About eight weeks ago, I invested in a fish tank. Initially, it was an interior design solution, aimed at filling the big space in the hearth in my living room. I thought an oversized fishbowl would do the job quite nicely. This plan began to blossom and grow, and before I knew it, I had bought a Biorb fish tank (which is a vast designery goldfish bowl type thing) for marine fish.
*Warning* This Blog is about to become anoraky!
Biorbs have a bad reputation. If you do a search on them, you'll find forum thread upon forum thread of people slagging them off. The main argument being that the Biorb's filtration is not good enough/modern enough to support marine fish, and that the sixty litre capacity is not big enough to house marine fish happily/safely - the idea being that they will add too much ammonia to the water via their waste, which cannot be converted well enough into nitrite and nitrate. The end result being, you end up with dead fishies.
I found all of this out AFTER I had spent £150 on my shiny new tank. I did some more frantic research and found a few people out there who had had success with their Biorbs, which renewed my confidence slightly. I hasten to add that there didn't seem to be a problem with people keeping 'normal' fish (ie coldwater/tropical) in their Biorbs, just those who were doing the all out marine thing. I quickly realised that marine husbandry is FULL of fish snobs! They can't agree on anything!
I came across a whole new subculture of people on the internet who spoke in strange acronyms: FOWLR (which means a tank for Fish Only With Live Rock.) They argued on the compatibility of fish, the benefits of using reverse osmosis water, the stocking levels of tanks, you name it. I was amazed that people could, and did, get so heated about such a topic. I found myself enthralled, and spent hours and days researching and trawling through web age after web page of fishy facts.
So, back to the Biorb. Well, I'll spare you the whole set up performace, because that's just one anorak too far. After I'd read all the fish stuff my brain could handle, I went about setting up my marine Biorb with more knowledge and confidence. Nevertheless, I felt a bit uncomfortable going into the aquatic shop and asking for anything, for fear they would ask what kind of tank I had. I had visions of confessing to owning the Biorb and the aquatic employees slinging me out on my ear. Yes, there really is that much sniffiness towards them.
Anyway, after putting in live rock (bits of dead coral, teeming with bugs and stuff) and waiting for the water to get to the right temperature/ph/salinity etc etc, I was allowed to add creatures! At this point, I was allowed to add a 'clean up crew,' who go around eating algae and the bugs from the live rock and who basically do good things for the tank. So, I added 4 hermit crabs, (called Sebastian 1 & 2 and George and Orwell) 2 cleaner shrimps, (called Salvador and Vincent) a black long spined (poisonous!!) sea urchin called Oliver (also referred to as Evil Oliver on account of being poisonous) and a feather duster pipe worm called Ken (after Ken Dodd and his feather duster fetish!)
The tank became a very exciting place, and lots of things began to happen. A shrimp gave birth to a gazillion tiny shrimps, the sea urchin pooed in a most exciting way (showering hard pellets all over the place), a shrimp shed his skin, or rather his 'exoskeleton' and I thought he was dead for about fifteen minutes, a hermit crab came out of his shell, shed his skin and then got back into his shell, and Oliver filled the tank with gooey strands of something I'd rather not think about. And all this without any fish!!
I get to add fish this week, which I have to admit, is very exciting. Because it is a small tank, I am only allowed a couple of fish. This brings me back to the criticisms levied against the Biorbs. As far as I can tell, with what basic knowledge of marine husbandry I have, the Biorbs are fine PROVIDING you do what they tell you to do in the instructions. It's no good getting a Biorb and then ignoring all the advice they give you. I think many of the problems people have is that they overstock the Biorb, or try to cut corners by using their own insufficient knowledge. I've followed their instructions to the last letter and have had no problems at all. The creatures in there seem happy enough - they don't show signs of stress, like being twitchy or anything like that. So, all seems well for now at least.
I have to admit, the hobby of keeping marine fish has sucked me in completely. I've now turned into one of those anoraks who sucks air through their teeth on hearing a yellow tang is being kept in a tank below 100 litres capacity. I'm planning the next tank, which will house corals and anemones and will, of course, be much much bigger. But, if you're ever thinking of getting a Biorb, don't be put off by what you might read online. As I say, there are fish snobs out there who think they know better than anyone, and whose opinions need to be taken with a grain of salt. If I can set up a Biorb and get it to run with any level of success, then anyone can!
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