I'll start by saying this tank won't be more than a plan for another year or two. My wife and I are buying a house next year and the tank won't become reality until after the move and we've settled in.
The plan is to house Bala sharks in a planted tank. I currently have a 75g planted tank with Rosaline sharks/denison barbs and I'm ready to go all out on the next tank.
Anyway, onto the tank. I'd like feedback on any and everything. The tank will be a plywood build. It will likely be 3/8" glass (20-24" deep), fiberglassed seems, and epoxied for water proofing. My current iteration is focused on a L-shape aquarium with 2 roughly 2'x4' viewing windows.
I was planning on bracing around the top and bottom in the form of 2x4s.
I'll likely connect the rims with more 2x4s and a couple 2x6s.
I was also planning viewing panels on the end of the tank since I know I have more 3/8" glass available.
At this point, I decided that I would increase the depth of the tank. The viewing panels at the ends will have to be modified in reality, but are just widened in the photos. This leaves the tank at 24" deep, 30" wide, and two 4' legs.
This rendition of the stand didn't really tackle the support aspects nor the doors. I was mostly building something simple to make my idea more concrete. This stand is 40" tall. I may opt for 36" tall. I know I'll have a 20-22" sump and I'd like to be able to work in it.
I started to tackle the filtration. It will likely be a sump. I built a very basic sump on my current tank and I love the additional water volume and ease of maintenance. This is a 75g tank with a weir in the corner of the tank. I'll use something like gutter guard to keep the fish out. The water level will be set by a stand pipe slightly higher than the weir.
The drain is going to be based off of the bean animal design and will use 3 drains. I'm not sure on the return pump nor the bulkhead size. I think 1.5" may be too small. At full siphon, it will drain 1300 GPH (irrc) and I'd like 5x display tank flow. That's 2000 gph and I don't want to run 700 GPH through the other overflow. It would likely be noisy. So I think 2" with a ball valve to dial in the full siphon.
The sump design is simple. The bean animal style drains empty into a section with heaters, then flows through progressively more porous filter foam, then flows through roughly 25 gallons of bio media, then through another section of foam before the return pump sends it back to the tank.
In this I was thinking 1.5" drains would be ample. I may have to reconsider. I'm not sure what to do about the return piping yet either. I was thinking of returns on both legs to push water towards the center drain.
Moving away from the sump and to the hood. I'm using CFL lights in dome shop lights on my current tank and I actually like them. It is simple, easy to adjust, and works well. So I was going with more of the same plan here. The hood is 18" tall and will likely have fans on each end to push new air in and pull the current air out to keep the lighting from heat soaking the tank too much.
I attempted to stack the different models on top of each other. Some of the spacing wasn't perfect, but the idea is the same.
I made these models in Google Sketch up. Forgive me, but I've never done anything like this before and this was my first attempt at 3D modeling. Hopefully I can gain some helpful insight before I start learning from my own mistakes.
Thanks for any replies.
The plan is to house Bala sharks in a planted tank. I currently have a 75g planted tank with Rosaline sharks/denison barbs and I'm ready to go all out on the next tank.
Anyway, onto the tank. I'd like feedback on any and everything. The tank will be a plywood build. It will likely be 3/8" glass (20-24" deep), fiberglassed seems, and epoxied for water proofing. My current iteration is focused on a L-shape aquarium with 2 roughly 2'x4' viewing windows.
I was planning on bracing around the top and bottom in the form of 2x4s.
I'll likely connect the rims with more 2x4s and a couple 2x6s.
I was also planning viewing panels on the end of the tank since I know I have more 3/8" glass available.
At this point, I decided that I would increase the depth of the tank. The viewing panels at the ends will have to be modified in reality, but are just widened in the photos. This leaves the tank at 24" deep, 30" wide, and two 4' legs.
This rendition of the stand didn't really tackle the support aspects nor the doors. I was mostly building something simple to make my idea more concrete. This stand is 40" tall. I may opt for 36" tall. I know I'll have a 20-22" sump and I'd like to be able to work in it.
I started to tackle the filtration. It will likely be a sump. I built a very basic sump on my current tank and I love the additional water volume and ease of maintenance. This is a 75g tank with a weir in the corner of the tank. I'll use something like gutter guard to keep the fish out. The water level will be set by a stand pipe slightly higher than the weir.
The drain is going to be based off of the bean animal design and will use 3 drains. I'm not sure on the return pump nor the bulkhead size. I think 1.5" may be too small. At full siphon, it will drain 1300 GPH (irrc) and I'd like 5x display tank flow. That's 2000 gph and I don't want to run 700 GPH through the other overflow. It would likely be noisy. So I think 2" with a ball valve to dial in the full siphon.
The sump design is simple. The bean animal style drains empty into a section with heaters, then flows through progressively more porous filter foam, then flows through roughly 25 gallons of bio media, then through another section of foam before the return pump sends it back to the tank.
In this I was thinking 1.5" drains would be ample. I may have to reconsider. I'm not sure what to do about the return piping yet either. I was thinking of returns on both legs to push water towards the center drain.
Moving away from the sump and to the hood. I'm using CFL lights in dome shop lights on my current tank and I actually like them. It is simple, easy to adjust, and works well. So I was going with more of the same plan here. The hood is 18" tall and will likely have fans on each end to push new air in and pull the current air out to keep the lighting from heat soaking the tank too much.
I attempted to stack the different models on top of each other. Some of the spacing wasn't perfect, but the idea is the same.
I made these models in Google Sketch up. Forgive me, but I've never done anything like this before and this was my first attempt at 3D modeling. Hopefully I can gain some helpful insight before I start learning from my own mistakes.
Thanks for any replies.
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