Big Enthusiasts want a 10k gallon

[pacu mom]

Was that that guy with all them ferraris?

No, I believe you are referring to nineball who had an L-shaped acrylic tank made by ATM.

His INCREDIBLE reef tank build:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1811725

Sorry, I'm the one who is mistaken....Peter has several Bentleys, not Ferraris.

 

[M@T!@$]

No, I believe you are referring to nineball who had an L-shaped acrylic tank made by ATM.

His INCREDIBLE reef tank build:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1811725

Sorry, I'm the one who is mistaken....Peter has several Bentleys, not Ferraris.

There was also this other guy. He had a couple thousand gallon tank made, FRP I believe. He cut a hole in his garage wall and had it facing the living room.. Also had some exotic cars

Edit* it also looked similar to bigriches 4K gallon tank, possibly a bit smaller

 

[pacu mom]

You're referring to the 4,000 gallon tank. It was first featured on MFK in this installation thread by csx4236.
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/...llon-tank-install-h20-custom-aquatics.187624/

Then it was csx4236's show tank:
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/h2o-4000-gallon-show-tank.277989/

The same tank was later purchased by bigrich545
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/...000-gallon-tank-many-others-and-ponds.470877/



But if you want to see incredible, check out the Bentley thread I referenced. You will find pics of his cars in the 2nd thread, which comes up after you read 100+ pages.

 

[fishguy306]

Nineball's L shaped tank was amazing as well, however I was thinking of a different one actually-

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2292029

This guy had some nice cars as well, I want to say something like an Aston Martin. Taken him a very long time to get it running. He started the post four years ago, he just added the first corals to the main tank last week I believe. Granted he did build an addition to his house around it.

 

[pacu mom]

Nineball's L shaped tank was amazing as well, however I was thinking of a different one actually-

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2292029

This guy had some nice cars as well, I want to say something like an Aston Martin. Taken him a very long time to get it running. He started the post four years ago, he just added the first corals to the main tank last week I believe. Granted he did build an addition to his house around it.

Thanks for sharing this build. I haven't seen it. Amazing stuff some of the reefers have going...some of them definitely go all out.

 

[fishguy306]

It really is amazing isn't it? I've never done a reef but honestly I love the equipment and tools that they have for their tanks, some of it is so far ahead of us on the FW side, granted a lot of it we don't need. The equipment rooms those guys set up are incredible.

 

[pacu mom]

In terms of sophisticated systems, the reef guys are light years ahead of us fresh water people. We're almost in the stone age compared to them. Some of the most worth while ideas come from them--dursos, herbie drains were first seen on RC. I browse RC to be awed and amazed.

 

[Yuki Rihwa]

Saltwater is mostly about equipment, when I visit a friend that has saltwater, i'm always ask them to give me a tour about their equipment room FIRST, display room come second, third is stock

 

[fishguy306]

In terms of sophisticated systems, the reef guys are light years ahead of us fresh water people. We're almost in the stone age compared to them. Some of the most worth while ideas come from them--dursos, herbie drains were first seen on RC. I browse RC to be awed and amazed.

They really are! I do the same actually! Although I've found that larger FW tanks do have some benefit from using some equipment mostly reserved for SW, for example on my ray pond I'm using ozone and a controller. The controller has been awesome, love it being able to monitor and control several different things.

Saltwater is mostly about equipment, when I visit a friend that has saltwater, i'm always ask them to give me a tour about their equipment room FIRST, display room come second, third is stock

I totally agree! Some really amazing systems out there

 

[nzafi]

I'd love to see numbers on something like this.

I feel I'm doing quite well in life financially, my wife and I are both engineers with good jobs, but I fully know I couldn't "afford" this. (I put quotes in because people have different definitions of afford, if I cashed out my savings and accepted zero cash flow for maintance we could probably pull it off, but I want to retire at 45-50...not never). To comfortably afford the initial few hundred thousand, on top of thousands per month electric / water / food, you better be pulling $500k / year, or just inherit a lot of money.

I do wish more people talked openly about money though. how much does a custom made turn key system from Midwest custom cost in like the 500-1000 gallon range? What about 2,000? What about this guys 10,000? I have dreams of a monster 500-1000 gallon in my future, but life would have to take some crazy turns for me to even consider 10,000.

I have seen a lot of people share cost, but it is hard to tell sometimes because people go in so many directions. I am planning around a 10x4 and I can tell you that fishtankdirect sells an acrylic tank of that size for about $5K. Then cost of stand from them is another $2K but you can get cheaper. Plus there is filtration which I am looking at something like Ultima (about $2K if I want redundancy) or hmf ($500 - experimenting on 180g right now). If you start doing backgrounds, gravel, lights, etc everything adds up especially with large tanks. If you DIY then it can become much cheaper.

My current strategy right now is:
- Go FRP for durability, lighter weight, and personally I prefer only 1 viewing window to clean on such a large tank
- Use a local steelworker to build a stand (there is a member on this site that does excellent work)
- Using HMF style filter where I place the filter in 4 corners plus central half circle (not visible because of FRP) that will allow for consistent filtration through out and will be low cost to run/maintain
- Wife and I are house hunting with the intention of doing lots of remodeling, so the plan is to do the tank in the basement where I can put a drain for easier maintenance but also use the room to help heat the tank. Might got for in-wall style where hte tank sits in adjoining room.