That Fish Blog – Aquarium Advice and Information

Hey readers, Dave here. It has been a busy couple of weeks here at TFP leading up to the holiday season.  It has been especially busy for me, as the top of my to-do list suddenly changed to repairing the touch tank.  Originally installed in 2002 (as somewhat of an experiment), the Marineland Touch Tank was in dire need of a makeover.

After many patches and repairs over the years, the old tank liner finally had so many holes in it that it could no longer hold water.  The liner needed to be replaced!  For anyone who has ever replaced the liner in their pond, you know what an ordeal that can be.  We found a temporary home for our touch tank celebrities, and jumped into the physical mess of getting the old liner out, including removing the hundreds of pounds of rock and substrate. Luckily, we are out of pond season here in Lancaster, so we had the advantage of being able to convert one of our Koi holding systems to saltwater, as a temporary house for our touch tank buddies,  while their home is being renovated. Next we’ll be getting the newer, more flexible liner installed and getting all the animals back home! It’s a whole lot going on, in a short amount of time.

Many, many people (both local and distant) visit the store, in part to see the stingrays and other creatures in the display.  There has been a parade of sad faces come around the corner, expecting to see their touch tank friends, but finding destruction in stead.  Never fear, the rebuild will only take a few more days, and the touch tank will be better than ever!  Along with the new liner, there are also some filter upgrades taking place behind the scenes.  We are truly sorry about the down time for the touch tank, this is the first time we have closed it since it opened seven years ago.

Stop in soon and see the stingrays in their newly renovated home.

Thanks,

Dave

The Fish Room in our Lancaster, PA retail store is one of the many attractions to visit here at That Fish Place. At over 12,000 square feet, with more than 700 holding tanks and 35,000 gallons of system water, our fish room is one of the biggest retail systems in the world. In fact, our retail system is larger than many of the wholesale systems in operation in the United States.

The saltwater holding systems in our fish room are comprised of 8 separate systems ranging in size from 120-3000 gallons totaling over 13,000 gallons. The salt water sections of the fish room include dedicated systems for Community Fish; Aggressive Fish; Coral; Reef Fish and Invertebrates; and Live Rock. The centerpiece of our saltwater holding systems is our one of a kind “look down” coral tray. The coral tray is made of 2 ½” thick acrylic and is a massive 20’ long x 4’ wide x 1’ deep. The entire tray is lighted by Sunlight Supply LumenMax 3 fixtures on moving light rails, for all you gadget geeks out there this is a really cool set up. All the main saltwater systems are filtered with RK2 commercial protein skimmer with computer controlled ozone and high output Ultraviolet Sterilizers. The skimmers are self cleaning, with timer operated internal wash down jets. The RK2 skimmers on the three main systems are a huge 24” in diameter and over 7’ tall.

Our freshwater holding systems are divided into 12 separate main systems that range in size from 200-3000 gallons each and total over 22,000 gallons. The freshwater section of the fish room includes dedicated systems for Community fish; Semi-Aggressive fish; South & Central American Cichlids and Predators; African Cichlids; Fancy Goldfish; Koi and Pond fish; Pond Plants; and Aquarium Plants. There are also several smaller stand alone systems for various uses.
To give you some sort of idea for the volume of our operation, we use approximately 1750 gallons of saltwater per week that works out to about 91,000 gallons of saltwater per year.

We also have a number of displays throughout our store, which total over 12,000 gallons. The biggest of which is our 2500 gallon saltwater touch tank. Shaped like a fish, this display allows you to touch stingrays, and other marine life. Bring your kids; they will be thrilled by the experience of touching a stingray if they have never had the opportunity.

Check us out, That Fish Place is much more that just a store, it is an entertainment destination for fish and animal lovers.

Until next time,

Dave