rurry44;1832651;1832651 said:
how do you heat the tank? Do you have any detailed plans you could make available, or would it be possoble to ask some genererl construction info on type of would , size , etc. thanks, rurry44
Insulation for an outdoor aquarium is the key to keeping energy / heating costs low.
The big issue for me is water replacement to keep Nitrates, (NO3) under 100 PPM. In the summer, the city water in the Seattle area is about 65-68 degrees out of the tap and I do not heat it. The sun shining through the glass roof brings the water temperature up about 1-2 degrees per day in the 8,000-gallon aquarium from May through September. During the winter, the tap water is about 37-42 degrees and I need about 25,000 watts of heat to bring the incoming water flowing at 300 gallons per hour up to tank temperature.
I use common 5500-watt 220-volt water tank heaters purchased from Home Depot and mounted in the side of the sump. The heaters have a standard one-inch National Pipe Thread, (NPT) for mounting and will easily thread into a 1-1/2 inch bulkhead fitting with a 1-1/2 to 1 inch reducer bushing. I have each heater connected to an Intermec hot water heater time clock, which automatically turns them off after a set time. Without the clocks, I would have forgotten to turn the heaters off many times and cooked my fish. For maintaining normal aquarium temperature, I have a 220-volt temperature controller purchased from John at
www.jehmco.com connected to a water tank heater, which works perfectly.
My external water pumps connected to filters have been a big power draw and it has taken almost a year to develop a proper filter system with a minimum of pumps. Lately I have been testing my new Artesian Dial-A-Flow 2 HP pump. This pump can be easily adjusted to spin the impeller at the desired RPM to achieve a specific flow rate at a given pressure head. I am getting some amazing results; much less power required when compared with my previous pump to move the same or more water through my system. I anticipate the pump will save between $500 and $800 per year at my present rate of $.10 per Kilowatt Hour (KWH). I will have more to say about this pump as soon as I have completed all my tests.
I plan to publish an article detailing how I built my 8000-gallon plywood aquarium when I complete the pump and filter testing.
my one question is would concrete last longer than treated wood like you used and if it were sand blasted smooth and sealed? nice pics by the way, ill be checking in to see how your report is coming along
