make things fit, because a miss calculation on their part.
 
It may have been edited.
I do wonder how they get away with certain things though, like cutting up a wall to make things fit, because a miss calculation on their part.

It has to be edited, lets be honest even to us some of the things that go into building a system can be boring/ repetitive to watch. lol
BTW, I'm pretty sure there is a thread already on here about the show, but search pulls up every thread with tank in though which is alot. :lmao:
 
This show just like Sons of Guns (which I like to watch)has a lot of acting to make them interesting to watch. The cool part of Tanked is the actual tanks they make, the boring part is the fact they can not or do not setup coral tanks.
 
This show is funny though. I have seen them fill the tank with a hose then dump a bag of salt right in the tank. Then it seems like that same day they put the fish in, is this possible? I love the creativity of the designs and how they put thought into the personalities of the fish. Also that fish place they go to to buy all their fish is awesome - I want to go there - wonder if it is open to the public or just wholesale?
 
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It may have been edited.
I do wonder how they get away with certain things though, like cutting up a wall to make things fit, because a miss calculation on their part.

Things go wrong on every install, everyone of us knows that, after all, an install isn't an install without 3 trips to Home Depot on the same day :rollface:

Be happy for those guys, they get to make a good living doing what we do as a hobby. I certainly would give up my career in a heartbeat if I could make the same money working with SW aquariums.
 
Things go wrong on every install, everyone of us knows that, after all, an install isn't an install without 3 trips to Home Depot on the same day :rollface:

Be happy for those guys, they get to make a good living doing what we do as a hobby. I certainly would give up my career in a heartbeat if I could make the same money working with SW aquariums.

well said
 
I have a friend who emailed on of the guys on the show to ask him about the tipics discussed here and he replied back and said that every tank they build gets a super contrated dose of nitrifing bactera that basicly instantly cycles the tank. Also said he unferstands that it can be misleading to the public and has asked the producers to include the aclimation process and cycling process in an episode but it usually gets edited out. .
 
I was wondering about that myself. I watched the episode where they made the tank for the mobster hotel. They used the only hose they could find in the hotel to fill the tank and it was hot water so they put several hundred pounds of ice in it to cool it down. Seeing that blew my mind. I couldn't believe they did that. I wondered if all the fish died as soon as the cameras went out. But obviously they have some sort of system success or they wouldn't still be in business. Plus their custom tanks are absolutely amazing. I wish I could afford one.
 
I wouldn't think RO/DI is necessary for a fish only tank. It could help, but fish only tanks aren't as sensitive to some of the impurities like a reef is. I used hose water when I ran fresh water tanks and never had trouble. You just have to be sure to dechlorinate it. Hell, people do that with their reefs in some cases and do fine. I would be leery of the 'super bacteria dose,' but it may work just fine if they use real cultures.

Oh, they did explain drip acclimation in one of the recent shows. I think they were acclimating a ray for a tank when they did it.

I've grown to kind of like the show. I typically dislike reality TV like that, but I can look past the staged fights, terrible acting and general reality crap for the occasional episode so I can see the tanks and some of their design/build processes.
 
Unfortunately, some very cruel things happen in this world, and there are maintenance companies you would never want to work for.
First of all, they do not SHOW what these people do to make this work, and they do not SHOW and adequately explain the support machinery and filters.

Unscrupulous maintenance companies: there are some who throw something together to meet contract, then come in a few days later at a very high maintenance fee to 'do the chemistry' and collect the bodies, replacing the dead with similar fish: back every week to do the same, and the fee is so high it covers the weekly dead fish that the owners never see. Those who treat fish as decorations don't care.

The TV show: remember that in these specific tanks there are processes that are edited out as unglamorous or 'slow'.
Note too the purposes for which some tanks are set up: there are some 'processes' that do not work longterm, ie, the tank is set up as a decoration that will be replaced in 6 months when the theme or attraction changes. Essentially what is being set up for these commercial operations, as described, is more on the level of a very large quarantine tank with sand, and probably with a UV filter, which will help keep disease down, but also kill off beneficial bacteria. The filtration these tanks on the show use is very likely similar to what we used in the 1980's, relying not on the rock (which is fake) but on filter pads, and on close monitoring of chemistry, probably some spendy automated systems that report their condition, or just a guy coming in every few days to run tests.

This is not a show you watch to learn from. Not as the producers are doing it. THey are making a lot of trouble, and they are going to kill a lot of fish, as people show up at Petco, buy fish and a tank and a box of salt and dechlorinator the same day and go home and put it together.

And if you're personally spending your time and money on a tank---you, the serious hobbyist, will want to follow a very different path, one that is designed for the long haul, not a quick display and equally quick breakdown. You have to cope with chemical cycles that progress into years, you have to design sandbed maintenance that doesn't disrupt; you have to plan for the rapid growth of marine species; you have to consider what happens to oxygenation as your fish need more, and have relatively less water; you have to plan for years, not weeks.
 
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The last episode I saw on my dvr was the one where they install the round tank with stingrays and they wouldnt come out of the sand once the rays were in. Well if you paid really close attention, the hose they used to fill the tank was attached to the shopping center's water outlet....wow. Thats not RO/DI. And I would think that it may make a difference in a FO tank cause of metals or however the water is treated from the city.
 
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