KrazyKuch's & Michika's 180Gal Tank Build

[fencer]

What?????....going bigger....looking forward for that thread.

[michika]

Originally Posted by fencer

What?????....going bigger....looking forward for that thread.

Trying, but there is a lot of work involved.

[mark]

Is you big tank going to be all glass or plywood/glass?

[michika]

The prices above are for all glass. We haven't yet priced out plywood. I think it will come down to a cost vs. time deal. Originally we wanted plywood/fiberglass to help save on the cost of the big tank, but with the option of glass being so affordable, we may not even need to look at fiberglass.

[fencer]

GARF.org will give you the plywood calcs

[Delphinus]

13' seems extraordinarily long to me - my worry would be that it will make the the 3' depth feel narrow. Although you should be able to get some neat wave effects in a tank that long. I'm curious - what kind of glass thickness are we talking about here for 13' long? I'm guessing they've stepped it up because otherwise $1000 more for 2 more feet seems a bit disproportional.

11' or 13' - let's face it, either way would be spectacular though!

[michika]

I can barely reach the bottom at 24", any higher and I'll have a problem. Although Kevin does have long arms.....hmm

So are we saying that 4ft deep would be a better choice room constraints aside?

[untamed]

Ha..ha..what fun! For me, I like the 11' x 4' suggestion instead of the 13' x 3'. But of course, something like 13' x 6' would be even better! I would trade depth for length anytime until you get to a square tank.

Obviously, I went acrylic...have you considered that? Check with James at Envision and see what he could do. Things might jump sharply in price with panels over 10 feet (I can't remember...) James would build you a tank that won't fail, that's for sure.

[JDigital]

Originally Posted by untamed

Ha..ha..what fun! For me, I like the 11' x 4' suggestion instead of the 13' x 3'. But of course, something like 13' x 6' would be even better! I would trade depth for length anytime until you get to a square tank.

13x6... that would be a monster...

[michika]

I like the idea of 4ft but I worry it will take away too much from the room. The tank's foot print will actually be 5.5ft from the back wall to the front of the tank, this accounts for the 2ft walkway behind the tank, and possibly a 0.5ft coast to coast overflow, plus the tank's 3ft depth.

So before I pull the trigger on this puppy and do something that can't be undone. I want to hear opinions on what I'm proposing;

- 13Lx3Dx2H tank eurobraced
- All glass tank? Probably
- Stainless steel stand build in 3? sections
- Clam & SPS dominated
- Busy with a variety of fish
- Returns & water movement done via various Ocean Motions 4 ways; 4 on each end, 12 on the back panel, 8 on the bottom
- Lighted with T5 & MHs
- Dosed with kalk. & Ca. reactors
- We'll skim, but with what, we don't know
- I'll run a 'fug, and will probably use the 180g as a sump.
- I also want to do a frag grow out tank that can be run inline, or offline
- Back up power provided by a generator
- Back up flow provided by 3-4? close surface mounted vortechs to oxygenate the water

Am I missing anything?