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How come we dont have fish tanks at either Boca, or Jupiter campus

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I know this seems like a stupid thought, but I was watching the tv show Tanked and it may me wonder. How come the univeristy has never done put in anything like some of those tanks on the show for our campuses new buildings or brighten up some of our existing buildings. Its just a thought.
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Re: How come we dont have fish tanks at either Boca, or Jupiter campus

Short answer is probably money.

Salt water tanks are fairly expensive to stock and maintain I believe. Also I think there would be an "outcry" that they are using funds for something frivolous.

I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick @$$ and I'm out of bubble gum.

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Re: How come we dont have fish tanks at either Boca, or Jupiter campus

It absolutely can be done (and should be, at some point).  FIU has one, as does Nova and… can't remember the other Florida university that has one. I know UF has one at one of their new hospitals.

owlfamily is right in that salt water tanks require twice the maintenance of a freshwater tank. It's constant work to balance the levels of everything.

However, we have an excellent saltwater store right around the corner (Barrier Reef, in the plaza next to Dunkin Donuts on 20th) that could be hired to provide expert services.

The start-up cost isn't as bad, maybe ten grand? A tank setup from the store could run you a couple grand, fish and sand a couple hundred, and they almost never use real live corals in these kind of situations because it's a very delicate ecosystem and they can do things like crawl across the tank to kill each other or poison the fish, so they just make sculptures that resemble real coral, throw it in there and hope most people don't know the difference.

Hiring Barrier Reef to manage it (which I think they'd take as a point of pride) could run you a couple hundred a month, depending upon how involved they have to be.

It could be done and there are successful models out there (as I mentioned) for FAU to study on how to do it but it's literally just a matter of someone getting behind the project and working out how to pay for it.

That said, if FAU is going to do it, I'd like to see it done in a significant way or not at all. I just don't think many people are going to pay attention to a 3' x 8' tank a month after it opens. Go big or go home.
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Re: How come we dont have fish tanks at either Boca, or Jupiter campus

There was plans for a 2 story salt water tank on the East property of SeaTech, when it was remodeled from SeaFair in 1999. I believe they had budget problems or some hiccup so that property has been bare since the opening. They wouldn't even have to worry about water maintenance because it would have been on a direct ocean feed.
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Re: How come we dont have fish tanks at either Boca, or Jupiter campus

How come we dont have fish tanks at either Boca, or Jupiter campus

A couple people in my office have betas...
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Re: How come we dont have fish tanks at either Boca, or Jupiter campus

It comes down to a money issue.  I was always supervised that there was no tanks anywhere on campus, seeing as we had a fairly large biology department.  I know I kept a small saltwater tank in the student apartments and I knew a bunch of other students who had them in off campus places, you would think we could have found someone or a group of students to maintain the tank.  Realistically though, I'm not sure how you would determine who gets to do that.

I worked for a couple of years after college doing large aquarium installs and maintenance and the biggest problem with saltwater is not necessarily the maintenance, its that 9 out of 10 fish you see in certain stores are already dead.  They come into the shop in real bad shape a lot of the time and die no matter what you do for them.  Having a tank at a campus would be cool, but I think it would have to be a donation type of deal for "budgetary" reasons. 

FAU - We got Bowls!
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