Aquariums and Elevation

I have been working at the saltwater aquarium hobby for almost 4 years now. I will be the first to admit that my husbandry skills are still under development however I just have not had the kind of success that I would like.

It is impossible to bake bread and cake the same at excessive elevations above sea level. It seems a saltwater aquarium would also be susceptible to the same.

I was wondering what others that may live at elevation (I'm at ~6500 feet) have experience or maybe done differently...

Thanks

 

Denver Co has some amazing tanks and LFS, I think its not much of an isuue.... unless you want your tank to bake bread.

 

Hey if it makes a decent loaf...

I agree, I wonder if the Denver aquarium has to do anything differently than the Tampa Bay aquarium.

Plus I am 1300 feet higher than Denver...

 

Totally, I can understand that. What it comes down to is the physics of pressure. I'm a scuba diver and I can tell you there is a larger change in pressure between 10ft of water and 6500ft.

Not corrected for temperature and latitude, your standard pressure is .78 Atm. At 10 feet of water its 2 Atm, and 20ft is 3 Atm.

 

But is the pressure at the bottom of 2 feet of water different if that 2 feet of water is at sea level or at 6,500 feet? I say no, at least not measureably so.

 

2 feet not too much but i know diving at 5500 I always needed to correct for altitude at depth.

 

That is a good point, without scientific analysis and off the top of my head I would say that a 6500 foot column of air is probably insignificant compared to a 2 ft column of water...

What about the solubility of gases?

 

I know of several reef keepers at Lake Tahoe, 6200+ ft, who have no problems and they do nothing different than anyone else that they know of. I am at 4500 feet and do nothing different.

 

Show off.....

 

That explains it I need to move to a higher elevation for my tank to look like Johns.