Fish + Apartment = ???

[kkiu]

Hi everyone,

Living in an apartment will soon be a reality for me and was wondering if fish tanks and apartments mix.

First up, do lease agreements in most apartments allow for keeping fish tanks? (Similar to how most apartments don’t allow pets?)

Is there a legal requirement for me to tell the landlord I intend or will be keeping a fish tank?

Also, it would be great to hear some stories from people who live in apartments and keep fish tanks. Is it worth keeping fish whilst renting in an apartment? I’m worried about things like, the need to move frequently, water damage to floors, flooding lower floors if a tank breaks....


Anyways, I hope to stick with fish keeping, but I don’t want it to turn into a hindrance.

Cheers,
Millard

[aquafrogstuff]

Interesting questions....

I think you need to look at this from the point of reasonableness. Look at the extremes. Noone would bat an eyelid if you had a fishbowl with a goldfish. On the other hand, if you wanted to plumb PVC pipework through walls from a 500L holding tank etc then I think it would be reasonable for the apartment owner to be most unimpressed. I'm not aware of any legal restriction unless its specifically mentioned in the leasing agreement, so check.

I would've thought a fair compromise between the two extremes would be a 150L tank.

Just be careful about water changes and have a good quality tank that's unlikely to leak, then you won't have to worry about 150L draining into the apartment beneath you...

[foo]

Morning everyone,

Im living in an apartment too... but have a 30l goldfish tank, a 180l oscar tank, a 15l hospital tank and a 200l community tank....

Yess... it is a major bi@tch moving the fish as well as the tanks over... especially when theres no lifts in my building... things we do out of love...

okay... i have flooded my living room once because i didnt secure the hose emptying out to the balcony and the hose krept into the living room... so that was not impressive... wat should have taken me 40mins became a 5hrs process... not fun...

but my arguement is that... fish dont mess up the carpet like dogs or cats... and the walls stay clean...

[rupes88]

G'day

I was recently faced with the same question..

First I went through my standard LJ hooker lease. The main line of relevance states that to have 'any' animals living on the premise you MUST have the approval of the land lord. This is to be done in writing. So I guess technically, if the landlord wants to be picky, if you don't get permission you are in breach of the condition of the lease.

Now I really really wanted to get a discus set up going and I didn't want to hear a negative answer, so in the end I just went ahead and got the tank with out putting a formal request. By the way it is a 215l Aqua One jobbies .

Now this isn't a small tank so I was pretty paranoid what the land lord would do if I got sprung. As I’m on the second floor I was also worried about the tank crashing into my downstairs neighbours living but as it is an old building from the 20's I was pretty confident that the structure was solid and could take the weight. To be sure, I had a builder mate come over and check out the floor to make sure it was strong and level.

In the end the landlord did drop by and walked straight past it with out even taking a second look. Now either he was a blind goose and didn’t notice it, or, he was cool with it. So I banked on the later however I didn’t raise the point just in case.

Anyway, it hasn't fallen through the floor yet :lol: and Im about to sign another 6 month lease. So I'd say go for it but check your floor is solid and level and make sure you get on the landlords good side early just in case there are any problems in the future.

Re w/c I have a 70l beer brewing barrel in the kitchen for aging and when I do the w/c I put a large plastic drop sheet down to protect the carpet from spills. Another problem has been disposing of water. I have to pour it into the bath to get rid of it. Now this really pisses my girlfriend off and it means after each w/c old Cinderella here has to scrubs the bath tub out. It then leads onto gentle suggestion that I should do the toilet and sink whilst I’m there !!!

One interesting point is water consumption. I recently had to run a metro course that required me to do 130l worth of w/c's a day. That plus my regular w/c and general household use (I love a long showers too) would show a pretty big spike in my water use. As my landlord pays for the water bill I wonder what he is going to say when he gets his quarterly bill ??

[FishLover]

One way to solve your W/C problem is buying a pump and hose. You can empty the water into a container, then pump it out at the sink. That way it is easier to do.

Good idea to have a large plastic sheet. My wife complains every time I mess up with the carpet. Now I can avoid that.

[foo]

rupe88,

huahahhahaha... why didnt i think of plastic sheet!! well done... u saved me on a days worth of nagging everytime i do a w/c from now on... thank you...

i have pondered about the water bill my landlord recieves at the end of each month... i know i wouldnt be impressed... thats why i try to catch rainwater from the balcony too but theres just not enuff rainfall to even fill a 1/6 of the 180l bucket...

but i guess it is irresponsible for anyone to ignore the terms and conditions of a rental agreement. but then again... discus fever is hard to cure....

[jim from sydney]

[quote="rupes88"]G'day

you are in breach of the condition of the lease.

I was pretty confident that the structure was solid and could take the weight. To be sure, I had a builder mate come over and check out the floor to make sure it was strong and level.

In the end the landlord did drop by and walked straight past it with out even taking a second look.


modern buildings are designed for 1.5KPa floor live load, that is close enough to 150kg/m2 your full barrel of 70 liters is only about 70-90 kg in mass including the barrel's self weight so providing it takes roughly about 0.5 m2 of floor area minimum, you should be ok.

your landlord should approve your hobby, normally it is no problem, but if water stains occur on carpets etc at a later date he can legally sue you. check with your agent, to be sure it is generally only a formality anyway....Jim.

[Del]

Thanks Rupes, plastic sheet added to my shopping list this week.

I was using our bath towels to sop up the spilt water which then had to be washed - so you can imagine the weekly water usuage on top of waterchanges, etc!