Panda

Confirmed at the one in Manassas. We grabbed a 20 long.

Garage is sort of climate controlled, I guess. There are no vents into the garage but it shares two walls and the ceiling with our interior and a third wall with the townhouse next door. So the only wall exposed to outside temperatures is the garage door. It is not as warm as the inside of the house in the winter and it is not as cool as the inside of the house in the summer but it stays warm enough in winter and cool enough in summer that we used to put the dogs out there when we weren't home. I think it would be beautiful to have a cube built into that corner but I just really feel like that would be horrible to deal with when it came time to sell this house. Granted that's several years down the road but it's kind of anxiety inducing for me to think about. Plus, that might be a bit over our heads for a DIY project.

Well, that's more or less the idea. 80% of the time it's just the two of us and the dogs and fish here. So the idea is for this to be the spot we hang out and watch TV together. Either way we'll have to get a new TV - either for upstairs if we bring that one down or for downstairs if we leave it where it is. Love the idea of putting a bar across from the glass doors, I hadn't thought of that! But I'd really prefer for the aquarium to be in the other part of the room if possible. I work from home two days a week but I've never bothered with the tax deduction because it's just me sitting on my laptop on the couch or at the dining room table.

The furniture we have in the upstairs living room is definitely to big for the room downstairs so we'll be getting new furniture for this room. Then the big furniture can stay upstairs for when we have company. So size of furniture won't be an issue - that will be the last thing we do and we can just buy whatever fits. Right now I'm thinking maybe a small loveseat on the 5' wall and a couple of those theater reclining chairs like I linked above in the open space in front of the doors for the washer/dryer/etc. because they could be far enough forward that they wouldn't block those doors. That would give us seating for 4 and then if it was a bigger group we would just have to go upstairs where we can easily and comfortably seat 6-8 people. I assume this is because of the heat from the fireplace? Hmm, I hadn't thought of that. However, I'm not sure that's a problem. The fireplace is a gas fireplace, which if we don't turn the blower on I don't think will generate much heat. We obviously wouldn't use it in the summer and in the winter, if the sump is sitting directly on the cement pad in the garage it seems to me like that would have a pretty big cooling effect. Plus, we keep our thermostat set at 70 year round. Anything higher than 73-74 and I get incredibly uncomfortable so I feel like I would have a problem long before the aquarium did! Do you think any of this makes a difference or do you still think it's a bad idea? Unfortunately that entire wall is taken up by two sets of double doors. The first set of doors is in front of the water heater and the furnace and the second set of doors is in front of the washer and dryer. So the entire wall is unusable for anything like an aquarium or furniture.

We live in a 3 story townhouse -- a true 3 story, the "basement" is fully above ground and includes a garage. The main level, where the living room, dining room & kitchen are located is the 2nd floor. Currently we have two tanks, a 75g and a 56g on the 2nd floor in the living room. We would like to replace the 75g with something bigger -- somewhere in the 200 - 300g range -- which obviously can't be done on the 2nd floor. But I also don't want a big tank downstairs that we never get to enjoy because we are upstairs in the living room. So we're thinking about moving our living room downstairs. The space down stairs is smaller than upstairs (because of the garage and lost space to washer, dryer, H2O heater, etc.) and kind of oddly shaped. I've been trying to figure out how I want to do this to make the best use of the space we do have and I'm not having a lot of luck. I was hoping maybe some of the smart people here would have a good idea. Here's a rough drawing (kind of, sort of to scale) of what we are working with: I think the "bump out" with the sliding glass door and window is pretty much unusable space because I don't think you could put a place to sit out there where you would then still be able to see the TV and aquarium in the the main part of the room. I would like to put the aquarium on the shared wall with the garage because then I can pop a little hole in the drywall, run my plumbing through and keep the sump, etc. in the garage. I thought about putting the display tank actually in the wall there but that would require cutting a huge hole in the drywall and it seems like that would be a pretty big negative when selling the house. We plan to be here another 8-10-ish years but this definitely isn't the place we plan to live forever. So it seems much easier to repair a plumbing size hole than a tank size hole when it comes time to sell some day. We have a 55" LCD TV and I wanted to hang it on the diagonal wall above the fireplace but my husband doesn't want to do that because of the heat from the fireplace. So right now I'm thinking about putting the TV on the 7' wall next to the fireplace, the display tank on the 11' wall that is shared with the garage and then getting a couple of those reclining theater style chairs (something like this) to put facing the TV. Since larger TV's like that are best viewed from farther away this gives us the greatest distance between the seating and the TV. It's not great because any time we had company we'd be forced to come back upstairs and use the larger living room up here - I just don't think the space downstairs is really big enough for more than 2 or 3 of those theater style seats - but I think it might be our best option. Basically there are a lot of pro's to moving downstairs: We can have a bigger tank, tank maintenance can be done in the garage instead of the kitchen where it currently is, we can actually use the fireplace which we've not used once in the 4 years we've lived here, and we don't have to go downstairs every time the dogs want out. The only con is that it's not that big a space and we'd probably still have to use the upstairs living room when we have company. So I really want to make this work but I'm just not sure if my current plan is the best one. Anyway, sorry this is so long but I'm looking for any other suggestions/ideas on how to arrange the room?

