Building a Mega-Home Marine Tank (18,000 GA) Need Advice All Welcome

[coolkeith]

xtrem- Well, if you actually do get this tank built it will need a few hours of routine maintenance on it per day. Do you like scuba diving? You will need to dive into this tank often to provide maintenance. Hope you don't mind cleaning the acrylic panels or doing all the other dirty work. It might not actually be what you bargained for.
I'd like to see you build a cool tank, but I just think this one you have initial plans for is going to be a nightmare of never ending work.

Feasibility, simplicity of design, and ease of maintenance are the top goals for my aquarium projects. You have some decent ideas so far, but many of them just don't make much sense if you ever want to finish this project. You need to prioritize what is important in operating large aquaria. These would be the top things I'd be after-
1) Filtration (the aquarium size is dictated by the size and effiecentcy of the filtration units)
2) Disease Control (you are going to need several large quarantine and frag tanks if you want to have a healthy main tank) You'll need to develope strict quarantine proceedures to insure that you never cross contaiminate.
3) Other Control Measures- The aquatic environment must be sustainable if there is a failure of some sort. Back-up plans are needed if there is power failure, a disease outbreak, a water quality problem, or a major leak.

If you do decide to scale things down, I think you might be able to start this project soon. Otherwise the high ambition and big dream is just going to get in your way.

 

[basslover34]

Salt alone for this tank will be more than Most of the members here are used to seeing in a year let alone on a single waterchange

Have you worked out the Monthly operating costs... This is a very ambitious project... with what appears to be little thought to cost... I wish I had that kind of problem LOL Something tells me that you'll be looking at 5 Figures monthly in operating costs... It's not only Power, but maint, supplies (Salt, Chemicals, food, replacement parts)... the full time employee deadicated to keeping this thing clean, Dive supplies None of these things even include the Obvious Power issues (You know how much light you need to keep Corals 15' deep??) Your lighting bill alone will be 4 digits, not to mention the High power pumps you'll need for Filtration, and Cooling... 18k tank + 9K Filter water = 27K of Water to be cooled...

You pul this off and you'll have the largest Saltwater Tank that I'm aware of in a private home

 

[xtrememarinetanker]

Hi everyone hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving holiday. I wanted to answer a couple of questions that have been asked just so we keep the dialog open and flowing. I want to clear up what seems to be a question of planning. When dealing with something like this I think you can plan effectively and skills miss something. I don’t think that you have to build something smaller to make it efficient. I think one of the best lessons is to learn from what others have done, their successes and mistakes and that’s why I ask the questions I ask to gain insight. As you will see below there is more planning, thought, and revolutionary ideas below than some of you may have thought of or have not thought of. So I think the most important thing is to keep that inventor spirit, and a open mind and success is a byproduct of being consistent and persistent.

Question:
How will you handle routine maintenance?
Answer:
Before taking on this project I planned for all things like fish supply, tank maintenance, aquatic supplies, electrical and structural services when required. So I have planned accordantly. On maintenance there is a company that services the Dallas Aquarium and offers outsource cleaning that I contracted way before I even planned to move forward with this project. They informed me of the service cost, how much maintenance that would be required on my tank (once every 60 days), and checks and balances that they advices me to incorporate into the tank system that would make maintenance easier to maintain a by monthly bases. Basically the same process for a commercial aquarium would be providing for my tank. For the 60 day cost per visit would be estimated at $15,000 (visit) x 6 cycles (year) = $90,000 (year) so the cost and the maintenance problems and solutions have been accounted for.

Question:
How will you handle the filtration system, and water cleaning system of the aquarium?
Answer:
In this project we had to think outside of the box on this project. We have contracted the city water and waste division and water and waste system consultant that will aid us in designing a cleaning system that will be both biological and mechanical in maintaining and cleaning the aquarium system using the same principals and technological advancement that are used in the cleaning our drinking water. Part of this system will required a storage tank located either in the backyard or the garage that will store temperature, treated and adjusted salt water that will create a water recycling and cleaning system. The system is still being design and I will provide updates as we move forward. I also have a software designer designing a new program monitoring system sometimes only seen in commercial aquarium systems on a very large scale that will monitor life support, take water samples every 10 hours to ensure the system is chemically, biologically, and mechanically running like clockwork. The aquarium will have embedded systems that will ensure a quality running, balanced system.

My Team:
I want to assure everyone that I have the planning skills and management skills in place for this project. On my consulting and development team is:
Certified Electrical Engineer
Certified Structural Engineer
Certified Mechanical Engineer
Water Waste Consultant
Marine Biologist Consultant
Software Engineer
So I feel pretty good about the success of the project hey everyone keep the questions and things coming as I move forward. Have a good day.

 

[Ben268]

That maintance bill is my education right there ahahaha, like....MANY times over lol

Care to tell us a bit more about the filtration? How is it going to work excactly, and how big do you plan for the sump to be?

Again, hope this works out for ya.

 

[Yanbbrox]

You say that you are going to have a second storage tank for changes. Is this software going to monitor this holding tank as well? What size is this second tank going to be, obviously the cost of it is much less and it does make sense to do it this way but if your having it far away from the tank then pipework could end up running through the home? Are you planning to out source the maintenance for the holding tank as well or will you be looking after it between visits?

 

[xtrememarinetanker]

The outside or storage tank will store about 25,000 GA we have not worked out all the details we still have to finalize other things but that’s the plan and this will be monitored as well no different from say a water tank at a drinking water facility. The system would work similar to water current always refreshing the water. It will be worked out as well.

 

[jamey0615]

I would like to offer any help I can. I recently finished a 1000 gallon build in Mansfield 20 minutes from dallas. http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119752 Let me know if I can help.

 

[Austin]

Hey man you pm'd me and asked if i could give any advice. I can't give much because i don't know much at all about salt or engineering anything of this magnitude. I would still love to come see where this build is being planned and I would love to help with the actual build when it begins.

 

[xtrememarinetanker]

Thank you both for the offers and I will keep you both posted on the progress and if I need anything I will be sure to ask I appreciate it!

 

[MyFishEatYourFish]

any idea of start date?