Very Large Display Tank, Help Appreciated

[UnderWorldAquatics]

Hi all, my new business UnderWorld Aquatics is starting to come along nicely with a couple of good projects on the go. I am in the process of building a small display building in our backyard, it will basically look like an average 24'x26' garage but will be loaded with holding tanks, rearing tanks for tank raised fish, and will house some display tanks. I am looking for suggestions on my main display tank right now as it is almost finished being built and will be one of the first tanks to arrive. Things I am looking for inspiration for are, overflows, returns, plumbing ideas, lighting, mabey even aquascaping ideas. Tank specs so far are 14'longx7'deepx8'tall with 24"radius corners on all 4 corners. The front of the tank has a 10'longx5'tall acrylic veiwing window, when looking at the front of the tank the side to the right has a 4' vertical oval veiwing window. The tank is made of fiberglass with an extremly smooth black or dark blue(havent decided yet) interior gelcoat and has 2 inset acrylic veiwing windows. I would like to place the back of the tank as close to the wall as possible so was thinking about having the overflows or one long overflow at the rear top interior of the tank. Some other ideas I had was to use some digital metal halide ballasts with some 1000W 20k bulbs to get some penetrating light into the tank. I was also thinking of having some sort of rock shelves on the rear wall, I would like to keep some mushrooms, soft corals, anemones, and mabey some hard corals as well. Even though I would like to keep some corals this tank is more geared towards housing 1-2 black tip reef sharks, some large varities of tangs, angels, and some schools of various fish so I would like to keep alot of open swiming room. Any ideas are greatly appreciated as I need to make some decisions soon as the tank is nearing completion. Filtration will be located to the left side of the tank when being veiwed from the front. I will need someones help with building a very large calcium reactor. Also looking for various ideas to cover the fiberglass body of the tank? One more opinion question... I have access to a 17' great white shark that is very real looking, I was thinking of having it cut at an angle behing its main fins and having it mounted on the roof of the fishroom so that it looks as though it is bursting out of the building, what do you folks think of this idea???
Thanks for any and all help!!!!!!!!!!

[Old Guy]

WOW :exclaim: :cool: :eek:

I really can't help you with anything but I would love to see the finished project.

[Trevor Robertson]

well I have no clue how to help as I would have simmilar questions about my tank but on a much smaller scale.

as far as the shark goes it sounds like a great plan but I would add some kind of water splash coming out of the wall as well other wise it will just look like a dear head on the wall, and you want it to look like it is going to drop right on you. (do you get what I am saying?)

Any way good luck and be sure to take lots of pictures as you are building all of this cool stuff!

[Marcus K]

Wow, Pisces Pet Emporium has a large display tank that has a scimmer box built up throught the middle of the tank. I thought it was awsome but I have not had the pleasure of seeing many large tanks. It looked neat as you could see different fish swimming around, not sure which ones to look at, too many favorites. I stop in while on route to the mountains for snowboarding. They need a bench so I can stay a couple of hours. Good luck, hope you post pics, maybe I can visit next time I'm in Kelowna. The shark sounds great, would be cool if you could have some of shark outside and the rest on the inside... Marcus.

[UnderWorldAquatics]

For the shark I was thinking of mounting the head on the roof of the building coming out on an angle with broken roof tiles and boards sticking out around it so that it appears that the shark is bursting out of the building. Does that sound good?
Please give any input you can think of for the tank as it will turn out alot better if I use ideas from the whole canreef board instead of just my own ideas.
Thanks: Kyle

[Buccaneer]

As far as the black tip reef sharks go there is a thread on RC where a author ( cant remember name ) stated that the sharks need to " glide " 2 body lengths and a BTRS can grow to 6 ft so tank size should be in the range of 18 ft long or more ( apparently they stress from swimming all the time if no room to glide ) ... vlamingi tangs grow pretty large ( 2 ft ) and a school of those would be cool

Cheers

[Buccaneer]

By my calculations that tank would be in the neighbourhood of around 5800 Gallons so a skimmer to handle that would likely be commercial ... maybe check the Vancouver Aquarium for a source to a distributor ... I could think of a really LARGE quad Beckett design with Dual 8" Risers but I am not sure that one would be sufficient ??? would be fun to build tho :biggrin: ... maybe 2 quad Becketts ??


I like the idea of a overflow that runs the full length of the tank as that will skim the surface for you nicely ... any consideration as to sump/refugium size ?

