Re: NANFA-- Game keepers lodge
Robert Carillio (darterman_at_hotmail.com)
Mon, 07 Aug 2000 09:43:45 EDT
Well Casper, The restaurant was of a "rustic lodge" type setting, that was
emulating the northern woods of North America. The place was really
decorated tastefully! Originally, they wanted to display a salt water
aquarium with coral reef fish, but I thought that a native fishes of the
region would be more appropriate. I had done work for them in the past, and
waas able to sway management to decide to do the "native" tank. The Aquarium
greeted patrons in an area where they were most likely to wait on a table.
It was the kind that could be viewed from all sides. Iy was housed in rugged
waterproof and properly vented oak cabinetry, that was left "roughly
finished" on purpose, to give the appearence of a more "woodsy" look, to
compliment the woodland regions of where the fish were from. The display
would replicate a local river, that most people were aware of in beauty, but
not of diversity in life. This provided a chance for viewers to be educated
as to a local river they grew up living near. The river was thr ROCKY RIVER,
on the west side of Cleveland, flowing through their fabulous metro park
district. The Aquarium display was adorned with various attractive graphics
telling about the fis, the river, and the importance of riparian forest. The
Aquarium itself, was actually 8 feet in length as I recall, 14 inches in
height, and 24 inches in width. I designed it thios way purposely to give it
a shallow streamlike appearence. It was thiccly decorated with various rock
and stone from the river, of which I made sure to "sterilize" first seeing
that where they came from was near a waste water treatment facility. ( You
never know! )... The lighting used was designed to bring forth a "clouded
daylight appearence" that one might experience when viewing the river from
underneath with a diving mask. This would also bring out better, the colors
of the fish. The Aquarium was filtered by a system that would turn over
about 5 to 6 times per hour. It was a wet dry system that had media ranging
from a high quality activated carbon, to micron material and siporax bio
media. The system seemed to always work fantastic, judgeing from the
appearence of the already filtered tap water, and the health of the fish! On
each end of the aquarium, on the outside, I decorated around the cabinetry
with "floral" arrangements of locally clipped and preserved common
vegetation like cat tails, phragmites, and riverbank tussoc sedge grasses. I
also placed larger pieces of wood and rock around the outside of the
display. This looked just as good or better than any public aquarium, if I
did say so myself!... I equiped the system with a rather inexpensive "drop -
in" type chiller ( coil drops directly into the sump of wet dry filter ),
which was set to keep the water at a consistent 63 to 65 degrees, sometimes
slowly dropping the temp down to the mid 40's over winter and spring. This
really looked fabulous, and recieved compliment after compliment, as well as
had generated more and more understanding of the fascination of a local
river, that most only 'thought" they knew! The aquarium was also fitted with
pumps for simulation of flow in the stream. These were placed on timers that
would shut them on and off throughout various parts of the day. I thought
this would be best, because even darters are not constantly in fast moving
water! Finally, the species featured were Red Belley Dace, Rainbow and
Greenside darters, Creek Chub, Central Stoneroller, Common Shiner,Mottled
Sculpin, and Blacknose Dace, among others. The low water temp. seemed to
help "slow" the appetite of these fosh, of which primarily fed on blood
worms, and tiny small feeder fish and chopped earthworm. I fed them , as
well as maintained the display for $125.00 per month. I finally grew tired
of making the trip to Cleveland however, and dismantled the display, and I
do not know what has become of it since. I also had a rare situation where
people getting drunk in the restaurant, which turned into a "yuppie" bar
after hours, were managing to drop cooked Waleye, and Beer bottles in an
attempt to feed the fish!!!... I had enough of that!.. This onle reaffirmed
my belief, that a few people can spoil a good thing, and that we need more
education about our rivers! Afterall, without water, how could they enjoy
that beer!!!... HA! Robert S. Carillio
>From: Prizma_at_aol.com
>Reply-To: nanfa_at_aquaria.net
>To: nanfa_at_aquaria.net
>Subject: NANFA-- Game keepers lodge
>Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2000 23:31:18 EDT
>
>hey robert...
>tell us more about this chilled native 7' tank you set up!
>casper
>
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/ For more information about NANFA, visit our web page, http://www.nanfa.org