Hi, I need good advice on monster filtration for my future monster tank! (5' x 10' x 20')

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Landonious

Black Skirt Tetra
MFK Member
Jan 15, 2018
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Hi guys,

Since last year I fully dived into the monster fish keeping hobby. I like my fish big and I dream of having a monster tank for monster fishes. I think watching an arapaima swimming by at a public aquarium inspired me alot.

So I'm building a 5' x 10' x 20' (around 7500 gallon) aquarium tank in the near future. This tank will house araipaima, pacus, catfishes, peacock basses, etc. Currently, I am in the cost analysis phase with my builder. Now they aren't experts on filtration and I have to research as much of this as I can. I just know one thing, I need to have this tank as clean and nitrate free as a 55 - 300 gallon aquarium that we have indoors. The water quality needs to match the beauty of the fish in it!

I've looked into Koi filtration and have heard from many people that Koi is as heavy of fish load and as "dirty" as mostly South American monster fishes. Is that true? Thus I have looked into the best koi filtration. Currently, I am leaning toward having a top of the line rotary drum filter and a mega bakki shower, along with an UV sterilizer to filter the water. What do members that have similar experience of setting up filtration for monster tank think of this setup?

Also, if anyone want to suggest alternatives, what can be a better setup? Keep in mind that RDFs can mechanical filter water to 40 microns (fantastic) and having a very efficient biological filter, bakki shower, should do the trick.

Please I'm looking for personal experience from members who have done something similar (installed filtration for a tank 1000 gallon or higher) and if you haven't please cite your advice with any online research or articles you have found. I've found that many times, people just copy and paste others opinions without experience or verification. It is unfortunate, but does happen. People by nature tend to want to help, and I appreciate that very much. But I'm definitely looking for experience and opinions backed by research here.

All help is appreciated and I promise to take pictures of the entire build when its ready to break ground!

Sincerely,
Landonious
 
p.s. I am reaching out to the members like arapaimag who have similar tanks, so any of you with giant 1000+ gallon tanks, please reach out to me. thank you so much!

pss I want to talk to JohnPTC? guy who has the 10,000 gallon tank, but he has been so inactive on this forum, anyone know how to reach him??
 
There are a lot of very long and detailed threads done by the people you mentioned, not to mention numerous other threads by people who have built tanks of 1,000 gallons or more.

I'd start there as they mentioned a lot on filtration.
 
Yes, but i have rarely if ever had any advice on how koi filtration relates to south american monster fish filtration. Is it comparable? No one in this forum is able to answer that. Please I would appreciate you cite some links as I found this:

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/best-tanks-on-mfk.661758/#post-7446916

Definitely interested in how a koi filtration setup of rotard drum filter and bakki would work for 7500 gallon tank that house arapaimas and pacus.
 
Landonious said:
Yes, but i have rarely if ever had any advice on how koi filtration relates to south american monster fish filtration. Is it comparable? No one in this forum is able to answer that. Please I would appreciate you cite some links as I found this:

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/best-tanks-on-mfk.661758/#post-7446916

Definitely interested in how a koi filtration setup of rotard drum filter and bakki would work for 7500 gallon tank that house arapaimas and pacus.
Click to expand...

There is not really any difference between the koi filtration and South American monster fish filtration. All of the necessities are still present. You need to have enough flow, mechanical filtration and biological filtration.

I’ve seen YouTube videos of the stainless rotary drum filter you are talking about as “koi filtration” used on large ray tanks as well. The benefit to those is how low they are in maintenance, and that the waste is removed from the water column immediately instead of when the filter is cleaned/backwashed.

You will certainly be getting into quite a project with this tank, and I think you will find that some of it you will have to make up as you go. However, it is certainly a great idea to check into what others have done to get some good ideas.

Hopefully, someone can chime in on how much turnover you should have in your tank, since I’m thinking that 4-6X might be hard to achieve. Lol. Can you imagine 30-40,000 gph?!

If it were my tank, I would be looking at four our five ultimas. They are great filters with a lot of bio and mechanical capacity, and are easy to maintain. You can backwash them regularly with the twist of a valve.

Also, I think you are going to want to have a “drip” system. That will greatly help maintain your water parameters between water changes.

Strategically placed powerheads will help to keep easy from building up on the bottom of the tank.

Lastly, you might want to consider running a sump in addition to your other filtration so that you can hide your other equipment in it. You will need a lot of heating capacity, and you can run your UV off of it so that you can control the flow through it.

Good luck and keep us posted with your progress!
 
Thank you for the thoughtful post! I think nailing down the filtration specifics and layout is the hardest thing to do. I'm researching every filtration type, measuring efficiency vs cost vs maintainence.

Does anyone the mechanical filtration found in sand filters can remove waste and debris down to what micron? that would help alot in comparing them to the very efficient Rotary Drum Filters.

PS I will definitely look into the Ultimas series filters.
 
How is this tank going to be constructed?
Personally I would go with a custom sump out of concrete attached to the back with cut outs for overflows with custom sieve style mechanical and submerged media. Maybe throw a few extra pipes out threw the back to run a closed loop uv, skimmer, sand filter, ect. Just for options later on
 
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I think I would definitely want to have a sump, coming from the 125gallon salt and freshwater fishkeeping background, to rig anything later in the future, but right now I'm definitely gonna go with a rotary drum filter for super mechanical filtration and a bakki shower for biological. So i'm gonna be looking at 10G on filtration alone. It is interesting that people on big builds rarely talk about price lol, im cool with that. So currently the water route is:
1. Drainage/Surface skimmer
2. Rotary Drum Filter (RDF)
3. Bakki Shower Filter
4. UV sterilizer
5. Heater/Sump
6. Return to aquarium.

I even thought u using a foam fractionator (freshwater protein skimmer) but found that its not necessary, dont produce much productive foam cause of how amazing the RDF is at filtering down to 40 microns! It better be, at around $4500! Ha

I'll look into an ozone system too. I want to make sure the tank which will be above ground with 1 wall of glass panels to have super clear water for my arapaima and others to swim in. So if anyone with 1000+ gallon filtration experience have any input, Im all ears.

Currently, still lookin for answer to my question of if sand filter can remove down to 40 micron particles like a rotary drum filter. We debate about which mechanical filter is better online but its all about performance data cause RDF does that, sand filter? I dont know the filter spec. And RDF is super low maintenance, pretty much self running. Saving time is money.

ps. for sure i will add a trickle/drip system for water changes thx u.
 
Tank will be in reinforced concrete for 3 walls, 4th wall is glass panels, maybe like what Arapaimag guy has.
 
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