When is it too big?
 

A few you you might have read a couple threads i wrote about a up coming build im planing. And the work needed in the room to make it fit...
The amount of work and money moving furnace, electrical panel, hot water tank and finishing the room, started to weigh on me, so I started thinking about ways to fix this...
what I came up with was build a new wall, and lose 6-8 feet in the living room..
I asked the wife her thoughts and to my surprise she likes that idea a lot more then the reno i had first planed .... :biggrin:
there is a window on one wall , so that could be a problem, I think its in a ok spot that wont affect the build, worst case is i build the new wall on a bit of a angle to avoid the window...

this new plan gives me a lot more room to play with ideas
i was going to build a 72x36x36 (and this will be the min size of it)
i still want a 36" deep tank, but might be able to go 42 or 48" wide and up to 10 feet long.... max would be 1200x36x48 (48" wide will depend on the window)

where do you draw the line ? how big is to big?

I dont see much cost difference in running a 72x36x36 - 1200x36x36
what are your thoughts on this?
at what size of tank do you got to up the glass thickness ?
was planing of going with 19mm

do you or have you have had a huge tank and wish you never went as big
whats the biggest tank you have had?

thanks for any input

I think you are on the right track with the reno ideas, losing a few feet of a room versus thousands of $$$ and time to do all the things you where thinking about.

I am not the one to ask about tank size that is a for sure but starting with a 65 gal, then a second 65 gal, up to a 155 gal bow front, moving to my 8' 165 gal and now finally putting a ton of effort on my 8' 300 gal once its all done and running I will be more then happy to stay with it for many yrs. But that doesn't mean that this is going to be my only tank. :biggrin:

I don't have a giant tank, mine is only 30"x24"x24" (LDH). But one of the reasons I went with this size is at I could use just 1 led light, but if I went with a standard 90 I would need 2. So one of the differences in an extra 4' (I assume you meant 120, not 100 ft) is extra lights, in addition to extra everything (tank, pump, rock, sand, etc). For me that would not be an insignificant extra cost. As for ongoing extra cost, there is that much more maintainance involved: water changes, vacuuming, scraping, and so on.

Clearly you are the only one who can decide what's appropriate amount of time and money to spend. I would find the prospect of running a tank that big daunting, but the prospect of looking at such a tank a treat. :)

- Ian

I think so too, and this will also mean theres water pumping sooner too
the cost saving in going this way will pay for the glass and the rock wall kinda like bluetang's tank....

yes i meant 120" not 1200"
1200 is to big, that would be a full time job, and id be single again

the start up cost will be very high no matter what size I end up with ,
up sizing the pumps, adding a extra light or 2 doesnt bother me...
just might add a couple months to when its alive, as my wife doesnt want me taking out of the saving account, so I will be adding every month till its ready. I want this to be as self contained as possible because of my job.

its just a little more salt and additives etc to maintain it right?

I will move there to the main forum for you.

no problem, my bad

many years is the main thing, before when I was doing aquariums, i was always upgrading and going a little bigger then a little bigger it never ended
this it it, last one, I want it to be right as theres no changing or going back...
I think Im going to copy a lot of your ideas, as they are so well thought out and clean...

Ohhh not at all. Just figured you would a better discussion here..:smile:

Not sure why you want a 36 inch deep tank, unless your arms are 6 feet long good luck working in it, with the euro racing on my current tank at 24 inches I have a hard time getting to the bottom and I am 6'5". Aside from that lighting is hard on deep tanks if you want to keep a reef. Personally wouldn't go more than 30, I am a 24 inch guy and like that depth. As for cost a few inches in length really changes flow and what power heads you need. Once the tank gets large too got to think of cost of heating and such. Our tank takes a pile of power to stay warm. Need larger skimmer and such, plus when I do a water change its about 100 gallons a week, that in its self costs 30-40 bucks. Something to keep your mind open about. On that 3 foot deep tank you would dam near need 400 watt halides or a piles of led but don't know how they penetrate. All comes down to which direction you want to take the tank.

