When is it too big?

[BackPackHunter]

Originally Posted by BlueTang<3

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

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?