My trip to Inland Aquatics

[JoeBlog]

Another stop on my trip around the US brought me to Inland Aquatics in Terra Haute, Indiana. Basically, it’s completely land-locked and in the middle of no where. This shop/research facility would be impressive in any big city coastal area, and thus incredibly amazing to be located in small farmer town USA. Here is their website if you want to look them up and read more about their philosophies:http://inlandaquatics.com/

Unfortunately, I didn't have a digital camera. So, all these pictures are taken with a disposable and scanned in. Sorry for the terrible picture quality. :oops:

The place is huge!! They seem to be focusing on trying/establishing new husbandry/propagation techniques for coral, marine fish, macro algae and invertebrates. They are also heavily involved in education of young and old about aquatics with a focus on preservation. Here are a few pictures of their educational area:

Now that's a DEEP sand bed! Which is a common theme around their place. Also notice the lack of skimmers. I didn't see ANY, but was told that they do use some on their smaller display tanks. This picture shows one of their main types of filtration used at the facility, i.e. algae scrubber (the box on the right) Control, where are you??? Wasn't it you always pushing this algae scrubbing technique??

This is another very interesting tank in the educational area. The overflow is the edge of the tank and then down to a basin below where the return pump is located.

This is one of their display tanks with the MASSIVE sailfin I mentioned in another thread. It isn't really obvious from the picture, but this fish is considerably bigger than 12"!!

From the big to the very small, this is what I'd call a serious nano. Notice that the only filtration on this tank is a biowheel, deep sandbed and rock.

They have a front shop where they sell off their creations:

Some of the frags they have available forsale:

Here is a picture of some shark eggs that they had for sale. You could actually see the little guys squirming around inside.

Now to behind the scenes where the breeding, propagation, experimentation, etc... takes place:

This is an overview of one corner of the facility showing the holding tanks for fish waiting to be moved to the front sale tanks. I think you may be able to come back and purchase directly out of these as well.

Here is the frag tank:

They had row after row of huge plastic/fiberglass drums for breeding. Unforunately, the lighting was so poor that none of these pictures came out. :oops: They also had at least three of these types of breeding areas:

They also had numerous huge reef tanks for which I presume they are studying husbandry techniques and trying to create natural environments:

Check out the huge RBTA:

This leather is at least two foot across and notice the massive clam next to it:

They also had numerous 5-6 foot deep tanks:

They grow their own food:

Now to the interesting husbandy techniques...

They don't use any skimmers and don't do any water changes, and I am talking about YEARS have gone by!! They have VERY deep sand beds (adding new top layers of sand from time to time adding to the depth) and employ "non-traumatic water movement, as provided by Archimedes Screw Pumps or Water Blowers" as seen below:

They use quite large algae scrubbers on all the big tanks. Here are a few pictures of the inside:

And here is one dumping:

Here are three in a row on one of the big tanks:

They never touch the sand bed. In fact, in most areas there is no way to even get to it since the growth is so crazy. Here is a picture showing how they create the reef structure with trays stacked at various levels.

The fish in these tanks are more healthy, larger and exhibiting more natural behavior than any I've ever seen captive. The extremely large fish were also quite old, e.g. 10-15 years. The experience of the visit has sure opened my eyes to alternative husbandry techniques and made me think twice about my sterile looking barebottom. Not to mention, the maintenance on these tanks is nil, i.e. feed the fish, top up with fresh water and scrub the algae off the scrubbers once a week. All of their reefs look better than mine and not one $2000 skimmer in sight. :-? Better not let my wife read this!!

[shiuh]

[wasp]

Just goes to show, the only rule in this hobby is there are no rules :lol:

[Jeroen]

Great story thanks :bounce:

Always wondered how they would breed fish without skimming or filtering the planktonic stage out. Good to see that this is possible with such healthy looking tanks.

Are that 400W or 1000W metal halides. Must be a nice powerbill.

[cookie extreme]

Must be a nice powerbill

that what is was thinking too. all the profit will go to the power company. surprised they're not using natural sunlight? what bulbs are in the halides? 6500K?

[gregb]

Did they know you had your camera clicking away?

[Duke]

I am very impressed!

Do you think this could work in some little town in NZ?

I feel live on the dole and have one big reef tank!!!