One valuable lesson I learned was do it once right especially for equipment, we bought cheap stuff to start, you end up buying the better stuff usually and get stuck with ht cheap stuff

Copy away, nothing patent pending.....YET:lol:

I do agree with Blue Tang on the depth. My new tank is 30" deep & I am not a GIANT, have to use a 3 step ladder just to reach the bottom.

A 36" deep tank is not for very many people. Probably less then 2% would want one.
You would have to be disfigured to work and clean the tank in a normal way.
To work on the tank, you need a hot shower and swimiming goggles. I will have a peace of 1" thick plywood the same lenght as the tank to put on the top of the tank to lay on, so it distributes my weight . Then stick your head in n hold your breath ... If this was going to be a true reef, I would be going with under 30 and most likely be 24", but the reef is coming in second for this build. There's a couple fish I've always wanted. Emperor & French Angelfish , not a 100% reef safe, the hole build is around keeping them stress free and as happy as I can so they live a long and full life. If I go 10' I would probably have enough room for a pair of both angelfish... I'm going to have a very low bio load in the tank, and the corals I do have will be kept higher in the tank because of the lighting issue. I'm not a fan of MH lights and will be going with LEDs , no bulbs to change less noise n heat and less power . Right now I'm leaning towards Mitras for the lighting.
I did figure it would cost me about $50 a week to run this tank.
My dog cost me that much now, with her special food, toys, treats, she's a very well taken care of dog ( English mastiff , n likes to eat )

The advice about not buying cheap gear is very good, and I'm a gear junky, people think they save money making do with half ass gear, then a year down the road you need to replace it, and so on, in the long run it cost way more then if you just saved a little bit longer and got the good one.

I was hoping with a light bio load I would be able to get away with 10% water changes every 10 days once everything is up and stable ... Is this unrealastic ?

For the cost of heating I was thinking about installing a small gas heater in the room and keeping the room a little warmer then the rest of the house.
The tank will be in the basement and the house has AC so I do not plan on running a chiller ... Or should I rethink that?

When I first got into SW I started small and my friend who got me into reefing told me I'd be upgrading and 7 months later I upgraded from a 33 gallon to 95 gallons which I am happy with but who knows down the road.

I think mostly what the limiting factor is "How much are you willing to spend? "

As most of us know The cost in setting up is a huge huge huge money pit but generally speaking after it is established the cost of maintaining is one of the bigger factors so whether it be a 30 gallon or a 500 gallon tank it's what your willing to spend to set up and what you do to maintain

I find the major issues to deal with on a large tank are lighting, heating, evaporation and cleaning.
The lighting is the most expensive part. No way around that. I changed over heating to a hot water PEX loop, and cleaning takes a lot longer, especially if it's a deep tank like you're thinking.
I keep the main tank covered but the sump is a major source of evaporation. Make sure your house mechanical systems can handle it. I have a HRV that is running most of the time.
I do 5% water changes weekly but I also keep a very low fish load, so I'm not finding any problems with smaller water changes.
My tank is 96 x 48 x 30. The sump is a 180g.

I see quite a cost difference. The larger tank has a considerably larger water volume which will amount to a more costly water change. On top of that, it will cost more to dose (elements) if you go down that route. It will likely require more, or large power heads to get the right flow. It will require more, or more powerful lights to light. More rocks, a larger skimmer, return pump.. Bottom line, more bigger tank=more stuff=more expensive.

+1

The costs of they tank directly scale to the size of the tank. I worked it out with a power meter once that my 275 gallon tank with a 100ish gallon sump, 8 radions, my skimmer, return pump, vortech's and all the incidental electronics that inevitably begin to pepper your stand like acne together cost about $50/month to run on an average month. Bigger tank = bigger/more pumps/more lights/more heating/cooling = more per month to run it.

