770 Gallon Monster Setup

[aldiaz33]

Tank is up to 78F. The heaters have used 38KWHrs since I plugged them in (it's been almost 48 hours). That's about $12 worth of electricity. The heaters (1,800W) raised the temp about 1F per hour until the set temp was hit. I knew that getting the temp up was going to use a lot of juice...now I'm waiting to see how much it's going to take to maintain 78F.

For the record, I am not posting here to complain. I am sharing so that others can maybe learn from my experiences/mistakes.

On another note, I officially learned that collecting natives in California is pretty much completely banned. It's illegal to take any fish (alive) from any body of water in this state. I was considering getting a few largemouth bass, but I'm not going to break any laws. It seems that any fish (other than goldfish) that can survive in 50F through 80F water is banned and or just not readily available.

I hope it all works out and doesn't break your bank.

yeah hope those heaters work out for ya! keep us posted!

Thanks...me too.

Alex, by the time your done experimenting buying products to heat this monster not to mention electricity you would of been able to do the heat exchanger and the main parts are close by

hey maybe now we can even incorporate a trade for some of those new heaters thats if this guy doesn't hit me back to buy them. GL man

You're probably right. My houses water heater is over 100 feet away from the fish room, so it would be pretty much impossible to use it (tons of concrete would need to be cut up in order to run the plumbing). If I end up using a heater exchanger, I might just buy a tankless water heater and mount it right off the fish room. Probably not going to try that out anytime soon, but I'll hit you up when I do just in case you still have the parts.

Don't know how much room you have left in that house, but a used monitor or toyo stove could be set up to heat that tank and the building. You wouldn't have to break any concrete or dig any grass, just drill one hole in your wall for an exhaust. You could probably heat everything for under 20 dollars a month on a cold month. Anyway nice tank and wicked cool comets.

Interesting. Thanks for the tip on the heaters/stoves. I'll do some research on those.

Love this thread. Its like watching a good movie with a nice twist in the end. I've never seen goldfish in a tank that big, looks really nice. Would like to see a vid of how you clean the tank. Thinking of getting a tall tank someday. Congrats, awesome project.

I'll try to get some footage of a water change. It's pretty boring though. Maintenance on tall tanks isn't really as tough as most people make it out to be. As long as you have the right tools (long vacuum, good long tongs, a ladder and a magnetic algae scraper) it's not much different than a short tank. The biggest downside for me was how much more expensive tall tanks are since they require much thicker material.

Sorry if this has been covered already, but why don't you heat the room?

I run a 50+ tank fishroom and maintain the house (via thermostat) at 72 degrees in the winter. I keep the fishroom (which is in the basement) doors closed and heat the big tanks (180g and 2X150g) with a 300W heater each. The room stays ~74F (lower for the tanks closer to the floor), higher for the top rack of tanks in the winter.

This is plenty warm for most Central American cichlids and a lot of other "tropical fish"...

My total electrical bill for the house is ~$200/month in the winter (add another $120 or so for Natural Gas)...

Also, you could try Uruguayan fish - Gymnogeophagus, Chanchitos, Pikes, etc. - they're neo-tropical and actually enjoy temps in the 50s in the winter...

Matt

I would have to run a gas line to the structure which would probably require a permit and cost me a bit of cash. I will likely experiment with heating the room in the future through. I'm guessing that you have a gas fired HVAC system to heat the room? I think you are right though...if I use natural gas (whether it's to heat the room, or the water via a heat exchanger) will be much cheaper than electric heaters.

The old place I was living at, I didn't use any heaters and the temp was always perfect. I think heating the room is key, why bother with heaters when you can heat the room. One less thing to worry about.

Glad to hear others have had success heating the room vs. the water directly. There seems to be a bit of controversy as to what is more efficient.

awesome set up, jealous!

very impressive awesome job

Thanks.

Hopefully the heater works out. I'm sure you already figured it, but I thought I'd point out 1800 watts is 16.36 amps on 110 volts. I'm not sure what kind of outlet you have that plugged into or if anything else is on the circuit.

Thanks Aaron...I hope the heaters work out too. I have (3) 20 amp circuits running to the room. I have read that you shouldn't draw more than 80% of the circuits max rated capacity (Roughly 2,000 watts for a 20 Amp and 1500 watts for a 15amp), so I think I'm ok.

 

[BoilerJA]

This is an amazing set up! When are the fish moving in?

 

[Egon]

FYI I keep my big tanks at 75 in the winter. I'm a cheap-o too The fish can handle 75 with out a problem. And they eat less lol

 

[aldiaz33]

This is an amazing set up! When are the fish moving in?

Well, if you count goldfish, the tank already has 10 fish.

