Newbie Wheelchair user, need advice!

R

raustinreese

New member
Hello everyone! My name is Austin, I have wanted a saltwater tank for about 15 years but I was active duty military and I could never devote the time to make sure I kept my hobby and investment living. In 2013 I suffered a Military Freefall (skydiving) accident and I am now paralyzed. I have been doing a ton of research and trying to figure out what the best setup will be for me so I can do most everything myself. I would really like to have a tank between 30-90 gallons and I want to do a Reef (live coral) and Fish tank. Any help would be extremely helpful. I am starting from scratch so I don't have anything yet!!

-Austin
 
Good luck! I imagine you will have some of the same issues as short people like me! I’m new to this reef tank thing, so no great advise, just encouragement. Being short all my life, I’d say to make sure you set things up so you can reach over and to the bottom of the tank. Big mistake I made when I had when I kept fresh water fish is a tall hexagonical tank. It was beautiful, but I couldn’t keep it clean.
 
Can you make or have made a short stand? And/or start with a large frag tank, they are shallow.

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Last edited:
Welcome! All I can say is that I have a low-tech 33 gallon long that I absolutely love because it's only 12 inches deep and 12 inches wide (by 48 inches long). I find that to be a great, easy to reach size. I am not paralyzed, but I can easily kneel on the floor and still reach in and work inside the tank. I'm 5' 5", so I've got a short reach.

Good luck!
 
austin i would say maybe running a longer shallow frag tank looks great and would give you access to clean it and aquascape it best of luck post build pics when you get it going


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So sorry to hear about your injury and thank you very much for your service to this country!

I agree with everyone else, low frag tank would be your best bet. If you can set it up in the room so that you can see and get around all sides of it or even 3 sides like a peninsula that would help a lot I think.
 
There's no reason a tank can't be set up at coffee-table height, and put the sump and support equipment in an adjacent piece of furniture like a buffet or armoire with doors and lighting (so you can see what you're doing.) Just be sure to use right-angle legs on the thing, because angles don't take fishtank weight as well as direct support. Your biggest problem would be water changes, but we put a topoff bucket in an under-stand space, with a Hydor Smart top off, and that means we just tip the bucket to fill it. With a furniture dolly to support an adjacent fill-bucket, you could use a small pump to move water into the topoff, the same pump to move 10% of water down from the tank to the rolling bucket, and have your waterchange and topoff handled by the same set of equipment. I'd advise softie coral or lps corals as types, because they're less cranky and demanding --- sps is the bleeding edge of the hobby and prone to problems, but whatever you want, go for it.
And thank for your service.
 
raustinreese said:
Hello everyone! My name is Austin, I have wanted a saltwater tank for about 15 years but I was active duty military and I could never devote the time to make sure I kept my hobby and investment living. In 2013 I suffered a Military Freefall (skydiving) accident and I am now paralyzed. I have been doing a ton of research and trying to figure out what the best setup will be for me so I can do most everything myself. I would really like to have a tank between 30-90 gallons and I want to do a Reef (live coral) and Fish tank. Any help would be extremely helpful. I am starting from scratch so I don't have anything yet!!

-Austin
Click to expand...
Where do you live?

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I'll echo what others have said, a frag tank would be good. You may want to look into a lagoon style too which is pretty much the same style.
 

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Join a local reef club will help you out, if you was close to me I would give it to you. I'm sure your local club will feel same way..good luck, God bless, and thank you for your time you spent defending me and my country..

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Thanks

Thanks

Hi everyone,

I wanted to say thank you for the suggestions for the frag tank! I will look more into them but I think that will be the best option for me to be able to do everything myself.
 
Thank you for your service.


My vote is for a 60g FT as well. 4x2x12". If there is a place you can put a short side against the wall and run plumbing through to a fish room with a sump......

+1 for finding a local club. I'm sure there are plenty of people in your area willing to lend a hand.
 
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