I will be moving up from my 300g to 1200g this summer. I'm building mine from plywood. It will be 8'x8'x30". I can't give any info on maintaining a 1000+ tank yet. But I feel it won't be much different then maintaining my 300g.
1000 gallon tanks
- Thread starter doviiman
- Start date
sorry to resurrect an old thread. but just trying to catch up from while i was away.
we had a medium catfish about 2 feet long (idk what kind), several Jardinis and several large chiclids (a dovii, some rescued oscars, texas, and a couple others i can't id). roughly 10 fish or so. it looked really natural with the space they had to themselves. any lip locking would end with one or the other fish just swimming away to one of the many pots and the bottom and the fighting stop.
we can't have gars or anything here. but it was really hard to see the fish and really enjoy them with all the terrain and the space between you and the fish. if you fed them prey, they would eat it facing the other way and you'd miss the action.
so to me, less footprint (width to the wall) is better. since you can't make visual use of the extra 3 feet you don't need. i'd rather watch a dovii shred something right infront of me than off in the corner somewhere.
also, consider this; getting to the bulkheads alllllll the way at the end of the wall behind the tank. of course larger tanks are always going to take a couple extra hours to maintain properly each session. but the water changes are also less. (and a killer on your water bill)
we had a medium catfish about 2 feet long (idk what kind), several Jardinis and several large chiclids (a dovii, some rescued oscars, texas, and a couple others i can't id). roughly 10 fish or so. it looked really natural with the space they had to themselves. any lip locking would end with one or the other fish just swimming away to one of the many pots and the bottom and the fighting stop.
we can't have gars or anything here. but it was really hard to see the fish and really enjoy them with all the terrain and the space between you and the fish. if you fed them prey, they would eat it facing the other way and you'd miss the action.
so to me, less footprint (width to the wall) is better. since you can't make visual use of the extra 3 feet you don't need. i'd rather watch a dovii shred something right infront of me than off in the corner somewhere.
also, consider this; getting to the bulkheads alllllll the way at the end of the wall behind the tank. of course larger tanks are always going to take a couple extra hours to maintain properly each session. but the water changes are also less. (and a killer on your water bill)
You will almost surely see a jump in your utility bill with such a large tank. Especially if the tank will be kept in an unheated room where the ambient air temperature is much lower than the temperature you are maintaining in the tank. It will take a lot of energy to heat that much water. The part that I am not sure about is how much energy it will take to maintain the temperatures (there are a lot of variables that come into play- ex- open top tank, how well insulated the room is, glass vs acrylic and how thick it is etc). You will also likely be running larger pumps and more watts for lights.
I think concrete slab floor is your only option when it comes to tanks this large. Make sure your floor can support the weight. I have seen some people break up existing concrete and lay down high strength, extremely thick, rebar re-inforced concrete for 1,000G+ tanks. I'm not sure if this is necessary, but I will let you know if my floor fails (my 770G is on 4" concrete that has NO rebar with quite a few cracks before I even set it up, so if a concrete floor is going to fail/sag, it would be mine).
Make sure that you have decent clearance from the top of your tank to the ceiling (I would want at least 3 feet). If it's possible, run your filtration in a separate room or to the side of the tank so that you can make your stand shorter if your ceilings are only 8' high. I have seen quite a few huge tanks setup with only a foot or so clearance and that would make maintenance difficult and aquascaping would be almost impossible. Think about having a 4 foot high tank and only being able to put a 12" high or wide piece of driftwood in?....it would look tiny in such a tall tank.
Looking forward to seeing your setup. You should post a build thread. I'm making one for my 770 once I'm all done.
I think concrete slab floor is your only option when it comes to tanks this large. Make sure your floor can support the weight. I have seen some people break up existing concrete and lay down high strength, extremely thick, rebar re-inforced concrete for 1,000G+ tanks. I'm not sure if this is necessary, but I will let you know if my floor fails (my 770G is on 4" concrete that has NO rebar with quite a few cracks before I even set it up, so if a concrete floor is going to fail/sag, it would be mine).
Make sure that you have decent clearance from the top of your tank to the ceiling (I would want at least 3 feet). If it's possible, run your filtration in a separate room or to the side of the tank so that you can make your stand shorter if your ceilings are only 8' high. I have seen quite a few huge tanks setup with only a foot or so clearance and that would make maintenance difficult and aquascaping would be almost impossible. Think about having a 4 foot high tank and only being able to put a 12" high or wide piece of driftwood in?....it would look tiny in such a tall tank.
