6000 gallon reef tank

[t-bone2]

wow i didnt know that you had to spend all your money and buy everything including stock fot the tank all in one day instead of the two to three years like the original post said

[WetSleeves]

If I were you I would take whatever info you get on the boards here with a grain of salt. Less than 1% of the people on this site (myself included) have dealt with an aquarium of this magnitude and can offer you little more than encouragement.
I would contact Joe Y. of the Atlantis Aquarium (justjoe) when you're just about done with all your floor reinforcements and think you're ready to start with the ventilation and electrical wiring of the room this tank will be going in.
Offer him a few hundred dollars for a couple hours of his time then head up to Riverhead NY and pick his brain and look at his slideshows.
He is not only one of the nicest, least arrogant people I've met, but he is only one of two people that I have personally met who has designed an aquarium of that size and the only one I have met who has assisted in the maintenance of that aquarium after construction was completed.
Leading up to that point, I would contact your local Public aquariums. I use the word "local" liberally. First, contact the curator of the NC public aquarium on the outer banks and go to Atlantic Beach and check out the renovations they have done with the aquarium out there. Pick their brain for info on circulation and filtration techniques. That should be a day trip for you. I would also speak with Bruce Carlson at the GA aquarium and check out the reef system he helped to design there. That would be a weekend well spent.
You could also come up here and speak to Jessica Spino at the Baltimore aquarium. That would also be a weekend trip but well worth it.
I wish you the best of luck with your dream system.... I hope to build a 3-5K system in my next home and these are some of the people I have spoken with to get useful tips.
I hope that you will share all of your experiences with this project and not let anyone discourage you.

[blueroof]

Good advice. We know he would need lots of professional help, anyone designing such a system would seek the consult of many other professionals (structural engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, HVAC, etc.) Public Aquariums have the advantage of having many of these people on staff. Giant tanks frequently have customized equipment that is designed and built on site. (surge systems and light racks)

As far as taking the info with a grain of salt I think he has received some pretty good advice, given the limited info and feedback he has given. A novice hobbiest ask for information on equipment required to set up 6000 gallon reef.

1. We let him know about about the magnatude and expense of the proposed project just in case he did not have a full appreciation of this. Not many novice hobbiest would. I suspect this is the case and we saved him alot of time and money.

2. We gave him some basic design advice. At least now he knows a few more topics that he does not know enough about. I don't think anyone thought he was going to design the tank off this thread alone.

3. We praised his spirit and his "dream"

4. We gave him referrals to other professionals.

I think he got his moneys worth.

[hahnmeister]

So, if the poster is serious, he should post a list of equipment that he intends to use... with prices (or we can help estimate it). That way, before he even commits to anything, if there are any obvious problems or mistakes, they can be worked out. If the budget is unrealistic... then we will know.

Also, a budget of time and monthly upkeep and costs would be a good idea. For me, its not so much the cost that keeps me from even wanting a 1000g+ reef tank... its the upkeep that I really dont feel like getting out of control with. Thats why I will most likely never want more than a 2' tall tank... even when I go 6'x6'... because its just easier to reach into the tank in a split second and move something if I need to. 8' tall? Well, thats an hour or so a week just putting on your snorkel and fins & getting in and out of the tank, taking an extra shower before and after, etc. So for me, a 500g is about as large as I think I would ever like to go... more than that, and its a seperate part of the house with its own chores and responsibilities... and that really takes away from the enjoyment for me. Id rather have an extra 2 hours of viewing time than an extra 2 hours a week of cleaning time.

One question, and this is somewhat aimed at Spazz (Bill), etc. For concrete tanks, why dont people just mix the sealer into the concrete? There are vinyl additives that prevent the concrete from soaking up water. It would seem to be a better option than just paintint the inner surface with something, unless that something was very hard, at least like acrylic. A rubber/epoxy coating just seems too easy for the critters to want to burrow into (if a fan worm), or try to snack on to see what that rubbery stuff tastes like (like an urchin). I dont know... but coating concrete would just make me nervous.

[erics3000]

Hahnmeister. Ditto the only reason why I went with a 300 display is upkeep and maintnance limitation. if not I would have added on to my house already. hahaha. Just cleaning that much glass or acrylic..Thinking baout it...Man I just crushed my dream again. Oh well back to reality...

[zemuron114]

Dont get me wrong... Im a huge fan of the big reef dream. But it seems you haven't taken everything into consideration.

There is no way you can install this tank if the house is already being built. It has to be built first then the house around it. It is probably too late for something this big if the house is in progress. Maybe something smaller will be better suited?

