building a 1000 gal concrete block monster tank

[Joshy]

Looking good wizzing! Keep the pictures coming. I bet if you employed your little one for '10 gummy bears an hour' you would get it done a lot quicker!

 

[wizzin]

Ok buddy, it's been a month, stop using your kids as an excuse for your laziness

Seriously, you've got two months to do the first fill and to have water running through the filters I've got four kids ranging in age from 3 months to 8yrs old and I got mine done in three months somehow Ok, enough bashing.... I'm just trying to give you a taste, a very small taste of what I went through last year at about this time. Soon you'll wonder if you're building the tank for yourself or for all the people in the thread?!? lol Great deal on the glass, and great ideas with the block. As you know I went with wood construction lined with drylok coated hardipanel for my tank. But then again I'm a carpenter and I wasn't going to be convinced to use anything else because wood is what I know I'm most curious as to your filtration as I've njoyed building my own filters for some time now... Nice job on the pot scrubbers, that always happens to me no matter where I'm at. I turn everything into a fish related item We're only a couple hours apart from each other so when this sucker is finished I'd like to come and check it out. We've got family in pit and are planning on making it to the zoo sometime soon (spring) so let me know.... Only problem is I like to talk so I could potentially be boring you for hours lol....

By the way, I've come up with a new rule for you every time you post:

It's required by the laws of monster fish keepers that a picture MUST be posted along with everyone of your posts. No matter if you think it's a dumb picture or not we need to see pictures. Most of us are guys on here and male human beings are visual creatures and must be satisfied!

Looks good so far!!

I'm only about 2 weeks in, so I should be ok I know you went with wood, and it worked well for you. I'm not familiar with much of anything, just consider myself to be fairly handy. I went with concrete filled block for cost and lack of woodworking tools (and skills). I'd imagine if I knew what I was doing with wood, I'd go that route too. I'm sure if I were a mason, this would be going a lot faster, but I'm spending a lot of time making sure everything is level, square, flush, and overall, just well built.

As for the filters, here are some sketches of how the system works. It's basically a wet dry mounted overhead to prevent having to deal with power loss, syphons etc. 1 1350gph pump pushes water up from an overflow tube into 1 of 2 50gal overhead storage bins. The first bin will use plastic pegboard as a dripplate, and then be filled with pot scrubbies. The second bin (connected to the first via bulkhead) will have a few baffles and be for secondary bio and chemical filtration. It will have 1 section for purigen, 1 for activated carbon and 1 for additional heaters. I haven't done anything in terms of heaters yet because I want to fill it and see where it stabalizes temperature wise before buying heaters. I don't want to buy 2 800watt heaters only to find that 1 500 watt would've worked.

I'm installing a whole house R/O unit soon, and there will also be a 2nd R/O unit for the tank. It will be supplied with about 2gph of fresh R/O water to equal approx 240gal of fresh water every 5 days. The overflow is a literal overflow. The one pvc pipe runs from a hole at the waterline down to within a few inches of the bottom of the tank, so that the water being removed comes from the bottom of the water column. Theres also another 1350gph pump located near the filter outlet to push filtered water down through the tank and out 6-7 UGJ's on the bottom to push water accross the bottom of the tank and toward the outlet. It will also help circulate the fresh water.

Enough blah blah. Here's a new pic and the sketches.

 

[stotty]

I have come into this one late just found it. Very cool what’s going to go into the bad boy when it’s up and running?

 

[wizzin]

I have come into this one late just found it. Very cool what’s going to go into the bad boy when it’s up and running?

Well, it's a South American theme. Amazon style. There will be one Clown Knife that I am just too attached to, so it's not pure, but close. Here's the stocking list:

1 or 5 silver aro's
6 oscars
1 RTC
1 Clown Knife
1 large pleco

I'm thinking I might just stick with 1 aro. I think if I went with all those fish, i'd be overstocked?

Here's what happens when I try to take pics of fish with my garbage camera!

 

[TheFishGuy]

If I may make one suggestion... Rather than flex pipe, hard pipe it with pvc, there's less restriction when hard piping... Also, in case of a power outage will the overhead filter drain causing an overflow of the tank its self? ALSO, I 've got one real concern... My fear is that there's not going to be enough area of mechanical filtration and it will clog quickly... I use three 44 gallon drums and four five gallon pails that act as prefilters...

Shower drains make for great cheap bulkheads.... These prefilters I came up with work great. I found wire mesh trash cans that fit perfectly in the pails allowing for tons of surface. I'm only filtering 800 gallons, but I've got a lot of fish. I suspect your stock list will grow once you see how much room you have

 

[wizzin]

I've thought about the mechanical filtration. I somewhat agree. Note that the sketches show 35gal bins, and in reality there going to be 50 each. My backup plan is to use a pond canister filter rated for 3000 gal (I know that means nothing) but it's sole purpose is mechanical filtration. It will go in the "cubby" to the right of the tank. I'll use a 2000gph pump for that. I had that in as a contingency, but it's another $300 I don't want to spend if I don't have to. Like the heaters, my plan was to fire it up, cycle with a bunch of convicts etc. and see where I stand. Let it get into the cycle then slowly add fish, watching the perams as I go. If I reach a stocking level where the water is cloudy or params go out of wack, I'll add the pond filter.

Here's the progress report. 3 more coarses left to go. I still have to drill the 8x8x8's for the side glass frame all thread anchor bolts. I got one done just now, but the jobsite is shutdown now

Any other ideas for mech filtration on a dime are GREATLY appreciated. From the sketches, just keep in mind I've got about 3' above the tank top to the joists above. I thought about hanging something up there and pumping up to it. I really want to keep everything above the water line so any failure results in draining into the tank, and therefore to the waste drain. With the exception of if I have to use a closed circuit pressurized pump filter system.

 

[Brenden]

I didnt find this thread until now or I would have posted earlier. It may be too late but why not go saltwater? May cost a little more, but with 1,000 gallons you can do alot! May be something to think about. With a tank that big ( I personally) why not, you could keep 1-2 Smoothhound Sharks, 1-2 Rays, Eel, would make a great aggressive set up.

 

[wizzin]

I thought about saltwater. I just thought about the cost of live rock etc. Plus I haven't done a SW tank yet. It would be cool though...

 

[wizzin]

I think I'm going to add this to the bottom of the waste line also.

 

[Joshy]

Looking good wizzin. If you want my opinion, go with:

5 silver aro's
3 oscars
3 pBass
1 RTC
1 Clown Knife

Just because an animal needs 200 gallons of room (lets just say), it does not mean it will use the 200 gallons to its bio load possibilities. Personally if you go with just 'adequate' filtration, you will still be under-stocked with your or my list. I would not recommend plecos though, they will not make a dent on algae if you get it on that scale, and odds are the RTC will 'own' all bottom dwellers.

Keep the pictures and updates coming