Decorating the salt water aquarium

In aquarium design, what goes inside the tank (besides fish) is just as important as determining length, width, height and shape of an aquarium.

Our clients with a salt water fish aquarium have several options of decorating, largely using coral pieces which make the aquarium look like a reef, the fishes natural habitat. Years ago, those corals came only direct from the ocean. They were very fragile, expensive and largely only came in red, white and blue. Very patriotic, but not great for variety. These corals are still available but the trend has moved to synthetic corals made of fiberglass or plastic molds. These corals are extremely durable, easy to clean and come in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes as well. For some larger aquariums, we may go to custom made "insert" pieces which are built right into the tank or removable for annual service and cleaning.

In the last pictures, you'll see we recently repaired insert pieces damaged by a new clients previous service company. These pieces were painted with a pigmented fiberglass resin which is salt water safe and not water soluble.

Stay tuned for before and after pictures of this new clients aquarium, it's a real success story! Thanks for reading my blog. For more information, please feel free to email me at Jon@AquariClean.com or go to www.AquariClean.com

Maximizing impact with minimal space.

A new client saw one of our aquariums in our online gallery and said she loved the "built in" look of the tank without any cabinetry. This was the style she wanted to put in her new salon she was opening on the north side of Chicago, problem was; space. The aquarium as seen on the left that she was hoping to similarly have installed was built into a storage closet, facing a reception area. The tank was 6 feet long, 2 feet deep and 2 feet tall for a total of 180 gallons. The salon had no extra square footage to dedicate nor a storage room. What we came up with was a "wall aquarium" or picture frame aquarium.

The picture frame aquarium has very little capacity and only holds 40 gallons of water although is quite large at 60" x 8" x 24" tall. As you can see on the pictures on the right, the aquarium still is a focal point of the room. This particular model we are very pleased with, as it has built in sophisticated chemical, biological and mechanical filtration. Being so compact, there unfortunately is no place for a protein skimmer so we set the aquarium up as freshwater instead of salt water.

Thanks as always for reading my blog. For more information feel free to email me at Jon@AquariClean.com or go to www.AquariClean.com

Glass vs. acrylic aquariums and the art of scratch removal.

Aquariums big or small are available in either glass or acrylic. Each is a fine product which has pros and cons such as the glass aquarium when in smaller sizes is generally much more affordable than acrylic. Acrylic aquariums are actually stronger than glass as the material is chemically bonded together instead of being held together with silicone like glass. One factor to keep in mind about acrylic aquariums is that since it is a softer material than glass it is more prone to scratching. The good news is those scratches can be repaired. Here is a recent repair we just performed for a client.

Ok, Ok, let's not get into how the scratch happened. Let's all just be assured that fixing scratches in acrylic aquariums is a piece of cake, inside or out. This particular scratch was quite deep and rather than using one of many hand held scratch removal kits available, we brought out the heavy artilery.

First a fine grit, wet or dry sand paper is used to "buff out" the scratch. What is actually happening is the acrylic is sanded down to below the scratch, thus removing it.

Secondly a high speed orbital sander is used with various buffing compounds to begining repairing the damage done by the sander. This will leave a "haze" still on the glass but very smooth to the touch.

Next a low speed polisher is used to clean up the material.

Lastly a soft cloth and light, liquid polish is used and the tank is as good as new!

If the scratch were inside the same method would be used however the water obviously would be removed. This can be done
quickly by using high speed submersible pumps and large holding
tanks to keep the water, fish and decor in.

Thanks as always for reading my blog. For more information feel free to email me at Jon@AquariClean.com or feel free to visit www.AquariClean.com

But where do we keep the octopus?

What to do, what to do? In salt water aquariums there are several animals that let's say, don't "get along" with each other in the same tank. What is referred to as a reef aquarium features live rock, live corals, polyps and invertebrates such as shrimps, crabs and snails. Many large fish may pass by these things countless times in the ocean without a problem, may pick on them or eat them outright on first site. For that reason we at AquariClean Inc like to keep most larger fish in a "fish only" aquarium featuring artificial corals and a reef aquarium with only few fish specimens such as clown fish, small gobies or wrasses but a variety of live corals and invertebrates.

