4000 gal

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necrocanis

necrocanis

Catfish God
MFK Member
Oct 10, 2005
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Hey guys. Here's some new plans that I have come up with for my tank. I know that I have been throwing around the idea of a tank for quit some time now. I finally have the glass, and some of the wood for this one. Here's my google sketchup model. Have a look and tell me if you see any flaws in my design. It's roughly 15' x 8' x 4 1/2'. The top and bottom frame are made from railroad ties, but I am having trouble in locating unused ones so I might have to switch those to 6x6 beams, but the design will stay the same. Basically I want to make 4 walls seperately then put them all together for the final build. This will be a large catfish themed tank. I am in the process of designing the filter which will sit to the right of the tank and be connected. The filter will be 3'x8'x3', roughly 500 gals. Going to make everything from scratch for this one. The filter will actually be sectioned in half and there will be basically 2 250 gal filters. Each filter in my plans will hold roughly 150 gals of pot scrubbers. Wet dry all the way. I'll post up some plans for the filters later. I have to start them up first. I'll also try to get a finished view of the tank made tonight or tomorrow. Enjoy and send me some feedback. Planning on using marine fiberglass epoxy, but I dont' know anything about it cept what I have read in MFK. Do you have to use the fiberglass mats along with the expoxy? or is the expoxy on the wood fine? I am getting a lot of free lumber for this, but the cost will still probably be up there. The glass was free, and probably kind of a small viewing area for such a large tank, but hey they are in ponds right now so lol, doesn't matter. Viewing area will be 3'x5 1/2' glass is 6'x4'. It's an old table top. Looks to be 1/2" thick. I'll try to get some more details later. I'll be on vacation for a month so don't expect too many updates till after Nov. 3rd. Just trying to get something up here so I can get all my ideas straight before I start. I have one railrosd tie that came with my property that's what gave me the idea.

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:clap: Thats bad ass. only thing I would change is instead of 1 window in the front i'd put 2 or 3 smaller ones. but i'm liken the look of yours.
 
Check around and see if you can locate a second table top with the same diamentions...Run an add in the paper...I know a lot of perants will put tables like that in storage when they have young kids so run an add asking for one. The framing looks...if anything...far heavier than necessary so I doubt you'll have any problems on that score.
 
the load is 2/3 on the bottom of the walls and 1/3 on the top probably 6x6 is overkill on the top frame but cant hurt.....top braces...how about two front to back and one left to right ?????

in your filter what is going to remove the dirt from the water ???
scrubbies for the bio seem fine.

how about turnover ???? 300 gpm seems about right... ??

how does the water get to the pump intakes ???

heaters ???

i assume you will plywood the inside......i would use at least one layer of fiberglass cloth all over and probably a 6 inch wide double layer at all the corners....once its all done you may want to use a final coat of a non toxic resin to seal it.

you might find pond shield is similar in price to something like west system epoxy....


keep us posted





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This will be sheated with 3/4" plywood on the inside. Going overkill on the frame for piece of mind(mine and my wife's)! The filter is hard to describe, but the water will go through the overflow and directly into the wetdry portion of the filter. On top of some egg crating there will be a thick layer of poly fiber mating. Trying to design a directional drain below that with pieces of plastic(or something similar) adhered in many different directions to spread the water flow over the scrubbers. Not sure on how big to make the overflows yet. Thinking I would make them 2' along the side of the tank each and slanted directly into the filter. So the water pretty much just flows directly into the filter. After it cascades through the poly, and through the scrubbers it will enter the sump. There will be two pumps(undecided on how strong) The flow rate you mention sounds good, but I have to find 2 pretty economical pumps that won't break the bank and will give me power without surging the power bill lol. As far as heat goes, this tank will be super insulated. The inside will be sheated with 3/4" plywood, and to fill all the gaps between the frame I will fill it with foam board, and all the other gaps with great stuff. I had great success with all of that in my pond when I had it outside last winter. A single 500w heater kept the pond at 80 f, even when the windchill was below -45. I feel confident this will be even more insulated, and will have a tight fitting cover on top. Evaporation and heat loss is the stuff I am trying to keep to a minimum here. Trying to maximize the filter by splitting it in two. Figure it will be easier to cover that many scrubbers over a smaller area than one huge wetdry. Hope this answers some questions. I think I'll keep to one window. Trying a method for interlocking the frame. Hoping that I can minimize the use of bolts by making it all interlocking if the design seems a little wierd that's why. There will be a thin skin of plywood on the outside as well, but not to cover the main beams. I'll just have to make a finished tank pic for you guys to see what I am talking about lol. Tnx for the ideas.
 
oh, and john ptc, I realize that you have used pondsheild. Would you say it's probably a good product to use for this application? I've been to their site and I saw your tank on there. Looks good to me, but I want someone with expirience with it to tell me how good it actually is. One other thing with my plans for this build is that I will be framing all the walls before putting them together, and also will be framing the window into the front wall frame before it goes up verticle. it will be laying face down when I install it. Anyone see any possible problems with that? I thought that might be a good idea versus putting it in verticle. Don't know though. lol
 
Yeah i agree with trying to locate another piece of glass to throw on thre it would be way way cooler
 
I understand everyone's reason for this, but I have never framed a tank window before and I would hate to fail 2 times over lol. I will look around but for now I'll stick with this plan. Wouldn't the integrity of the front be comprimised being wood with nothing but glass for the front, and a center beam?
 
Not at all....framing the window is less of a problem than you think. The water pressure does most of the work. You have massivly thick walls but only 1/2" thick glass it would be a simple mater of routing a notch for the glass plate...filling it with sylicone and then nesting it in place. You don't need much to hold the glass in place untill the sylicone sets and the tanks filled. small stainless tabs come to mind.
 
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