On top of that, I get maybe 3.8 water changes out of a $100 bucket of salt, if my tank was any bigger I'd have to use a much less expensive salt. Another thing that's turning out to not be inconsequential is the cost of food for my fish. A few large angels will probably eat more than my whole tank, and you'll want to give them high quality foods that you'll burn through quickly. It's at least $100/month to feed my tank.

additives you can probably figure out an economical way to do, if you're not doing many corals you probably won't need many, and you can buy in bulk if you dose 2 part, but if you end up with a full blown reef the amount of basic chemicals you can go through can be huge. GFO can get expensive depending on how you buy it, but no matter what way you'll cut it you'll have to either change it out more, or use larger amounts of it per change on a larger tank with larger fish. However, additives for any of the nutrient management 'systems' out there, like bacterial cultures, trace elements, amino acids, etc. etc. can get pretty pricey when you're dosing them in large volumes.

And depending on the LEDs you go with, the difference between a 6x3 foot tank and a 10x3 foot tank can be over $3000 just in lighting, which is not inconsequential in my opinion.

In any case don't think I'm trying to talk you out of it. I can't wait for the day when I can have a tank almost exactly like that! I just remember being shocked when I realized how much this tank was costing me every month relative to my 90 gallon just to keep the water good and the fish fed. "Obligatory" upkeep costs consumed almost the entire monthly budget I had decided was acceptable to spend on my tank every month before I started, which meant I was constantly going well 'over' budget to buy the things that I set up the tank to keep. It's also stopped me from ever upgrading my lights. Upgrading 3 radions to the pro version would be 900 bucks, something that I could conceivably justify. $2400 to upgrade all 8 however, would probably get me a divorce.

What I'm thinking is 96"x36"x36" 3/4" glass
Probably a 72"x24"x24" sump

Probably 500lbs of live rock
4 - 5 mitras lights
4 waveline DC 12000
2 waveline DC 6000
2 VorTech mp40
Reef Octopus SSS skimmer

controller
Co2 unit

Think I'm going to glue foam insolation to 3 sides of the tank and sump to help heat lose, and will have a lid on the tank and most of the sump

I want this tank to be as maintenance free as possible ....


The start up cost is not a concern ,
When the wife asks how much was the lights , I'll just say they were around $2000
And they kinda where around that, kinda
If she knew what my hunting gear was worth, I would have spent a lot of nights on the couch
And with my hunting I'm always up grading because there's always something new that is lighter
I spend 2 weeks running around mountains living out of my back pack,

Will this tank be in a basement? What sort of temp fluctuations does the room it's going in get over the course of a year? Even just being inside a cabinet (top and bottom) can cause over-heating issues on my tank in the summer. The AC is set to prevent the house from ever going above 24.5, but at 24.5 ambient, with both the upper and lower cabinet doors on my tank closed, my tank will easily pass the 27 degree mark. While LEDs don't transmit much heat to the water with the light, the units themselves still put out a great deal of heat. It might be less of an issue if the light fixtures were not enclosed in a cabinet. My tank has two 6' long viewable sides, and a 90cfm fan in the ceiling of cabinet that is permanently on. Even in the winter I generally leave the office side upper doors of the enclosure open the help keep the tank cool and the light fixtures cool.

If you had a chiller, or if that tank is going in a room that is perpetually cold, the insulation might make sense year round, but with insulation I can foresee the potential for a dangerous situation to develop. Could you make it removable?

When it doesn't fit

Can you PM me and let me know where I can get 4-5 Mitras for around $2000? Thanks!

That's just what I'll tell my wife

It's going in the basement , the house will have AC, so stable temp
I'm building it it's own room, for work and only viewable from the living room
I will have a huge turbine fan to suck out hot air if need, on a temp gauge
I could make the foam removable , and thinks that a very good idea
I can run the AC n heat into the room off the current system

Having a covered tank, I've never found overheating to be an issue, even when I was running 3 x 400w MH.
A simple fan pointed on the sump during the summer was enough.

You better not tell her cause even at cost your looking at $3500 - $4500 for Mitras.

Im building my tank out of 3/4 glass it is 72x36x30 and i helped a fellow reefer out with a 144x48x32 and he used 1" glass

My 8' 300 is 3/4" all around, heavy as hellz but 2 guys can manage the big panels carefully.

Ya , best price Ive found so far is a $1000 each
im still looking for a better deal,
hoping to find some good deals on the 26, to get a jump on this little tank