Our client wanted both types of aquariums but space was an issue as the aquariums were going to be placed in his home office. Working with mill workers on site we were able to design a cabinet which matched the furniture in his office and housed a 120 gallon reef aquarium beneath the 200 gallon salt water fish aquarium.

When the client asked for something "different" in the aquarium, something unusual that most people don't have, the answer was simple: octopus! The trick with keeping an octopus is that they are vicious predators and cannot be kept with other fish or invertebrates at all. Dedicating an entire 200 or 120 gallon aquarium to an animal which generally would prefer to hide most of the time didn't seem like a good idea. Having a partition built in the reef aquarium, dedicating a quarter of the 120 gallon tank so the octopus wouldn't be able to get at the other animals however seemed like a great idea. We also put captive bread, tank raised seahorses in the reef aquarium as well. The finished project is an amazing array of animals in clean, healthy aquariums in beautiful custom cabinetry built to match the homeowners furniture.

Thanks again for reading my blog. For more information feel free to contact me at Jon@AquariClean.com or feel free to check out our website at www.AquariClean.com.

Chicago Public Schools

AquariClean Inc is proud to be one of the few, if not the only preferred aquarium vendor for Chicago Public Schools (CPS). We have several CPS clients with aquariums and terrariums in offices, (science) classrooms, libraries and common ways. The aquariums service as tools for learning as well as obviously being great to look at. As you might imagine, CPS works under a very tight budget and we pride ourselves as being able to accommodate within any reasonable one. Recently we completed a project for a west side kindergarten through eight grade magnet school. It was a small but interesting project in that the school's science teacher wanted to have numerous aquariums to house different environments and the animals that might be found in them for the students to study. We installed a humid and warm rain forest terrarium with an iguana, a dry desert terrarium with a gecko, a bog aquarium filled half with water with stone protruding for amphibians to climb in and out of the water, a freshwater tropical aquarium and a hamster cage.

The students are able to study and report on several factors such as temperature, humidity and water conditions, various animal's diets and etc.

Thanks as always for reading my blog. For more information feel free to email me at Jon@AquariClean.com or feel free to check out
our website at www.AquariClean.com

Aquarium Install 09.10.08 Anesthesiology Department

Fortunately for me, besides a few bumps, bruises and scrapes I have never had any serious visits to the hospital. The stereotype that every dentist's office has an aquarium because it is a soothing element to a high stress environment is a pretty accurate one. That's why when our client contacted us wanting to put a new aquarium in the pre op anesthesiology department; it immediately seemed like an awfully good idea. What a great place to have a bit of tranquility at a time of incredible nervousness.

The aquarium is a 190 gallon acrylic "bow front" This salt water fish tank is 6 feet long, 20 inches deep at the apex of the bow and 24 inches tall. The bow front is a very popular style as a departure from the standard and commonly used rectangle aquarium. The soft curve (or bow) of the front plane lends itself to the room and draws attention to itself. The cabinetry is solid oak with a custom minwax stain to blend in with other furniture in the office.

Currently, the aquarium houses Triggerfish, Clownfish (still years after the fact, no aquarium is complete with "Nemo") Tangs and Butterfly fish.

-Jon Wolf

Aquarium Installation 08.08.08: Coast to Coast

Wow, talk about being in the middle. Frequently AquariClean Inc is trusted to perform installations when aquarium manufacturers across the country sell jobs locally. But when a manufacturer from Seattle called the same day as a manufacturer from New York who were both asking us take care of some really neat installations at a pair of local Nordstrom department stores, I couldn't believe it. Each store was receiving the same aquariums. The aquarium from Seattle, a "half round" acrylic 200 gallon salt water fish tank with custom coral inserts was to be installed in the children's shoe department. The other aquarium from New York, a glass 240 gallon rectangle saltwater fish tank featured white decorative corals as well as white gravel to keep a theme as it was installed behind the (also all white) Lamer makeup counter. The installations were performed within a week of each other and went off seamlessly. Each aquarium features wet dry filtration, ultraviolet sterilizers, micron mechanical filters and protein skimmers as well as being temperature controlled.

The aquariums are serviced on a weekly basis as the store remains open for nearly 12 hours a day which means the aquarium lights must remain on that long as well, which is quite conducive to growing algae. The aquarium service also is performed early in the morning before the store opens which means some long days for the service techs at AquariClean, but they're up to the task.

-Jon Wolf