Two Nice Surprises in Amsterdam

[sg1838]

So, last week I was traveling in The Netherlands, and on my last night before flying home I ended up staying at the Hotel Estherea in Amsterdam to catch my flight home Friday morning. I really didn't know anything about the hotel before going other than I found it on TripAdvisor, and people generally gave it pretty decent reviews, so I went with it.

Well, upon walking into the door, I am greeted by an absolutely GORGEOUS reef tank. Normally when you go to a public place and they have a reef tank, it's nothing special and you can tell there's some LFS that's maintaining the tank. I didn't know who was maintaining this tank, but what I did know from the coral growth was that somebody was putting a LOT of love into this tank. Here are the pics (and I'm going to apologize in advance because they were all taken on my cell phone):

 

[sg1838]

I don't know exactly how big the tank is (the front desk staff didn't know how many liters it was), but I'm going to guess that it was 120" x 24" x 24", which I think is about a 320 gallon tank. What the front desk staff WAS able to tell me was that the tank is maintained by one of the owners of the hotel, and that it is his hobby. They said he comes in 2 or 3 times a day to feed and do normal maintenance on it. What they also said is that there is an even LARGER tank downstairs. Unfortunately, I was leaving first thing the next morning, and didn't have a chance to see the bigger tank, or stick around to see if I could meet the owner. :sad2: Maybe next time I guess.

I have to say that this was one of the nicest private tanks I have ever seen. The coral growth was just amazing. I wish I could have seen the support equipment that went along with it, but it LOOKED like it may have just had a standard under the tank sump setup (one of the doors under the tank was open when I left, and without getting too intrusive, it looked like there was a skimmer in there). I loved the color of the blue SPS coral (it almost looks like a blue slimer). Maybe next time I'm there I'll see if I can get a frag for a souvenir.

 

[sg1838]

To make my stay even BETTER, once I checked in the woman at the front desk said that she would escort me to my room because it was a "special room". I had no idea what that meant, until she told me that they were completely booked that night, had one suite, and I was staying in it. The suite was as nice as the reef tank:

That's a king size bed below that chandelier, so that should give you an idea as to how big the chandelier is (about 8' in diameter). Unfortunately, my pictures don't do it justice. From there, the room was decorated as you would expect for royalty (like me :clown, plush linens and tapestries, a 55" plasma TV, and jacuzzi tub.

All I know is that I can't wait to go back and ask for my "regular room".

 

[klink88]

That is one fancy hotel!

 

[magdelan]

Very nice pictures and very nice accomodations! I love the pic where the 8 line wrasse is irritating the zoos. And 120"x24"x24" would be 360 gallons. Also, love the Sohol. One of my favorite fish. Thanks for sharing this.

 

[sg1838]

The room rate was VERY reasonable! We have a general corporate rule of $150/night, which is almost impossible to get under in Europe, but honestly with the exchange rate I don't think I was much over (and I just booked it through our corporate travel agent, not a discount website).

Regardless, here's a link to the official thread for their tank:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1010256

It's 1100 liters, which is 290 gallons, so I wasn't too far off on my estimate (120" x 24" x 24" is 299 gallons according to my unit conversion calculator, which makes sense since there is approximately 7.5 gallons per cubic foot).

 

[SkiFletch]

Wow, can I go live there?

 

[Johnny C]

Wow... such an awesome display of SPS. I really like the fish he chose to keep, too. If I ever make it to Amsterdam, I'm staying in that hotel! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Capt_Cully]

Thats a real stunner!!! I'd love to get at that thing with some snippers!

And under T5's too.... :eek2:

 

[Capt_Cully]

Hotel room shots are a little foggy......presumably from all the smoke :smokin:

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

awesome reef aquarium. Note coral growth (see thread link) over the years. That's a Melanurus Wrasse probably hunting a zoanthid pred.
The room is awesome.

Time to upgrade to Vortech's in order to match the rest of the joint

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

and here I was thinkin' you found something nice in Amsterdam, New York :lmao:

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

so... uh...

so... uh...

what was the other nice thing you found in Amsterdam? :beer:

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

obviously this aquarium's owner knows what he's doing.

bottom right corner. Black and white fish? What is it?

 

[mr86mister]

Not only is the tank amazing, the hotel room is nice and you made it safe home. But, you were at a hotel where the owner is a member of RC. That's the crazy part!

 

[jdoenumber2]

Did you sample any of their fine coffee? I think that they have shops for that.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

Seriatopora sickness!

Seriatopora sickness!

this guy needs some MP60's!

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

cully- did you see this?

cully- did you see this?

I was having trouble keeping Xenia, ricordea, LPS and later on SPS. I knew something was munching on my corals at night but never really investigated well. I thought it was a crab and I tried a crab trap for a couple of days without succes.
Then I red a story on the internet about a big coral eating worm ( Eunicid ).
It was 80 cm but I read that they could reach 2 meters in aquariums. This kept me awake at night. I decided to sit by the tank all night to finally catch the thief in the act.
Then al of a sudden there it was!!!! I forgot to breathe for a couple of seconds. :surprised It was the same worm that I saw on the internet. Only this one was a bit bigger. Everytime I tried to make a picture it would retract very, very fast. I coudn't beleive my eyes how fast it was for such a big animal. I was so terribly facinated that I could not leave the tank until the next morning.
Then I called my friend Martin who helps me maintain the tank. We decided the best way would be to take out the rocks from the tank and catch it.
We started at one end of the tank and ended up having to take out every piece of live rock and moving every piece of coral.
Finally when we reached the last rock there he was. A magnificent creature as if from the stone age.
My friend Martin caught it quickly.
The tank was a big mess but the mission was completed.
Despite of all the damage the worm did to my tank over the years ( he has been in there for almost 4 years ) I felt very bad to have to kill it.
Much worse then destroying my aquascape.

It was 1 meter and 30 centimeters !!

It's droppings

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

videos of this aquarium

videos of this aquarium

http://www.youtube.com/user/jwre1966#g/u

 

[magdelan]

Eunicid = :eek1: