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Viewed: 353 -- Replies: 22

Posted	Suggestions/advice for new large tank
18-06-2007 20:56 by ChrisR	New guy over here! I’m moving house and taking the opportunity to get a bigger tank than the 24” one I have at the moment. It’s going to be 3300mm x 500w x 850d (about 11 feet x 2 x 3, say 1300 litres or 300 Gallons). It’s going to be built into a dividing wall so that it can be seen from both sides. The main idea is to keep things simple, and easy to maintain. I’d be grateful for any suggestions or advice on the following: Filtration: An external canister filter seems easiest to maintain for this size tank. Choices seem to be Eheim Pro 3 or Fluval FX5. As far as I can tell Eheim have the better reputation, but the tank is slightly over the 1200 Litre quoted capacity. Would it be better to use two filters in case one fails? Species: I like the idea of a large shoal of a single species. The starting point is that I’ll be taking 5 Corys from my existing tank, two of which were my first fishes, now about 8 years old. A South American theme sounds good – an idea being a shoal of cardinal tetras. I’ve never kept them, but they don’t seem to be too much trouble. Then a couple of small Plecos to control the algae. The smallest Plecos I can find info about are L260 (Queen Arabesque) and L015 (Candy Striped). Numbers: I did some calculations based on the surface area of the tank and body length and got a figure of about 200 inches of fish. Somebody suggested that the calculations aren’t appropriate for smaller fishes in a large tank, and that it could hold 200-300 Cardinals and maybe 50 Corys. This is closer to the one-inch-per-gallon that I’ve seen on other sites, but still seems too many. I’d really appreciate some advice on this. Plants: The most successful plants I have at the moment are Amazon Swords and Java Ferns. The Swords will be fine, but the ferns won’t be appropriate in a South-American setup. I like the way you can fix the Java Ferns to bogwood and move them around the tank when cleaning. Does anyone know a similar South American plant? Heating: As far as I can tell I’ll need about 500 watts. As the tank can be seen from both sides I can’t put a heater on the rear wall. The largest in-line filter I can find is a Hydor 300W. I could get to 600W by using this with a 100W Rena Cor under gravel heater, and a 100W tube on each end wall. Any suggestions for a thermostat to control these? Cycling the Tank: I find this the most frightening part. How long would it take to cycle a tank this size? Would introducing say 25-30 fishes every couple of weeks and keeping an eye on water quality sound about right? I’ve read a little about fishless cycling, but it sounds really scary! The tank has been installed, but I haven’t committed to anything else yet, so any input/comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Apologies for the lengthy post. Chris
18-06-2007 21:10 by JOHANSWAN	hi there chris the tank you want to put in will be realy big and for filtering it might be wiser to invest in a sump or a pool sandfilter as the extarnals will just about cope with it if maybe 3 fx5 might do the trick but it will be cheaper to install a 4ft sump wich will be more effective
18-06-2007 21:45 by Jake Casson	You will need alot more filtration and heating. The biggest externals are the eheim 2260s. I have one and there great, rated to 1500 litres. Much bigger and better than FX5s Heating wise, dont they say 100w per 100 litres? Either go for 4 300w or find a big inline one to connect to filter. Yeah fully planted with a few hundred neons or cardinals would look great, I nearly done it. Good luck
18-06-2007 22:04 by Jake Casson	Plus I make it over 1600 litres
18-06-2007 22:14 by Elmo	The issue on maturing the tank will be easier than you think because its such a large volume of water.
19-06-2007 00:24 by robert.pope	what happens when you have to do a water change? where do you store the replacement water? 20% is around 280 litres if u went for the sump you could put the heaters in there out of sight good luck and keep us posted
19-06-2007 01:30 by Jessica	Would that heater thing defo work for a large tank, id wanna do it with mine!
19-06-2007 09:15 by big cats	sounds cool, think of this as an indoor pond and equip like a pond, you could use a sump or a pond filter(canister type) try pricing pond heaters and if you are building space above the tank then returning water through a trickle box would be the most efficient biological system (and it will mature fast)as well as diffusing the huge flow needed to turn over a tank this big. you should consider building out of plywood and laminating with fibreglass leaving two viewing windows,speak to your local sea life centre they will help with advice on how cos they often do it. if you have space above the tank you should be able to accomodate a header tank just like your hot water header in the loft(if you have one)for water changes and it can be plumbed in so it re-fills if you build in a drain overflow in the tank then water changes could be easier than flushing your toilet
19-06-2007 09:48 by Alan	Depending on filtratration and size of fish in theory you could keep upto 900 inches of fish in a 300 gallon tank. But only small fish 9 inch long neons don't produce the same amount of waste as a 9" long Oscar. If you are going for a small fish community in such a large tank I would suggest a target of 500" of fish as a max. The tank you propose could look quite spectacular. For low maintenance you are going to want easy plants so Java fern is a must it is virtually indestructable. It will also help with keeping nitrates down. Filtration it is always best to over rate you have more filters to choose from than you have stated above aside from the eheim pro 3 and the fluval fx5 there are the eheim bucket filters the 2250 and the 2260 these are in the fx5 price bracket. I would suggest you use 2 filters so if one breaks down you still have another for back up. The other thing is a tank this size is likely to have dead spots so I would suggest you use a pump normally used in the marine hobby something like the marea range sold by www.stm-shop.co.uk the fish will really appreciate the movement. For water changes you will want a powerful power head that you can plug the end of a hose onto if you do this you can use the waste water to water the garden very easily as the tank drains. Then just fill up straight from the garden hose putting all the necessary dechlorinator straight into the tank and also put the water back into the tank using a spray nossle this will drive most of the chlorine off before it goes into the tank for the dechlorinator to deal with. I have done this for years with no problems and no of people that do this with freshwater rays with no problems. I would suggest you go for a handful of species all in large shoals as it gives the best show I would suggest you go for a shoal of at least 50 cory's and 200 cardinals. Also no tank is complete without cichlids a tank this size would probably enable you to keep a number of pairs of apistogramma. Don't go for kribensis as they will terrorise the tank plus they don't sit with the biotope. As far as stocking goes the above is what I personally would go with on the basis of my experience with small fish and the fact I always heavily over rate my filtration (my 100 gallon tank has filtration that could handle a tank the size you propose). Anyway pfk say the following on the basis of an 11x2x3 tank for tropical community small and medium I'm thinking just small with the advice I have given above. PFK advice "Stocking advice We would recommend keeping up to 370"/940cm of small to medium-sized fish in your system. However, depending on the type of fish, your filtration and your maintenance level you may be able to exceed this to a suggested maximum of 740"/1880cm of fish. However, this requires care and thought for the type of fish being stocked. We would advise you to read our FAQs for more details on stocking and for more details on how this program works. Results System type Tropical freshwater aquarium Dimensions 335 x 61 x 91cm/132" x 24" x 36 Surface area 2.04 sqm/21.96 sq ft/ inches sq in Volume 1866 l./411 gal. (492.95 US gal.) Probable volume 1679 l./370 gal. (444 US gal.) Stocking density 370"/940cm (built up gradually) Maximum density 740"/1880cm (theoretical maximum)" Hope that helps with your decision making.