If you use 10/12K 1000W bulbs you might get better penetration right ? ... may even look blue at the bottom just like the real thing :smile:

TOTM at RC is a mostly softie tank with Zoos and mushrooms ... looks really cool ( and really colourfull too ) and you wont have to spend a fortune on lighting :cool:


Cheers

[UnderWorldAquatics]

Dont know how big the sumps will be but a few hundred gallons each for sure, was planning on running multiple large ETSS skimmers and if I dont go with them I will use some RK2 skimmers. Will need help with designing a calcium reactor large enough to keep the levels up. The tank should hold somewhere around 5500gallons because of the radiused corners. People help me out here... would 10-12k 1000W metal halide bulbs be more penetrating and make the tank brighter than using closer to 20k bulbs. these are the kind of things I need pointed out. Keep the helpful critiquing comming.

About the black tip reef sharks, I have seen many btrs in captivity and have never seen even an older mature btrs much over 4' They have been reported up to 6' but these measurments are given for the largest btrs ever tagged or captured. Most btrs in captivity seem to stay 3 1/2 - 4 1/2 feet in length when full grown. Ive heard of the odd one exceeding this by a bit but hey Im fine with it for now. In the next couple years I will be building a house and setting up another large display and the tank will be well over 20' long so if they do seem to outgrow this tank they can be moved into the new tank. and for now with the length and width of the tank with radiused corners they can glide quite abit around and around.

About the Vlamingii tangs, I have already had a school of them and like them very much I was planning on having a school of them already. Other fish that I am adding will likely be fish that like to feed heavily on Mysis shrimp as I have an unlimited supply at my disposal.

[Troy F]

You could talk to Grant at Big Al's (Burnaby and Richmond). He's built large commercial skimmers and I think has built some of the units at the Van Public Aquarium. He's set up a 12x8x4 tank in Burnaby that houses at least three btr sharks. You may reconsider all those tasty angels and tangs too :biggrin:, I'm pretty sure he lost quite a few fish to the sharks.

PS: I like the "shark in the roof" idea, I just asked if I could have one and was promptly denied, she thought it would rot and start to smell after a while.

[titus]

Hello,

Let's work on this calcium reactor and discuss this over e-mail.

Titus

[Delphinus]

PS: I like the "shark in the roof" idea, I just asked if I could have one and was promptly denied, she thought it would rot and start to smell after a while.

:lol: Thanks for the chuckle Troy!! :mrgreen:

[Lofus]

I've been reading up on skimmer design and one thing struck me that you might want to consider, The cross sectional area of the skimmer is important, not how you divide it up.

This means that 2 x 6" = 10" or 4 x 4" = 10". This way you could have multiple skimmers so that if you had a problem with one or took one out of service for cleaning you would not significantly effect the tank.

The same sparing philosophy might want to be considered for pumps as well.

[Delphinus]

Lofus, I'm afraid I don't understand what you're saying i.e. 2 times 6 does not equal 10 (nor does 2 times pi times 3 squared which would be the cross sectional area).... Can you elaborate and maybe provide a reference so I can read up on it too?

In my experience, multiple skimmers on a single system does not necessarily equate to a linear increase in "skimming power." I.e., two identical skimmers is not twice the skimming. One tends to outcompete the other. I once read a "tank of the month" or other "featured tank" (I think it was Richard Harker's) where he uses an air driven counter current skimmer as an indicator. I.e., when it starts producing skimmate he knows it's time to clean the other skimmer (I forget what the "other" skimmer was I think it was a large beckett style). Might have been in MFA 2002 where I saw this I'll have to check up on it.

[Lofus]

Sorry Delphinus. The book I've been reading that describes the skimming theory is "Aquatic Systems Engineering: Devices and How They Function" by Pedro Ramon Escobal.

By 2 x 6" = 10" I was referring to a rule of thumb in standard steel piping design but I got the sizes wrong. It should read 2 x 6" = 8".

A 6" sch 40 steel pipe has an ID of 6.065 in so a cross sectional area of 28.8 sq in. Two 6" combined are 57.6 sq in. An 8" sch 40 steel pipe has an ID of 7.981 in so a cross sectional area of 50.3 sq in.

One 8" system or twinned 6" systems behave very simmilliarly. The same holds true for two 8" systems behaving like a single 10" system.

I would expect that acrylic pipe would act the same as steel more or less.

I agree that two different styles of skimmer should operate differently in parallel but two of the same style should operate like one big skimmer.

[Fishster]

That is an awsome project, have you given any thought as to using artificial or trucking in natural seawater?

[Troy F]

Sorry Delphinus. The book I've been reading that describes the skimming theory is "Aquatic Systems Engineering: Devices and How They Function" by Pedro Ramon Escobal.

By 2 x 6" = 10" I was referring to a rule of thumb in standard steel piping design but I got the sizes wrong. It should read 2 x 6" = 8".

A 6" sch 40 steel pipe has an ID of 6.065 in so a cross sectional area of 28.8 sq in. Two 6" combined are 57.6 sq in. An 8" sch 40 steel pipe has an ID of 7.981 in so a cross sectional area of 50.3 sq in.

