Ask any budding aquarist (that’s someone who keeps fish) about their chosen hobby and pastime and they’ll almost certainly tell you that it can be, and is a deceptively costly hobby.
The problem is, that even though you might start with an entry-level ten or twenty-gallon tank before you know it, aquarism has you caught you firmly in its tentacles, and the simple ten and twenty-gallon tanks just aren’t enough to satiate your desire to watch your fish interact in their habitat.
And the more time you spend immersed in the aquarist world, the more fish you’re going to want to add to your tank. Therein lies the problem. The more fish you want, the bigger the tank that you’re going to need to keep them in.
It’s also why a lot of more dedicated fish keepers and aquarists bypass a fifty-gallon tank altogether and take the next logical step on their fish-based journey and head straight to the pet store and opt for a one hundred gallon tank instead.
But when they do decide to move up in the aquarist world, how much does it cost them, and how much would it cost you to buy a one hundred gallon fish tank?
As we’ve already said, keeping fish is an expensive and time-consuming hobby, and when you buy any new tank, it isn’t just the cost of that tank that you need to factor into the financial equation.
Every tank is supposed to be a purpose designed environment for your fish, so well as purchasing the tank, you’ll also need to add the flora and fauna that your fish need, the amount of gravel that it will take to line the tank, the decorations that you’ll want to add (every aquarist has a soft spot for a certain type of decoration, whether it a treasure chest, a sunken temple or an old shipwreck) and most importantly, the filtration system that your fish are going to need in order to survive in their new habitat.
When you add all of those things together the outlay soon begins to build up, and by the time, you’ve finished equipping and preparing your new tank with everything that your fish will need in order to thrive and survive in it, you’ll be lucky to walk away with any change from one thousand dollars.
And if you don’t keep a careful eye on what you’re spending, that amount could easily, and soon will begin to skyrocket even further. We told you that it wasn’t cheap, didn’t we?
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What Size Is A One Hundred Gallon Fish Tank?
This is one of those questions that has multiple answers, mainly because most one hundred gallon tanks don’t conform to a standardized pattern or design. In fact, it’s incredibly difficult to find a one hundred gallon tank in the average mom-and-pop, or even larger chain, pet store.
Neither tends to stock them as they’re seen as being more specialist items that don’t sell in big numbers, so if you want to buy one, you’ll more than likely have to either order it from or visit a store that specializes in fish and aquariums.
The only thing that every one hundred gallon fish tank usually has in common, is the amount of water that they’re built to contain, which is, unsurprisingly, one hundred gallons. However, taking the amount of water that they’re made to hold into condensation, it is possible to estimate the size parameters of a one hundred gallon fish tank.
They usually tend to be between four and a half feet to six feet in length (fifty-four to seventy-two inches), two feet (twenty-four inches) wide, and one and a half foot, or eighteen inches, high.
Obviously, these measurements aren’t precise, and depending on the type of fish that you decide to keep, and the space that you have available in your home, the height and length measurements can be, and often are, interchangeable.
The measurements can also change if you decide to have a custom tank made, because at the end of the day, the only thing that your tank really needs to do, is hold one hundred gallons of water.
How Many Fish Can You Keep In A One Hundred Gallon Fish Tank?
The good news is, that the general rule of thumb for keeping fish, is that it’s one for one, That is, for every gallon of water in your tank, it’ll be able to safely and comfortably house one fish.
That said, the rule is dependent on the type of fish that you elect to keep, and usually only applies to more sociable freshwater fish, who tend to be smaller, less aggressive, and like to gather in, and spend time in schools.
For saltwater fish, it’s dependent entirely on the type of fish that you want to keep, and the way in which the species behaves, and how aggressive it is.
A little research and knowledge can go a long way, so find out as much as you can about any saltwater fish you want to keep before adding them to your tank, and that should tell you everything that you’ll need to know about the number of them that you can successfully keep in a one hundred gallon tank.
