Maintenance of a Monster Tank

[Hungryfish]

I have been following a lot of DIY Monster tanks on here. You guys are super detailed when it comes to instructions on setting it up. (Thank you)

However, I have not found (or may have skipped over) a section that talks about how much effort it takes to run the monster tank.

So I have a few questions, if you would fill me in.

For a tank your size, how many gallons of water do you change (on average)
How often do you do water changes?
What do you use to change the water? (I mean you can still probably use a hose for a 200-300 gallon tank, but for a 1000+ gallon how is this possible)

If you were to give a rough estimate of total watts your tank is running on, how much would it be? (including the pump, light, heater, etc.)

How do you heat over 500+ gallons? (20x300 watt heaters?) LOL

What tools do you use to make the chore easier?
Please fill me in.

I have been pondering about building one for a good year now. Just finishing some research and you'll see my DIY thread soon. LOL
Thank you.

 

[spiff]

For the 1600 gallon I have running two .3amp Dart pumps, it uses very little power. Amperage is what I think you want to look at in terms of total draw. However, I do have a couple 1500watt/9 amp heaters. Only one is needed, the 2nd is for redundancy. But the tank is so insulated, it only seems to go on for a few hours a day to maintain any temp.

I think the whole setup adds 10- 15 dollars extra a month in power consumption.

For water changes, I really don't need to be doing as much as I have. With my current setup, it would take almost a half a year to get any nitrate reading. So water changes are mostly done to remove tannins from the water.

I have a synchronized siphon- displaces exactly the same amount of water that goes in. So I turn the water on and check back several hours later. But my two canisters with 1.5 diameter plumbing both could drain the tank super fast if I wanted to.(they have drain features) But it takes about 8-9 hours to refill if I did.

I installed a sink and water lines next to the tank to make things easy.

 

[jcardona1]

on my 400g i have a 1.7amp pump running and about 1000w in spare heaters. im planning on upgrading to a heater controller and titanium heaters for about 1500w.

water changes i do about 50% once a week. i have a drain under the tank so it drains it 3-4 minute flat. refil using a python hooked up to the sink for warm water.

other than that, thats basically it!

 

[epond83]

so are you all adding declhorinator with these large water changes?

 

[jcardona1]

so are you all adding declhorinator with these large water changes?

i do. i dump it in as the tank is filling up. but there has been times where ive forgotten , but nothing went wrong

 

[raymondk]

so are you all adding declhorinator with these large water changes?

i havethat same question do u still add de chlorinator

 

[spiff]

so are you all adding declhorinator with these large water changes?

Yes. I use API. I dump it in after the fact unless I think the water change will be more than 15%. This is because of the simultaneous siphon, some would just go down the drain otherwise.

 

[Hungryfish]

Spiff where do you find 1500 watt heaters?

 

[hybridtheoryd16]

He probably uses 3 500watt titaniums, like most do. Most larger tank keepers use multiple heaters for security. Everything will fail eventually. So its alot better when you have 3 of something running and 1 fails. If you only have 1 running and it failed you would be SOL.

But I beleive there was a company making a 1500 watt single unit titanium.


Most bigger well planned out tanks will have ball valves on the plumbing to accomadate water changes.

Where all it takes is a twist of the valve and the water drains from the tank quickly thru larger diameter pvc. And then the plumbing of the house is usually modified to make refilling easier as well. Like a direct water line right above the tank or sump.

And then you have continuse drip water changers. Were the house plumbing is modified to set up a drip valve. And continusely drip change water into the tank. And there is a overflow on the sumps so that when the drip water raises the water level, it will spill into the overflow and be drained away. I think most people aim for a drip system to change the complete water volume out every day to couple of days. But everyones is different.

The key to enjoying a monster tank or multiple tanks is to have the tools readily availiable to do the maintenance.

The largest tank I have is a 125g, but I have a total of 11 tanks running. So this is the reason I have semi-automated my water change regimen.

 

[MeAko]

My stock list is in my sig.

Water change. I kinda thought that the weekly WC won't be a must for monster pond/tanks. So I went through the first month or two without a major water change. When I tested the nitrate, it was around 80-100ppm. So I started doing 20-30% WC 1-2x/week.

To pump out water and gravel vac at the same time I use a Rio 1000GPH pump attached to a PVC attached to a flexible hose, I pump the water out to 4 pcs of 50G Blue drums which the household help use to water the lawn. I bring in the garden hose and attach it a few feet above the pond and let the water replacement drip in, it takes about 8-12 hours for the water replacement to drip in fully. I don't use dechlor as I believe the chlorine dissipates and the amount left is comfortably dispersed in the pond, causing minimal, if any harm to the fish.

Pond Decor. I have realized that the more tank driftwoods, big rocks, pebbles, substrate etc that I put in, the more places and crevices are created for poop, dirt, food particles etc to hide. So, I have removed practically all pond decor: my nitrates and water clarity have improved by leaps and bounds because of it, I believe.

Heating: none, as this is one of the benefits of living in a tropical country where my water temp is around 27 degrees C, 365/24/7