One 8" system or twinned 6" systems behave very simmilliarly. The same holds true for two 8" systems behaving like a single 10" system.

I would expect that acrylic pipe would act the same as steel more or less.

I agree that two different styles of skimmer should operate differently in parallel but two of the same style should operate like one big skimmer.

There's been a number of people over the years that have run dual skimmers and found only one doing the work.

[StirCrazy]

There's been a number of people over the years that have run dual skimmers and found only one doing the work.

I have seen that posted by two people in the last 2 or 3 years. and both thoes people have tried it using different types of skimmers.

weather this matters or not it could have been becuae one was more efficient than the other and there was a limited amount of nutrents for them to remove from the water.

I thought about it then and I still cannot see why two skimmers shouldent work. they both pull in tank water and there for if they are being run corectly they should both skim. I think the key would be to have them supplied from the same area in order to avoid one being supplied with water from the others discharge.

just doesent sit right with me that one will work and the other won't.

Steve

[Troy F]

I hear you, it doesn't make sense. I guess until someone can afford to put two decent skimmers, of the same type, on the same system, we'll really never know.

[Delphinus]

Not that I really have any idea, but maybe could it have something to do with how fast the DOC accumulates into the water column (i.e. the rate of accumulation) and varying efficiencies of a skimmer to pull it out as it happens... ?? So, say for example if skimmer A is known to outperform skimmer B and we have both skimmers running on a tank, as the fish poop into the water the DOC (or whatever it is we are pulling out with the skimmers) starts to accumulate. Skimmer A starts pulling the DOC out before skimmer B does; thus suddenly the rise in DOC starts to taper off a little bit. Skimmer B doesn't pull out "nothing" per se but it is less than that of skimmer A. Assuming no more fish poop for the moment the DOC starts to drop a little bit and thus for the moment there's nothing new to pull out. Until another fish poops again, and so on.

IF this theory was somewhat close to reality then it would suggest that two skimmers of identical abilities would both be pulling out gunk equally.


But .... I have no idea if it "really" works this way at all or not. I'm just thinking out loud for the sake of seeing if anyone else has a theory about it ... :smile:

cheers

[StirCrazy]

um.. ya Tony, exactly what I said :mrgreen: in the second paragraph
"one was more efficient than the other and there was a limited amount of nutrents for them to remove from the water. "

Steve

[UnderWorldAquatics]

Well I guess we will see what happens as I might be using 2 of the exact same high quality skimmers. Probably something like dual ETSS Quad 3000 Profesionals. Each one is rated for up to 5000 gallons when using a 3/4hp high pressure pump. I figure a max tank load of 10,000gallons should be suffecient for my 5800gallon display, and I have found that ETSS rates their skimers very conservatively. I might end up using 1 large skimmer made of mabey translucent fiberglass but Im unsure at this point, it depends what some of my connections offer me.
About the seawater question... I have thought about trucking in seawater but it is not much cheaper and there is a lack of clean water on the coast of B.C. Buying salt by the pallet makes it a little more affordable and I can also get it by the 2000lb bag for a little cheaper yet.

Anyone have any big tank ideas of their own, things they would do to a large tank???

[Delphinus]

um.. ya Tony, exactly what I said :mrgreen: in the second paragraph
"one was more efficient than the other and there was a limited amount of nutrents for them to remove from the water. "


Forgive my oversight, I didn't mean to imply you hadn't already said the same sort of thing I just wanted to try to elaborate on it. Trying to think of ways to quantify measurements of a skimmers effectiveness. (To be fair, Steve, you did also say "it doesn't sit right with you" so I thought we could to figure out some reasons.... I thought you brought up an interesting topic, I should be allowed to pursue it with you!!!)

For example I am sure we can agree that one such quantification is the rate at which DOC is removed from the water, another might be the efficacy (note this is not a typo for "efficiency") of the foam (i.e., a beckett style has low efficacy compared to a counter-current but makes up for it in terms of volume turnover). What about a minimum threshold? Do think that there can be a minimum threshold of amount of DOC before a skimmer might "start" to be effective or do you think it's closer to a linear relationship?

[Lofus]

I would think that there is some minimum level of DOC necessary for foam production, below which the matter is re-desolved at the surface when the bubbles burst.

As far as two of the same skimmer type operating differently, I can only guess that it would be due to different inlet compositions relating back to the installation. As was mentioned before, if one was receiving some of the water that had already been through the first skimmer then the foam production would be less.

Depending on the amount of skimmate you make, you might want to consider bagging it and selling/using it as fertalizer. On a 5000 gal tank it mught be a viable option.

[UnderWorldAquatics]

I have tried using the diaper pooh as fertilizer and have had good success with some plants but it has too high sodium content for other plants...
Im sure I could grow a forest of mangroves with it though...