Help me design an 8 foot tank

[Phantom Phish]

My wife and I are getting ready to build a new house, and I've gotten her to agree to "give" me the entire basement, to build an entertainment/ recreation room and aquarium display (woohoo!).
So this will be built from the ground up to house and display a large tank as the center piece with an adjacent "fish room" to house all sumps, propagation tanks, refugiums, etc..

I'm thinking of putting in an 8' tank, that will be 3' wide and somewhere between 24" and 30" high (probably 400 to 450 gallons). It would be set up as a room divider or peninsula type tank, i.e. viewable on three sides with one of the 3' ends against a wall. I'm leaning towards glass (starphire if I can afford it) as opposed to acrylic, but that's not set in stone.

For the overflow, I was thinking of having a 3' "trough" overflow along one of the 3' sides, with 3 or 4 bulkheads, something like the attachment below.

I'd also like a closed loop system, with the tank drilled for probably 4 additional bulk heads for that.

I guess my first question is, can all these bulkheads be installed in one 3' end of this tank, and still be structurally sound? Is there a better design for the overflow I should consider?

[micaheli]

Is the tank going to be sitting on the ground? or will there be a stand of some sort?

If on ground, I would suggest running PVC under the sand/rock of the tank and having circulation come up from the bottom... OR.. going above and through the canopy.

If on stand, I would drill through the bottom and run return plumbing through them...

Keep in mind that if you have the overflow on one side of the tank only, you will have a steady current in the tank and water will only move one way through the tank.... slowly though... And detritus may not leave the tank properly.

If it were my tank:
I would put it on a stand about 30" tall or maybe higher (depending on how tall the tank will be) so that its viewable without hunching down.

I would drill the end that is against the wall for overflows AND return and drill the bottom at the other end with a pipe that reaches the surface and skims from the middle (does that make sense?). For return, I would either do the same and pile LR around the pipes to disquise them so they don't look hideous --OR-- I would plumb the return through the canopy.

You are going tohave to post pictures when it is done.

[David Grigor]

Couple of things to consider that unfortunately I didn't until it was in place. Going wider then 24" your likely to need more than 1 row of lights to get adequate lighting across the whole tank. This adds considerable more lighting to the tank. Mine is 8' x 32" wide, I use 5 400W MH staggered front to back to cover it adequately. Going 24" wide you could potentially light with just a single row of MH.

Second which may not be an issue if building a new house but my house was built in the 50s. I have humidity issues in the house during the summer months. In the winter the heater helps burn it off and summer the central air helps but still too humid. Either provide seperate ventilation for your fish room or make sure you have a fresh air exchanger installed in the house........

[Mrs Smith]

Please keep the ideas coming. There's a chance (and a somewhat good one) that we'll be moving in about a year and upgrading/designing an 8' tank also.

Thanks!
Danielle

[micaheli]

I hate you people with your.... MONEY... Wish I had enough dough to make an 8' tank.. let alone build a house.

I suppose I'm just jealous. Congratulations.

[cath]

8 feet, for kryin' out loud! I could hold a party and take a nap in one that big

[wanareef]

I'm in the planning stages of our next tank - in-wall ply. 72" x 30" x24"h. I wanted to go wider, but as David brought up, you need more lights which means more heat and more $$ to run.

Yours pose an interesting challenge. On a 30" span , you would have enough room for several BH's. I would use at least 1.5" for the trough, at least 2" for the intake on the closed loop.

Now, how were you gonna to get that CL water back into the tank? You could go under the tank, but on a tank that size, and if it is glass, that bottom will usually be tempered - then over the top it'll have to be. Another reason not to drill the bottom, just incase it leaks - all your water is gone. If the CL is comming from over the top, you can have one circuit of the CL on the "right" side and the other circuit on the "left" side. Off of these, you can have a mix of "lok-line", eductors, (Geoff's diy)and just plain nozzels.

You'll need some big pumps, the Sequence 1000 series, 5800seq23, 5400gph will work for you, these are a little more pressure rated than the 750 series, or maybe the Power series 9000pwr77, 8500 gph pure pressure, maybe two skimmers instead of one big hawnking one, several calicum reactors, large top-off and so on.

good luck

[Phantom Phish]

Wow, thanks to all for the great input.

