Advice for a restaraunt tank
 

I have a reef tank in my house now, (with all the goodies) actually a couple tanks. Im planning on putting a tank in my restaraunt but cant decide between another reef tank or a fish only tank. with the latter i was wondering what equipment i could get away with to run a fish only tank. say about a 180 gallon. I cant spend as much time on it as my home tanks so i need to be able to have a sort of simpler system. Also not alot of room for things like a sump or alot of equipment. any advice would be appreciated. would something like a FX5 or a fluval 405 be sufficiant for fitration or should i be looking into something else? thanks

In my personal opinion a fowlr with a CL and a FX5 for filtration would work fine. Not too large of bio-load and t5 lighting, with a good auto feeder and your set. Use rubble in the FX5 and since it has a pumped drain in the canister water changes would be relatively painless.
Kevin

I think the key to having an aquarium in a restaurant is to have it SPOTLESS. No one wants to eat next to a tank that has algae problems, right? If I were you, I would spend money on a good skimmer and would also consider going with ZEOvit. And yeah...I agree that a FOWLR would probably be best!

I totally agree with this. A "dirty" looking tank, ie. algae on the glass, ect. will make the restaurant feel dirty. I would not eat somewhere that had a dirty looking tank because who knows how the kitchen looks if the tank looks terrible. Algae does not always equal really dirty but thats how people see it. Plus who wants to sit anywhere near a dirty tank and eat. I would go with a big skimmer to make the tank less maintenance. Otherwise it will be a lot of work. Ozone would also help a lot.

thanks. Anone else got any ideas? Has anyone seen any real nice tanks in any restaraunts? Theres an awesome one in ceasers palace, in Vegas ( I think thats where i seen it). I may have been "out of sorts" while walking around there! It a huge floor to cealing cylinder tank Probobly 5000 gallons +. i think I will just build something like that. Ya right.

I used to live in Germany and saw some incredible tanks in some restaurants there. The common denominator was crisp, clear, and clean. Those Germans know their stuff :)

We did a tank install in my father's restaurant quite a few years back.

We set up a tank in his house & let it cycle for a coupla weeks. Introduced a handful of fish to the tank over a few more weeks & let the skimmer break in a bit.

Then on a Sunday night after service we installed the new tank in the restaurant, placed in the rock & set up the skimmer.

Waited a coupla days, had a small cycle & then we put the fish in.

This meant that the tank was only without fish (quite a big deal for some customers it seems!) for a coupla days & had fish in it by the busy period towards the end of the week.

Make sure you only use RO/DI water & if you have the space set up a decent sized fuge. As others have said, algae is a mood killer in a restaurant!

Problems? the waiting staff got tired of people asking where the fish were & it took up more time than we thought to keep looking pristine.

Also, check this place out!

http://www.2dayblog.com/images/2007/...restaurant.jpg

Ithaa Undersea Restaurant, Rangali Island, Maldives.

VFX.

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there's the whole "bare bottom is cleaner" debate but it's hard to get under the rocks in a bare bottom tank. You could run sand and siphon out 1/4 of the sand each water change and replace it with new stuff.

I agree on the zeovit and high-end skimmer. A fish only tank would be the best for the restaraunt because usually keeping coral is "elitist" and most of your customers will just wants to see really cool looking fish.

As for lighting I don't know if MH glitter lines will be distracting for customers or if they'll like it.

A few softies in the tank might be a nice touch. I've found that people who are not into this hobby are quite impressed by a big clump of gsp or pulsing xenia, much more so than they would be by any sps.

Ian, what restaurant? Going to have to come for dinner when you get the tank installed :D