[erics3000]

If you have big enough pockets words like no way and too late are not in your vocabulary.

It is a little weird talking about someone financial situation so I will just stick with the tank info.

[jumboshrimp18]

Fantastic thread. Completely absurd. A guy with a 20 gl tank wants to upgrade to a 6000 gl tank and a half of the responses take him seriously and a half try to clarify the depth of the involvement. Only on RC.

[thirschmann]

good old frozen hasn't posted in a while... still around?

[czieler]

If I were him and had read some of these responses ... I probably would have moved onto a friendlier board.

Frozen... if you're still around ... I wish you the best of luck with your house and tank... sorry some people here are so negative.... hope it doesn't discourage you from posting here, or some other boards with your questions... and eventually progress.

[steve the plumb]

Like I said before you don't have to know anything about taking care of a reef tank(no matter what size) if you pay someone else to do it.There are people who have tanks that have no clue as to how they operate they just like the look and pay someone to take care of it.It sounds kind of stupid if you ask me.Why have something as delicate as a reef tank yet have no clue as to how it works.I had a chance to buy a 600 gal tank for pretty much dirt cheap.Some guy had it in his basement and sold his house.The new owner didn't want the tank.The tank was to big for my basement but the price was a great deal considering the size of the tank.I don't know what it would cost to run a tank of 6000 gal but I would think it would cost a hell of a lot of money just in electricity.I know for a fact my skimmer guy(Shaun from ORCA) has a client with a very large tank in his basement and he has spent well over $500.000 on his system.I think he has more than one large tank but everything is automated.I can see if my 300 costs $10,000 just in equipment alone no livestock plus I had other equipment from my old setup.I can see a 6000 costing $130,0000.This cost would also be an understatement because the tank will cost a hell of a lot to build.I think it will cost at least $200,000.For that kind of money you would have to be in love with the hobby.That or super rich after all he would have bragging rights as to who has the nicest looking part of the ocean in his basement.

[DaveWC]

Start with a ~200g tank. Learn about the design obstacles, the maintenance rituals & decide if you really want to go 30x that size. If you have 2-4 years then you have tons of time to make incremental steps. There's no logical reason to jump from 20g to 6,000g all in one step.

[steve the plumb]

I haven even started my 300 yet and I am dreading the maintenance aspect of it.Its nice to fiddle and make sure everything is running right.I can't imagine the work it would take on a system of that size.I was going to go with a 4 ft wide tank but I didn't have the space plus I thought its so wide how can you arrange corals unless you can get yourself on top of the tank.I do think what Dave said is correct start with a smaller tank unless you have the money to pay a professional to take care of it.The only thing is the guy can't be there all of the time so you would have to learn how to manage the tank.from 20 gal to 6000 gal.Some people do dream.

[zylumn]

frozenapple22
I am envious of you!!!
25 years old and able to afford a new house with an added 1/4 million addition housing a hobby you have been in for 8 months with a 20 g. Thats like me going from remote control airplane to buying a 747. The best of luck to you.

[RonBuck]

I say to each his own.

In my opinion we are the ones that need to make sure people like frozen are informed enough to make good decisions. I am by no means an expert. But, my 2 cents can be built upon, by other veterans in the hobby. I just know what I have seen work and fail in others systems.

That said, frozen most likely has the time and passion to make this tank a reality. He/she is not asking for permission to build the tank. Just trust worthy advice.

Frozen,

I hope you keep posting. The more serious you are about building the tank. The more you will get answers to your questions from knowledgeable people.

[new_world_disor]

i know sum1 with a 5000gallon display tank. hes spent over £400,000 ( uk pounds ) on this . and has bin building it for 2 years.. its only just bin filled and had LR added and all the sand. it runs up the side of his house ( inside ) like an atrium. in an open plan room ( all other stuff is under the tank in the basement ) BUT BUT BUT. he has a lot of money to throw away. and had the house built around the tank ( rather than the other way )

ill get pics asap

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[David MC Lee]

blueroof I was going to guess you had at least 75K in your setup.

With my stock tank connected in now I have 1250G of water in my system. I spent no where near 100K for mine but I do everything my self. I sell enough coral to pay for everything but the electric bill. I did take a hit moving the tank.

The best way to save money on a tank is to plan, plan, and more planning.

[reef / aholic]

Update layout for 6,000g aquarium!!!

[steve the plumb]

That looks a little to big to be 6000 gal tank

[hahnmeister]

I have considered this for a bit. I too agree now that going from a 20g right up to a 6000g, if you are going to be doing it yourself, isnt a good idea. Its simply the scope of the project, and how your own methods and experiences will change as you go larger and larger.