Looking forward to seeing your setup. You should post a build thread. I'm making one for my 770 once I'm all done.
I agree here, I upgraded from a 220 to a 500 and from what the owner of the 500 said to me when I bought it 2000Watts of heat to heat it. He lives in the same city as I do so temps are the same and his house is new and likely had insulation my house is built in the 1950's and has no insulation. So the heating alone would jump from 900 watts to 2000. As far as pumps go if you want to spend the cash up front and save on the back end on electricity you can't do better then Dolphin Pumps, and if someone says you can I challenge them to show me the power curve.
A few questions for you...
1. How cold does it get in your house in the winter?
2. How often do your heaters turn on?
3. What type of heaters are you using?
I will accept your challenge. Reeflo Hammerhead Gold does 4,400GPH at 9 ft. of head and uses only 291 watts. Flow chart can be found here: http://www.thatpetplace.com/pet/prod/239705/product.web
Does Dolphin make a pump that will match that GPH at 9ft of head and draw less than 291 watts?
65 in the winters,
Note sure how often they come on.
I stand half corrected, at the middle range pumps with high flow low head reeflo wins when you start talking about high head high flow like the manta ray series the dolphin comes out on top.
Dolphin Aqua Sea Diamond 9500 20' 160GPM 1334 watts 9600GPH
MantaRay Gold 19' 130GPM 1144 watts 7800gph
There are also some other middle ground results, I was doing research for a high head when I found these so I just thought the middle range dolphin was the same thanks for pointing that out.
Note sure how often they come on.
I stand half corrected, at the middle range pumps with high flow low head reeflo wins when you start talking about high head high flow like the manta ray series the dolphin comes out on top.
Dolphin Aqua Sea Diamond 9500 20' 160GPM 1334 watts 9600GPH
MantaRay Gold 19' 130GPM 1144 watts 7800gph
There are also some other middle ground results, I was doing research for a high head when I found these so I just thought the middle range dolphin was the same thanks for pointing that out.
Downside to 1000 gallon is likely it ends up in the basement or you have to put additional supports in place. 5500 for 1,000 is very cheap. I question the quality and thickness of the acrylic being used. My buddy has a tank just shy of 1,000 10X4X3. The tank was 7500.00 to build. This did not include freight or retail cost. Of course he designed it for his needs and so it had many large overflows, which added to the cost.
He lost all of his fish this past winter when the heater for the room froze and the heaters in the wet-dry could not keep up with the falling temperature.
Water changes took hours on end. He used a 10,000 per hour sump pump to drain (easy part), but filling was very slow and kept him grounded to the house for hours.
He lost all of his fish this past winter when the heater for the room froze and the heaters in the wet-dry could not keep up with the falling temperature.
Water changes took hours on end. He used a 10,000 per hour sump pump to drain (easy part), but filling was very slow and kept him grounded to the house for hours.
Thanks for the info...hopefully you know I wasn't trying to be a jerk or confrontational...I seriously wanted to know if there was a more efficient pump at that flow and head pressure because my utility company charges $0.40+ a KWh! A few watts here and there really adds up so I'm looking for the most efficient equipment possible. I checked out their website...they look like really nice pumps.
I just got a 10x3x4 and I think I'm going to go with natives because of the cost of heating it if I were to keep tropicals (educated guess would be around $200 to $300 per month) and the possibility of a power outage wiping everything out. I would like to use natural gas to heat it via a heat exchanger, but I would have to run plumbing and a gas line and I don't want to spend anymore money.
I can definitely attest to being tied to the tank for hours...my 770 took almost 3 hours to fill up! My water pressure from the tap is horrible though, so it probably wouldn't take most people that long.
pretty big jump.i have a 300 right now and its big nough for me (for now 
)
but good luck on this up grade.
have you thought about swamp filters? maybe a big one with low flow so you can save money on a big pump and just use power heads to churn the water.
and use led lights to light the tank and the plants so there isnt much monthly cost just initial purchase.
) but good luck on this up grade.
have you thought about swamp filters? maybe a big one with low flow so you can save money on a big pump and just use power heads to churn the water.
and use led lights to light the tank and the plants so there isnt much monthly cost just initial purchase.