Here's a video:

[video=youtube_share;hr5xuM67ylg]http://youtu.be/hr5xuM67ylg[/video]

FYI I keep my big tanks at 75 in the winter. I'm a cheap-o too The fish can handle 75 with out a problem. And they eat less lol

Good to know your fish do ok at 75. I would probably try to maintain those temps or maybe even a few degrees cooler, since I would try to keep stock that will tolerate lower temps (I hear Texas cichilids, JDs, Oscars, Bala Sharks and Silver Dollars would be fine down to 72F).

I asked arapaimag (the guy with the 50,000G tank in Florida) what temps he keeps his big tanks at and he said he actually lets temps fluctuate between 69F (21C) and 78F (26C). To quote him, "Generally I raise it to about 26 C then let it slowly fall to about 21 C. I then repeat. I find it costs me less than maintaining a steady temp." I may use a similar technique in the wintertime, but with a smaller delta since my tank is so much smaller and would cool off a lot faster, especially since my air temps are lower (maybe allow temps to fluctuate by 3 degrees from 75 down to 72).

 

[littlewangzfan]

Nice video. Sorry I may have missed it but where did you get the gravel from? I like the color combo.

 

[BROCKandKIMBO]

Tank looks great man, regardless of whats in it... cant wait to see more. subscribed

 

[Judon]

!!!! So ?!?!!??? What's the verdict on average costs? I believe you've been running the heaters about two weeks now, attempting to gather "run & maintain" information. Originally it looked like it costs $12 to heat the tank to what temp you wanted, but the normal run costs were not foreseeable yet. Well, two weeks should be some little bit of preliminary information. What'cha got??? we need a hit.... I've just read ~30 pages of this post and need to know how the story ends..

This is an awesome tank and you deserve great kuddos on investing so much into your hobby.. Your present fish look pretty awesome in there and really show why they are so popular...if only every one could see them in a beauty like you've got.. wow. Of course, a little more personality or strangeness that you'd get with the tropical options would be welcome, but you're tank really shows off the GF really well.. It looks great.

I personally like your patience in setting it all up and the way you organize your priorities. First, you got a rocking tank... awesome job on finding "a deal". Then, you went first class on filtration, you seem like you want to second guess your investment on the plumbing, but imo without a great filtration system, you're starting on the wrong foot. The filtration and biological balance of the tank is such a foundational ingredient to anything else you might want to try later on... Lighting, background, aesthetics, and stocking are all things that can be done later on without much disruption. If you don't get your filtration right from the beginning, you'll be disturbing everything else and possibly having massive clean-ups later on. So, good on ya for that.

One reason I want to leave SD is because of all the laws that Ca has.... I'm from the south and much prefer a little less gov in my day to day... thank you. I agree, there are some nice parts of being around all the city's options.. but I just don't know if it's worth it.

I give MFK the credit for teaching people how to take care of their tanks(and their inhabitants) like you have. OH, and I love how on MFK.... we all want to be building a tank so badly that when you update your thread a.) you HAVE to include pics or it doesn't count and b.) any pics will do, they don't have to have fish or anything in it... just pics of heater boxes...and we're happy

Anyhow, great tank... good luck

sub'd

 

[gangster]

Raise that temp a little bit....Its not gonna cost too much more to get it into the 80's. YOu only have a few months of winter. Then its summer. Stock it with what YOU want.

 

[aaronb]

You should be fine on the amps then. I figured you'd checked it out, because you seem to be about the most well thought out member on here. I'd definitely recommend the Ranco controller. If wired with 14 gauge wire it'll handle all 1800 watts with one controller. You can set the differential that you want the heaters to kick on. You might be able to play with that and your kill a watt and find a way to be more efficient. I guess I don't know if letting it cool off 3 degrees instead of one would make much difference. I suppose you'd save a little in the time it takes for the heaters to warm up each time. Also with the Ranco controller you can bypass the cheap internal thermostat. I'm sure your heaters will be cycling on and off more than most, so it's going to be using up the good in those internal thermostats pretty quickly. I had a 200 watt Jager quit and it's only 70 dollars for piece of mind.

It's too bad your dimensions weren't a little different, so you could keep peacock bass. I know some people have and would tell you to keep them anyways. I don't know what they expect a person to do when they get too big. I suppose maybe they don't understand how to make choices from the perspective of someone with a conscience. I suppose even though the front to back measurement is arguably a little short it's way better than having peacock bass in a 55 gallon.

If the power usage is tolerable you could set up a pretty nice ca/sa cichlid tank. It actually seemed like your tank warmed up pretty quickly. I think you might be able to get away with using less wattage. You might want to try unplugging some heaters and seeing how much you need to maintain your temperature. You can use your kill a watt to see what's more efficient. Good luck with the tank.

 

[killercatfisher29]

does anyone know what courses to take in college to be an aquarist? other than marine bio?