Methods change when you go from a 20g, to even a 50-60g, and then to a 100-200g, and then again in the 250-500g range... and again on up. My 'methods' for how I treated things when I started reefing were alot different than now. I preferred halide only systems at one time, now I prefer halide + T5s. I preferred beckett/ETSS style skimmers at one time, now I prefer recirculating needlewheels. I used to prefer closed loops... now I prefer prop-driven pumps like my Tunzes. I used to prefer a huge sump, and a refugium as large as the main tank (or at least 1/2), but not so much anymore. I used to use a remote DSB... not any more. I tried bare-bottom, DSB... and have now arrived at a shallow sand bed to be my preferred method. I used to run a tank thinking I needed tons of light beating down on the corals for best growth. Now I lean more on strong flow (90x turnover) and maintaining great water quality. I know I dont feed nearly as much as I shoul either (yet, the tank is only 4 months old still). I learned things as I expanded, and the roles of various pieces of equipment changed as I moved from one tank to the next. Im sure that in a couple years when I move up again from 125g to 500g... I will have a huge learning curve again, and my opinions and methods will again change to suit the tank. Livestock along... I once used to have a full range of hermits and snails to service a tank.... emeralds, sally light foots, etc... Now, I rely on snails alone (without hermits to kill them, they actually maintain their numbers very well), and tangs. On a smaller tank, tangs are not possible. I have found fairy wrasses to be valued not only for their color and compatibility of numbers more than 6-lines... but their flawworm and red-bug chomping habits can clear a tank of these pests in record time compared to anything else. I used to love porcelain crabs and sexy shrimp in my nanos... and I miss them... but they would simply get lost now in my tank... so I will still keep a desktop nano for their keep should I want them again. I used to love fire and peppermint shrimp... and now, I dont even bother. Unless I have a huge rock-anemone outbreak, all they will serve is to hide under the rocks all day, and fire shrimp, as cool looking as they are, and robust as they are compared to the other types of shrimp, are just too shy in a reef to see most of the time... so what is the point. Skunk cleaners are the only shrimp worth the money it seems, and even at that... they come with their own complications to the point that I would rather keep neon gobies for 'fish-cleaning', since even skunks are easy prey should a basslet or wrasse decide they are a better meal than barber. Eliminating shrimp (or just sticking to skunks which most fish seem to know not to eat compared to others) allows you to keep many fish that would otherwise eat them eventually. Hawkfish, Yellow Candy Hogfish, Triggers, etc... now you can keep them. Let me tell you... a gopack put a dozen peppermints in his 320g recently, thinking all would be well... until his pink-tail trigger just started mowing them down... so much for that! When I go larger, I will most likely skip shrimp&crabs all together (I pretty much have already except for the skunk cleaners... if they get chomped, thats it though). I will use more tangs... and larger ones like a sohal or clown, or desjardinis besides my existing ones (RSPT, YT, Striated, hippo). I mean... you have a 20g now, but how do you even know what fish you will really want to keep in such a large tank when you have no experience with their genuses even? A 20g cant hold angelfish, tangs, butterflies, rabbitfish, anthias, schools of wrasses, etc... and these are the fish you will more than likely want to keep in a larger tank. A 20 is more of a tank for a blenny maybe, gobies, small shrimp, damsels, small clowns, etc. You know what I mean? I would suggest going from a 20 to a 200-300g... thats a good step up. Its a push, but do-able. Then, jump up to the mammoth. You will have a better idea what you are getting into, and chances are your goals will change for the better as you grow. I thought I would want anthias as I went larger... boy, was I wrong. I didnt even bother looking into fairy wrasses as a better alternative, but now I prefer them easily over anthias, JMO. I just think back to when I was newer, and what my 'dream tank' would have been, and then what my 'dream tank' is now, and its night and day. Im glad I couldnt/didnt take that jump back then, and Im taking smaller steps on the way up. I also know now that even though I thought a mega-tank of over 1000g would be pretty cool at one time, now I can cap myself at 500g because thats the largest I even WANT to bother keeping up. I spend enough time every week now keeping things up... scrape algae every few days, check over the fish, check the CO2 bottle/reactor pH, check the ATO/water level, check alk/Ca/trates/phos, empty skimmer/clean cup & neck, replace the phosguard/ban and carbon, do a water change, move a coral to a better spot, clean the tunzes, trim the chaeto, dose the everclear daily, dose the potassium, feed the fish again, trim corals and frag, check temp, check water clarity, check salinity...