The tank will definitely be on a stand, although I haven't figured out the exact height yet. I agree that I don't want to have to crouch down to view the tank. I'd like the top edge of the tank to be at my eye level, which shouldn't be too hard to accomplish since I'm not overly tall (about 5'8"). So rough guestimate, the stand would probably be about 30"-35" high.

For the main circulation, I'm thinking the water would leave the tank through the trough overflow at one 3' end, pass through a sump and settlement tank with one or more protein skimmers, spill into a 100 or 150 gallon Rubbermaid stock tank with a remote DSB/macroalgaes/refugium/mangroves and then return to the tank via three or four 1" seaswirls along each of the 8' sides of the tank (total of 6-8 seaswirls). The display tank would either be bare bottom or a minimal amount of sand for aesthetic puposes only.

I'd also thought I'd install two Tunze Turbelle Streams on a contoller for additional circulation in the tank. The closed loop I had intended to exit the display tank on the 3' end of the tank, and then return through that same 3' end or the bottom of the tank at the opposite end, and connect it to a spray bar or two embedded in the live rock to help keep detritus from settling on or underneath the rock. But wannareef makes a good point, if the bottom has to be tempered glass, going through the bottom isn't going to be an option.

Do you all think that circulation will be enough to keep detritus in suspension long enough to find it's way to the overflow?

I was thinking a 3' width for the tank, so that I'd have enough room to stack LR and have it be stable and viewable on three sides. The comments about the lighting are good ones, but I'm not sure 24" will give me enough room to stack rock. Maybe I should go with 30"? Although that will probably only save me a couple of MHs.

I'm trying to research tank manufacturers right now. Anyone have any recommendations, particularly in the southeastern U.S. (I live outside of Atlanta)?

[Doug1]

[quote] I was thinking a 3' width for the tank, so that I'd have enough room to stack LR and have it be stable and viewable on three sides. The comments about the lighting are good ones, but I'm not sure 24" will give me enough room to stack rock. Maybe I should go with 30"? Although that will probably only save me a couple of MHs.[unquote]

If the rock and coral are basically centered under the lights that ought to work, seems silly to spend to light the outer fringes

[Spanky]

How'd you guys miss this?

Spanky's Room divider

Greg's Room divider

We both had our tanks built in Ft. Lauderdale.

[Phantom Phish]

Spanky:
Actually, I have seen both of those threads, and I was kinda hoping both you and gregt would jump in here and offer your thoughts.

What are the dimensions of your tank? Both your and gregt's tanks are, of course, similar to what I have in mind. I see both you and he have your overflows at one end of the tank. Your overflows extend from top to bottom of the side of the tank, and I assume your bulkheads are drilled in the bottom like gregt's. Do you see a problem putting the bulkheads on the sidewall, like I'm thinking of?

[David Grigor]

Originally posted by Phantom Phish
I was thinking a 3' width for the tank, so that I'd have enough room to stack LR and have it be stable and viewable on three sides. The comments about the lighting are good ones, but I'm not sure 24" will give me enough room to stack rock. Maybe I should go with 30"? Although that will probably only save me a couple of MHs.

Do some research on aquascaping there are lots of techniques out there. I use drill 3/8" holes and use rods. Also patch the joints between rocks with acrocrete mixture ( recipe people use to make rock ). This give a very solid, your imagination is the limit and saves $$ and lbs. of rock and can do much more without needing as much width.

Stacking tends to end up boring looking uses way more rock, less circulation in and around rock and requires more width to get solid structures.

[David Grigor]

Originally posted by cath
8 feet, for kryin' out loud! I could hold a party and take a nap in one that big

Ya mean like this ?

[Phantom Phish]

David Grigor:
Classic picture, I've always liked that shot.

I also appreciate your comments on humidity control. I'll definitely be working with my builder on that issue.

[Spanky]

I don't think that would be a problem. Anything that gets the water out.

Watch the 3ft width. You can't reach that far.