Advice: Big Tank Or Pondarium?
- Thread starter BK1
- Start date
Hi Alex,
Thanks for you note, Is that your 770 gallon linked in your sig? Awesome if so. Your tank is actually the one I show to ppl, such as my wife to get them an idea of the size/scope of this project. May I just say that thing is beyond sexy man. Sure hope it is yours and not just that your linked it in your sig. Or all my fawning will be in vain.
I wish the link you sent me worked, I am pretty sure its this crappy connection, and so will look tonight at home,
To answer your initial question, and its a good one. I suppose the answer is two fold: 1. Time, I believe the ultimate would be something in the vicinity of 12 - 24 months to get completely stood up. (Nothing fishwise that I acquire in that timeframe will NEED the ultimate yet) 2. Not sure if I will build/will have built/will have parts built/will repurpose the pool. So there are a few options in terms of my ulitmate.
Yes I understand the cost involved in keeping a body of water that large.
Correct me where required, but largely the cost will come in terms of heating right? I mean food, water, chemicals, filtration etc, everything will have an associated cost, however in terms of a single big cost and an ongoing one esp. for a pond (obvi outdoors) for the fish I wish to keep, will need to be heated, particularly in winter. Any familiarity in an air-source heat pump?
Will watch the link you made tonight.
Thanks again mate! Appreciate your input.
Hey BK-
Yeah, the 770G is mine. Glad you like it. =)
In regards to what the largest cost will be, typically it is heating, but obviously that will depend on your local temps. How cold does it get where you will be setting up the tank?
Just to give you an idea, I believe JohnPTC runs six 4KW heaters (total of 24,000watts) on his 10K gallon tank.
I run 1,800 watts on my 770G. So we both run around 2.5 watts per gallon.
You would probably need to run at least 1,000 watts of pump(s) for the final tank large enough for the Arapaima. So you would be looking at 720KWHrs/month just to run the pump. Going off of JohnPTC's setup, if his heaters come on just 3 hours per day to maintain tropical temps, that's another 2,160KWHrs. So that puts you at 2,880KWHrs/month to run the pump and the heaters. Not sure what you pay for electricity, but that electrical consumption would cost me ~$980/month. I pay some of the highest rates in the US though, at $0.34/KWHr). If you pay closer to our national average ($0.11/KWHr), then your bill would come to ~$316 per month. Add to that the cost to run lights, the cost of water and the cost to feed the fish you mentioned and I think you should budget upwards of $750/month (I think this estimate is on the low end...it may cost you more). Not sure if you had a chance to watch the video I linked to, but John said his setup costs him ~$2,000/month and if you are getting a Pima, you should be looking at an ultimate setup similar to his.
I'm not trying to discourage you, but the reality of running huge (Pima sized) setups is that it's really expensive.
I would suggest that if you start with a tank closer to the size of mine, stock it with smaller fish for now so that you can get a feel for running a "largish" setup. If you get the big boys right away and you end up not being able to upgrade as they grow, you could find yourself in a tough spot. If you find that you can move forward with the large setup, you can more easily re-home the smaller species and then get the true monsters. The fish you listed grow very quickly, so it's not as if you need to grow them out before the "forever" home is complete.
Whatever you decide to do, good luck!
Sound like the same question that I ask myself sometimes: "giant tank for lots of money or giant pond for less money" although you're actually going to get one and mine is just hypothetical 
. If it isn't a money issue I'd do the tank.
. If it isn't a money issue I'd do the tank.Damn, typed a reply to you yesterday and it never posted. Hrrrm.
Like it, Dude, its pimp, it is absolutely one of the best tanks I have ever seen.
Yeah ok, your costings are similar to what I had in mind. My fear is running both the tank and the Ulti-pond together, as in potentially 3k running costs per month, that would break a fella.
Probably 5 degrees celcius at the coldest.
But I see the merit in yours and squirtle's suggestions of if you are gonna have a 'pima, go big from the start.
I was sort of thinking, are you familiar with an air-source heat pump (Or water-source). They are for heating pools, and apparently have about a a 1:3 input to out put ratio coefficient. They are not greatly used in Aus, but are very common in the UK, (from what I can tell).
In combination with a DIY solar heating set up, and the filtration/heating pool.
Of course will need to be tested to see if possible. But I am hoping with this strategy I will be ale to keep heating costs right down, with the exception of perhaps the few winter nights + days when it gets exceptionally cold. And the solar doesnt help, so it will be left to the heat pump and some tradtioanl pond heaters to keep it upto temp.
Thoughts?
in 10x4x4 all of the fish except 'pima will be alright for quite a considerable amount of time, no? Like 2 - 5 years. (Obviously sourcing them at fairly Juvi sizes to begin with.)
Thanks for your thoughts Alex, its great to hear some suggestions and advice form ppl in the know. Greatly appreciate it !
Sound like the same question that I ask myself sometimes: "giant tank for lots of money or giant pond for less money" although you're actually going to get one and mine is just hypothetical
Its looking like the easiest and actually cheapest (in terms of ongoing running costs).
Its a good mind occupier though isnt it? Big tank / Big Pond. (Miranda Kerr / Jennifer Hawkins)
If the fish were breed here it wouldn't matter to my understanding noxious is like a kill on sight status 
I also cant see anyone in aus having the time or space to breed such fish & knowing fellow aussies if they did they would be trying to flog them for more then imports lol.
Sounds like your on the right track though
I am glad I dont need WA approval!!
