Sounds like the poor guy had nothing but troubles with this tank. To quote from his post....

"At this time I am having problems with my steel above the water line rusting. I built 10 access doors to feed the fish etc. and they are rusting also. I had problems with the floor above the tank after the first year because the floor materials absorbed water and weakened. I then had to replace the floor. I heat my tank with a house oil fired hot water tank. I have used 2 swimming pool heaters before this. But I had many problems 1. the first one ran great for 5 years but it had been installed improperly by the seller and caused a fire. The second one was far too big and it started leaking in the boiler after 1 and a half years."

Plus he does 10,000g water changes weekly...

"I use a 600 lb sand filter on the mega tank, the natural lava rock filtration, I don't over feed and I do about 10,000 gallon water changes every week."

I'd be happy with a 300g, but that's never going to happen, so I'd better dream on :)

reply
 

10,000 every week!!! What is the total volume of that tank?

I think if I had that kind of money I'd just buy lakefront property and save myself the maintainence.

hawaii
 

Just buy a property in Hawaii or Fiji or Solomon Islands and when you visit there, just go snorkelling or scuba diving everyday. Let see........
no electricity bills,
no water changes,
no rusting doors,
no water heaters,
no leaking boilers,
no water absorbing floors
no fish food in your freezer
no ick problems
big selection of fish and corals to see

For the price of that tank, i think he could have had some pretty nice looking property in some exotic locations.

I think that would absolutely be the ideal situation :) Living somewhere in the tropics :)

I think the reason he built that tank though was because he mentioned he was paralyzed from the chest down. That was probably the closest thing he could have/do to actually snorkling in a lake or ocean.

I sure would like to see a monthly bill for something like that!

I think it's 50,000g.

Yeah, that's his "big" tank. The 15,000 gallon tank is his smaller tank. Then there's the 100 or so other tanks he runs, mostly in the 180g+ range. Unimaginable... Despite all the posts of "someday..." I can honestly say I wouldn't want the work those would entail. It would be a full-time job.

The problems he lists aren't that extensive for an 11 year project of that scale. I imagine he's got some other house issues that aren't yet evident, unless he runs some SERIOUS dehumidifiers. Still though, if you like the large-size freshies, that is a nice habitat. I like a nice giant gorami as much as most people, and a big-ass pacu or giant red-tail cat is a nice fish, but I like the salties much, much better.

Matthew