These things add up. Many things dont change (or shouldnt) when you go from a 20g to something larger... but the scope still does. If I have to correct my alkalinity manually because the reactor isnt balancing out just right one week, it takes a tablespoon of buffer and some RO water with a 20g... with a 125... it can take 6-10. Water changes with a 20g are simple... use a 5g bucket. With 125g on up... you need a trash can at least, if not a storage tank to make sure you have enough on-hand at any given time... just in case. 20g doesnt need a QT so much... but my 125g gets a 40B QT tank because I dont want some mongrel fish messing up my nice fish in the main display now that they are getting bigger and more expensive. Ripping apart the main tank to get a sick fish out is not an option with a large tank anymore... so it, like so many other things, need to be well planned. These are things you just dont get to know when you maintain a 20g.

[Ken Sellick]

Read this forum as much as possible.
Look into ways to keep your system efficient: time, energy, maintaince.
Have redundant systems: pumps, lights, heaters, generators,...
Look into automated controllers.
Get this book and read it
'Aquatic Systems Engineering: Devices and How They Function (Paperback) '
it will help you understand things about pumps and skimmers...

Before you build a tank of this size spend a few dollars on a structural engineer to evaluate your loads & properly design the room structure.

I may not have a large tank but i have been designing water and wastewater treatment facilities for many years and have delt with much larger systems than you are looking into. I have also been planing my own system for several years.

Get a small tank say a 150g or 200g tank as a learner and set up a mini version of the systems you want to use in your bigger tank. the knowledge you gain from it will be valuable. You can also use that system as a quarintine system for the bigger tank later. You will find out if this level of commitnent is right for you

[jnarowe]

I just get the feeling that this is a bogus thread. Anyway Hahn, I didn't read your wall of words, but a few other posts here and there, and believe me, the maintainance on my tank is about a half hour per day, or I run into trouble.

For a 6,000g tank, I don't think it could be done without a crew. Even Bill Wann will probably sub out some basic chores for his mega system, just so he'll have time to do other things like eat and sleep.

As far as depth goes, I could see building a tank that is 8' deep but not trying to plant corals any deeper than say 35 - 40 inches from the surface. I use 1000W lamps on my tank, which is 35" deep, and I can place corals, clams, and anemones anywhere I want. In fact the anemones have stayed right on the botom. For a super deep tank, why not just mimic real reefs with darker zones down low for fish fun, and coral atolls?

And seriously, you can't put a 6,000g tank open inside a home without some major HVAC engineering, or it will destroy the home. No two ways about it. I have a dedicated tank room, fairly well engineered and isolated from the house with an exterior weatherproofed door. Everything inside that room is exposed to salt air constantly. Even my stainless steel tables will rust if I am not very careful about keeping them clean.

It takes a dedicated 100amp panel, plus another 30 house amps to run my system. A 6,000g reef is going to need about 500 amps. availabe to ensure enough safety margin. Never mind the water making facility. The only person I would trust as a design mentor would be Bill Wann, and I would start sending him gift baskets about a year before I intended to lay out my plan!

[jumboshrimp18]

jnarowe: That is something that I never had thought of--that you would need a dedicated 500 amp for a 6,000 gl project. Wow.
It goes to show that out of an initial perhaps overly ambitious and somewhat unrealistic post comes some interesting reality checks. I think if you were to start adding them all up someone could have nightmares. This could be the beginning of "The Ten Reasons Why You Would Never Want a 6.000 Gl. Tank".
Let's face it: probably most of us have fantasized about having a monster tank. Simple fact of the matter is that if someone could afford a 5,000 gl tank they also could afford all the structural engineers and electricians, etc.
Bill Wann, who you mentioned, might do his own plumbing but he also has a garage full of Ferrari's . Admittedly one of a kind.

[jnarowe]

Well, think about all the pumps and lights. I think Steve Weast has 8 Sequence pumps running on his 800g system, plus 14 - 400W MH lamps...I am using 3 - 1000W lamps on my 1000g tank, just to cut electrical consumption.

Each 1000W lamp is 9.2 amps, so conservatively, if you multiplied that by 6 what do you get? 166 amps for lamps alone, and that is on the extreme low end. It would be closer to 380 amps. just to properly light that system with stationary 1000W lamps.

Then you add the pumps, and you are already at 500 amps. I would bet that SPAZZ has a more accurate estimate based on what he has seen over at Bill's place, and I am sure Bill would have a better understanding of how to conserve, but I can't imagine that I am too far off.

Cost of the wire alone? About $10,000.

[Ken Sellick]

Well we are having fun with this even if Apple has submerged.