As for heat pumps, seems not many people know of these... I was on the QLD cichlid site a few days ago and almost every major fish room was using one so it seems it is catching down here. I tested my 8x4x3 the other day which is in the new area of my fish room about 6m away from the heat pump at the closest panel & its sitting @ 24c with the unit running @ 26, I dont think it can get any better then that the only down side is water changes... it does take some time for the water to heat up again but I dont keep many sensitive fish & on such large volumes of water the drops are quite minimal. So big tanks can be heated quite cheaply I think its more dependable on the room structure as certain methods in a standard room with little to no insulation will be a waste compared to heating the water directly.
I also cant see anyone in aus having the time or space to breed such fish & knowing fellow aussies if they did they would be trying to flog them for more then imports lol. Sounds like your on the right track though
I am glad I dont need WA approval!! As for heat pumps, seems not many people know of these... I was on the QLD cichlid site a few days ago and almost every major fish room was using one so it seems it is catching down here. I tested my 8x4x3 the other day which is in the new area of my fish room about 6m away from the heat pump at the closest panel & its sitting @ 24c with the unit running @ 26, I dont think it can get any better then that the only down side is water changes... it does take some time for the water to heat up again but I dont keep many sensitive fish & on such large volumes of water the drops are quite minimal. So big tanks can be heated quite cheaply I think its more dependable on the room structure as certain methods in a standard room with little to no insulation will be a waste compared to heating the water directly.
Same thing happened to me...typed a response all up, but I hit the back button on accident and lost everything I wrote.
Thanks for the kudos on the tank. I really like it too, but there are times when I think about the money I've put into it and if I were to instead invest that cash and cost of running it every month into the market, I could have a whole lot of money over time. Running the numbers, in ten years I would have around $32,000 @ 6% growth, compounded annually. But it's my one big splurge, so it's an opportunity cost I'm willing to accept.
I hear a lot of guys on here with big setups say that they never even think about the cost because they don't want to know. Ignorance is bliss I guess, but I like to know the numbers. JohnPTC shares his costs in that video I linked to, but if you take it one step further and figure the opportunity cost over a period of time, the numbers are pretty staggering. If he invested the $100,000 the tank cost to build (including all equipment) and the $2,000 monthly expense to run the tank, he would be looking at over $508,000 at the end of ten years (assuming annual compound interest of 6%). After 20 years he's looking at $1,235,000, assuming the same 6% compounded annually. Considering Arapaima typically live up to 20 years in captivity, are you ok with a cost of nearly one and a quarter million dollars?
I say this not to discourage you, but just to share the reality of what these big setups really cost.
This may be of interest to you: http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=6208
Jack’s tank is less than half of what you would need to house a Pima for life. He’s forced to shut it down because of the crazy expensive running costs. I'm not trying to talk you out of it, but just trying to share some information on what you may be getting yourself into.
In regards to heat pumps, I reached out to AquaLogic to see what size I would need for my setup. If I recall correctly, they suggested the 1.5HP model which ran upwards of $4,000. Here's the link to the models I was looking at: http://www.aqualogicinc.com/heat-pumps.htm. If you find some for pools, they might be a little cheaper…typically anything sold for the aquarium hobby has a huge mark-up, even if it’s the same thing used for different applications…just be sure it’s fish safe.
I ended up going with standard aquarium heaters (six 300W Eheim Jagers = total of 1,800 watts) on a Ranco ETC temperature controller since the total cost for this option was only ~$200. Even if the heat pump were three times more efficient, the return on investment would take several decades, so that's why I went with the standard electric heaters. The heat pump might not even last that long, so to me it was an easy decision. A huge setup may be a different story.
An example of the snowball effect in regards to costs involved in setting up huge tanks is that you will need to run a dedicated power line to the heating unit since it will likely draw more power than you standard wiring is able to supply. If you don't know how to work with electricity, you will have to hire an electrician to set up a dedicated circuit.
Most large public aquaria are heated via gas-fired boilers that utilize titanium or stainless steel plate heat exchangers. A ballpark figure for a boiler sized to heat a tank large enough for a Pima is anywhere from $8,000 to $15,000 (at least here in the states). Again, unless you are familiar with working on gas lines, you should hire a gas fitter or plumber, which can be pricey.
To determine the cheapest method to heat the tank, you would want to do the math on what's the cheapest source of energy (electricity or gas) and then determine the efficiency of the unit delivering the heat to the water. Electric aquariums are almost 100% efficient in that pretty much 100% of the energy they consume goes into the water, whereas a gas fired boiler will be a little less efficient in that some heat will be lost to the ambient air and through the combustion process. But where I live, natural gas is a much cheaper energy source than electricity (around ¼ the cost), so gas would be more economical in the long run (although just like the heat pumps I looked into, the initial cost of the boiler is much higher than electric heating units, so that would also need to be taken into consideration).
In either case, I think you would want to aim for at least 2.5 watts per gallon, or the equivalent BTU’s if you go with gas which is about 9BTU per gallon.
I think the most important factor will be how well insulated the tank is. A well insulated tank will save you tons of money.
In my opinion you would be fine for 2 (maybe 3 years) with a 10x4x4 for all the fish but the Pima, but ask 10 people and you will get 10 different answers on that question.
I love it when people dream big, but almost everyone who buys a Pima with the intention of upgrading never do. I’m not one that can just chop up a fish that I’ve cared for for several years and throw it on the BBQ, so I tend to make sure I can care for the specimen for life, or at the very least purchase species that can more easily be re-homed. Just my 2 cents. Not judging you if you decide to have a big BBQ party if you buy the Pima now and eventually aren’t able to upgrade.