19-06-2007 09:53 by Alan	As far as heaters go use more than one I always use 2 in anything over 50 gallons each heater being rated to half the tank volume by doing this if one heater fails in the on position you won't boil the water in the tank. Equally if one fails in the off position the single lone heater will be able to keep the temp at a survivable level.
19-06-2007 09:55 by Alan	As far as seeding the tank you already have mature media in the tank you are running at the moment so use this in the filters you choose for your set up and it will seed the system plus the fish you are talking about in the system this size will take a very long time to get up to dangerous levels of ammonia and nitrite probably longer than it would take for the tank to start cycling.
19-06-2007 11:45 by Lnrak	Great posts - you seem to know your stuff Alan!!!
19-06-2007 18:30 by ChrisR	Thanks for all the ideas everybody. That's lots to think about. There's no room for a header tank above - the attached photo isn't very good (taken with my phone!) but you should be able to make out the flooring going across the top of the tank. (The other side of the wall the tank is at eye level.) I'm going to have to do some research on sump filters - Idon't know if I've got enough room. I have a cupboard at one end that's about 1000mm x 800 x 800 high with a waterproof base, bib tap and drain. Any suggestions for what size sump filter I'd need? And here's another question! Two links to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_tetra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_tetra Neon Tetras live 5 years in the wild andup to 10 years in captivity. Cardinals One year and "several years". Doesn't sound right? Thanks again for all the suggestions. Chris
19-06-2007 19:17 by robert.pope	looks like someone has been watching grand designs! is acsess restricted with the flooring over the top? would you have room below the tank for a sump?
19-06-2007 21:34 by Jake Casson	Eheim 2260s are the nearest you'll get to a sump, huge filters. I would go for maybe 2 of the slightly smaller 2250 which then will avoid dead/ cold spots. Water changes on big tanks are easy with a garden hose, but only just on low over a few hours to avoid rapid changes in temp.
20-06-2007 09:53 by Alan	I can highly recommend the 2250 I use one and it is a very basic reliable work horse very little to go wrong with it and being eheim very unlikely anything will go wrong with it. You can get them for £122 each now from www.surreypetsupplies.co.uk I bought mine from them no problems look under eheim classics under eheim filters
20-06-2007 18:54 by ChrisR	No room below the tank (This is on the second floor of an apartment building - the neighbours might not take kindly to a sump suspended from their ceiling ). The flooring over the tank will lift out in three panels if I need to get in for anything major. I can reach in between the tank rim and the flooring for most jobs. The 2250 looks good, Alan. Does it have to be primed before running? What happens if there's a power cut? Will it re-start when the electricity comes back on?
20-06-2007 19:53 by robert.pope	perhaps a stupid question but would the 2250 not need to go below the tank for it to work corectly? isnt it like my 2213 but only huge!!!!?
20-06-2007 22:09 by ChrisR	it shows it to one side here http://www.eheim.de/eheim/inhalte/index.jsp?key=liniendetail_27510_ehen My guess would be that the inlet to the filter should be below the suction hose from the tank.
21-06-2007 11:02 by Alan	The Eheim can be used to the side of a tank but it would be more difficult to prime it doesn't have a priming mechanism and you would have to suck on the pipe to get the siphon started I would suggest you get the taps for the pipes then you would only need to start the siphon once and when you do a water change simply shut the taps and it will keep the hoses full so you can get the thing started again without the sucking on the pipe. The top of the filter would just need to be below the surface of the tank for the siphon to work once the air is out of the pump the pump will work if the level is reduced below the top of the pump providing no air enter the filter and even then the pump may be able to just blast it straight through anyway providing the siphon isn't lost by air getting trapped in the huge hose. It is like a 2213 but huge you will also note the inlet to the filter is at the bottom not the top of the canister and this prevent airlocks forming during a power cut so it will always restart effectively after a powercut.
21-06-2007 11:05 by Alan	The pump on the thing is an eheim 1250 which basically bolts on top of the canister sucking water through the media. It is a very basic but effective design.
21-06-2007 18:36 by ChrisR	Thanks Alan, a couple of 2250s seems to be ideal.
22-06-2007 00:46 by robert.pope	thanks chris and alan for clearing this up!

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