Yeah, I've heard that. I'm thinking about a yellowhead jawfish. Reef.

We've set up a 2nd aquarium that's finished cycling and is ready for fish and I'd like some suggestions. Our other aquarium is a 75g and has: A pair of Clowns A pair of Mandarins 1 Royal Gramma 1 Red Fire Fish 1 Diamond Goby 1 Midas Blenny 1 Blue Tang (We know she'll need a bigger home) The new aquarium is 56g and I'm having a little trouble because when I think about a stocklist I find myself thinking about how much I love the fish we already have, mostly for their personalities. So the new stocklist ends up with some of the same fish we already have going in the new tank, which isn't REALLY what I want but I keep getting hung up on it. So I could use some suggestions to get me out of my rut. We'll definitely do another pair of clowns, although I'm not sure what kind yet. I was thinking maybe a yellowheaded jawfish, I've heard they're fun. I was kind of toying with the idea of moving the royal gramma and the fire fish to the 56g but I haven't really made up my mind on that. I've been pouring over Live Aquaria looking for ideas but I really get hung up on the personality thing, which isn't really very easy to tell from the descriptions. So I'm looking for ideas for some fun reef safe fish appropriate for a 56g tank. Any suggestions?

Sorry to hear about this. I know how tough it is. We once lost most of our tank to heat when our A/C went out in the summer. It was pretty awful but on a much smaller scale than what you are experiencing so I can only imagine.

We have one and I love it. He does mess things up but that's part of the fun for me. I enjoy coming home from work or getting up in the morning and seeing how he has changed the sandscape. I totally get why other people might hate them though.

Yay! My Wegmans card worked like a charm. I placed him about 8-10 inches from where I would like him to go. Maybe he'll find it, maybe not but hopefully now he'll find his sweet spot, where ever that may be, without any more drama!

I laughed so hard I snorted when I read this earlier today at work. But the day I wind up with three is the day I post at least one for sale/trade! He's still in the container. Picture below. You can see the edge of the container to the left. I'll try to nudge him out, probably after dinner. But for now I keep hoping if I procrastinate long enough he'll come out on his own.

Thanks, everybody. I'm on my way out the door for work right now. But if he's still in the container when I get home this afternoon I'll take a pic and give it a try with my fingernail.

So, we got a green bubble tip on Saturday. I thought the covering on our filter intake was good enough that he couldn't get sucked in but I was wrong. Fortunately it happened while I was right there so I took the filter intake off and put him in a specimen container with some tank water and let him work himself out it. He managed to get himself free pretty quickly and he looks good, I can't see any damage or anything. And as soon as he freed himself he attached to the container. We put better covers on all intakes and power heads and laid the container on it's side in the sand bed, figuring he'd come out when he was ready. But that was late Saturday night, maybe 1:00 a.m. or so, and now Monday morning he's still there. He's definitely still alive. He's moving his tentacles and even moving from place to place in the container but he doesn't seem to have any interest in actually leaving it. I do not want to force him out, I figure he's been through enough trauma lately. But I didn't know if maybe there was anything I could do to encourage or coax him out? It's just my luck he'll decide the container is the perfect home and won't ever leave it!

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone! I have a few (terrible) fuzzy pictures of our pair of clowns but no full tank shots. I'm awful at taking aquarium pictures, it seems.

My husband and I started a FOWLR back in 2010 and I was a paying member for that first year. I never posted but read and learned a lot from y'all. After the first year though I let my membership lapse because things were going well and we felt like we had things pretty much under control. But now I'm back. Primarily because I've gotten the itch to try some coral and we are back in the position of having a lot to learn! And I thought this time I'd actually try being an active member of the community. So, hello everyone!