6 compartment aquarium

[BIGBOB]

http://www.empco.org/empco/images/3DaquariumPlans.gif

Above/below are the plans for my new aquarium. I already have most of the livestock in my current tanks, and would like to know your thoughts on any of the problems that this system may encounter.

thanks

[BIGBOB]

I should mention that the tubes protruding from the bottom are not legs, they are PVC for water returning to the aquarium from the sump. There will be PVC attachments on these for dispersion over the aquarium floor.

[Dazz]

I think the simple most obvious thing would be cross contamination of fresh to salt and visa-versa. Also, salt creep would inevitably get into the fresh water side.

In addition, FOWLR tanks are normally done because the fish can handle much more dirty water than a reef so you can put more fish/feed them more. If you mix the 2 waters then there will really be no distinction between the 2. Another thing to think about is in a FOWLR you can treat your fish with certain medications which would normally kill off many things in a reef. With your setup, you cannot do that.

Thats just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are other things to worry about.

[BIGBOB]

thanks for the suggestions. I suppose I may have to eliminate the teeth then so water exchange doesn't occur.

Where would salt creep enter into the freshwater aquariums? Do you mean over the top of the divider? If so I could probably just design the dividers to extend well above the water level, which I plan to do for any fish who might fly over into the wrong tank anyway.

[cres]

I would consider having two tanks. One salt, one fresh. You will pay a premium to have a larger tank and then pay again to divide it up.

I wouldn't risk cross contamination should a barrier fail, better to have a detectable leak on the floor than a contaminated pair of systems.

The other reason, btw, for FOWLR is to house coral eating fish while maintaining the benefits of reef rock for filtration. And, your lighting requirements are considerably lower without coral. I don't see a huge issue unifying the FOWLR and Reef with the caviate that you can't overload (with fish and feeding) the overall system and sacrifice water quality.

[DeeZeal]

I kinda like the idea of having a 4 compartment tank but I don't think I would have them arrainged in four corners but instead have 4 divisions along the length of the tank so you have a good view of all 4 at the same time. Neat idea.

[BIGBOB]

I plan to place this aquarium in the center of the basement, so it is viewable from all sides. Because of this, I want the overflows and equipment which hangs from the side of the aquarium to be hidden. So dividing it the way it is in the diagram allows all tanks to meet with the hollow area in the center, where I can hang such equipment.

Otherwise, I think you may be right that seeing all four (or six) at once would be neat, but it would also make the outside observer's viewing area of each aquarium smaller than the current design.

I chose to incorporate the culture tanks in the display because visitors always find them very interesting, so why not show them off? I also think a fluorescent green divider will add a cool effect, and the plankton will benefit from the stray MH lighting.

cres,
do you mean to say that you think allowing flow between the reef and FOWLR is ok? I didn't quite understand what you said in the last sentence.

[MHannon]

How many gallons would each tank be?
Are you going to have one big MH covering all the tanks?

[BIGBOB]

sebae,
the gallons have not yet been determined. That will depend on my budget. But there will be different lights over all the aquariums, although I do not plan to place dividers in the canopy, so the MH light will scatter to some other sections as well.

[Herbert T. Kornfeld]

I would use seperate tanks side by side for ease of cleaning...if you need to break one down, you would have to do all 4 at once otherwise.

[cres]

BIGBOB, yes, I am saying that you can unify the FOWLR and Reef tanks. But, you have to be careful of Dazz's points about water quality. If you have a large number of fish in the FOWLR you can pollute the reef.

On the other hand, if you unify them, you have more water to dillute mistakes, etc. I know of people who are running systems with a shared sump, one for preditors one for a reef. Another is a butterfly tank and a reef tank with a shared sump / refugium / topoff, etc.

I didn't see a sump attached to the planned system, but, wonder if you would add one.