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An Aquarium in the Listening room?

I have a small 10 gallon in my room and as long as the water level is correct the filter make very little noise. Also in that same room is my 60 gallon tank. Its' Magnum cannister filter sits in the cabinet below the tank. It is silent. Even at very low listening levels, the tanks don't distract me from the music.
 
I don't presently have one setup but for many years I had what is called an Wardian Case set up in the music area. An Wardian is a terrarium which was developed in Victorian times to grow orchids. Modern Wardian cases come in all sizes and some even have computerized climate control including refrigeration for species such as the some of the Masdevallia orchids which require seasonal temperatures in the low 40's to bloom. Modern Wardian case are fantastic to have in a music room they can have their own controlled lighting and can even be setup to automatically water the plants. My Wardian case was a smaller one about the size of a 100 gallon fish tank, indeed such a fish tank can be used as a Wardian. I grew miniature orchids species some of whom you could hide behind a .25 cent piece. Growing tropical carnivorous plants in these cases is varying interesting. One of the nice things is they do not weight nearly as much as a fish tank.

Here is a small unlighted Wardian with African Violets and a Dendrobium Orchid in bloom.
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Here is even a simpler terrarium with ferns and a miniature Phalaenopsis (Moth) orchid in bloom.
moth-orchid-fern-moss-terrarium-x.jpg
 
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Not sure if it counts as off topic, but I've wanted an aquarium for years, but always stayed away due to the maintenance. Some have told me to start small, but others have said that bigger is better and a larger tank is easier to take care of as it doesn't get out of balance so easily as a small tank. I know from hard experience this is true for a pool. is it also the case for a tank?

BTW, I can only dream of a truly quiet place to listen as every room in the house is noisy. You just learn to tune out the bad noise.
 
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BayouTiger said:
Not sure if it counts as off topic, but I've wanted an aquarium for years, but always stayed away due to the maintenance. Some have told me to start small, but others have said that bigger is better and a larger tank is easier to take care of as it doesn't get out of balance so easily as a small tank. I know from hard experience this is true for a poll. is it also the case for a tank?

BTW, I can only dream of a truly quiet place to listen as every room in the house is noisy. You just learn to tune out the bad noise.
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Yup. Bigger is easier because it's more stable.

As was noted above with the Wardian, a Victorian style aquarium no filters, nothin. Lights are a good idea though, as are timers. (I changing the duration and lumens is a good way of controlling algae.)

The tank I'm using now was in my daughters room for 2 1/2 years, the deal was I would do regular water changes if she did the rest. After 2 days she unplugged the filter so she could sleep- and forgot it. It was heavily planted and the light was on a timer. When I started breaking it down during a move she confessed that she hadn't been feeding the guppies in there, "so they're basically toast"... as I broke it down the plants were healthy, the inverts were healthy, and there were about 20 guppies including 4 gravid females. They had been living, dying and breeding for 2+ years. I think the key were the weekly 10% water changes (water bed drain and fill kit + garden hose, about 20 minutes) but they were fine.

It has more to do with the surface area of the water than the # of gallons, the bigger the better. And lots and lots of plants.
 
On of the things your can do with a large aquarium in a vivarium set up as a jungle habitat. What you try to emulate is a small jungle area with a pool with small orchids, ferns, and other interesting tropical plants from the Amazon. In the water you have fish like neon Tetras, and Archer fish which naturally occur in this type of micro-ecosystem. Up in the plant section you can have stuff like Poison Dart Frogs, small reptiles, tree snails, fresh water land crabs, etc. An interesting thing about A Poison Dart Frog.is in the wild they are deadly toxic but captively bred Arrow Frogs are not because they do not have access to the highly toxic insects they eat in the wild.
 
This little setup was in my entry hall/mudroom for years, java moss + a breeding pair of killifish. I guess it doesn't have to be big. :dunno:
but small is more work
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I have a 36 gallon where I listen to music. The water coming back into the tank from the filter is the loudest. The air pump is quiet. Once the music starts I don't hear either.
 
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I've always wondered how fish handle vibrations from music. I doubt many people play music loud enough and close enough to a fish tank to disturb things much but fish are vibration sensitive. Hence the don't tap on the glass thing. I've been at some people's houses where the fish tank rattles it's so close to the speakers and all I ever think is that poor fish.
 
chard306 said:
I have always loved the relaxing feel of a Aquarium. As I am finishing my listening room there is a big wall that I am thinking of adding an Aquarium into the wall. Only the front of the Aquarium would be seen from the listening room the rest would be in the room behind. Only thing is the noise. I want to listen to my music and not hear the pumps.
Does anyone have an Aquarium in their Listening Room and is it quiet enough to hear your music?
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Not sure what size you're going for, but the classic EHEIM canister filters are nearly silent.
 
That’s what I have. The one under the largest they make. Inside a closed cabinet. Listening DB is silent room is about 36
 
I had a 55 gallon aquarium in my listening room for a long time. The pump was on the other side of the wall, but the bubbling and water fall from filter was audible between songs.

Fish never seemed to mind the music...except disco ;-)


I got rid of it because I got tired of caring for them, and the water in our area is so hard that tropical fish don't do well.

Removing it actually helped sound stage since it was oriented such that it affected that.
 
I had several 50 gallon tanks and a 30 gallon tank for years. I used gravel filters with pump heads. They were pretty quiet. The noise came from the Oscars I had in one of the tanks. They can get noisy splashing around sometimes. I've even had then hit the glass doors on top of the tank so hard they came out of the tank and onto the floor. Rowdy things they were. If I had to stick my hands in the tank I had to have a stick in the other hand to push them back to keep them from biting me.
You could hear them crunching dry pellets through the glass. They did love eating fold fish, pinkies, crawdads, etc.
 
Just added a pair of Fluval Flex 15 gallon planted tanks
to each side of the tv. they are sitting on speakers.
my Red Jewel pair , James and Carly are in the left
tank with their babies. the right tank has 10 neons , some
of the Jewel fry and Calico bristlenose pleco. I am slowly
adding more to that tank.

100_8097.JPG
 
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