My 1000 Gallon Glass Aquarium (1000+ Gallons for Dummies)

[Albertan]

HISTORY

OK. Well, I figured the size of the tank in the title would generate some interest. So I figured I’d give a (thankfully) brief history of my time in the hobby to explain why I went with such a large tank and what I hope to accomplish with it.

I’ve been keeping fish since I was in high school back in the 80’s. I’ve always really enjoyed the hobby, but each time I would get more and more involved, the maintenance would become too time consuming, and I’d pack it in for a while. I always come back though, and I thought if I could decrease the maintenance requirements, the whole experience would be much more enjoyable and less like work. I think that’s a common goal for most of us. I’ve also found that maintenance is maintenance. That is, to me, the maintenance on a 20g is not much different than a 90g is not much different than a 230g. Sure, the tank takes longer to fill as it gets bigger. But once the hose is out, what’s a few more minutes to fill a bigger tank? And numerous tanks multiply work in a hurry. I currently have around 700g running across several tanks, as shown below. These tanks are in my garage, where the new tank is going, and I am fortunate to have a hose run right to the tanks, a floor drain nearby, and in floor heat. But it’s still pretty much an all-day event to complete proper maintenance.


So in a nutshell, my goal with this new tank is to consolidate my current “operations” into one tank and focus on designing/implementing systems to allow me more time enjoying my fish and less time feeling like I have a herd of kids in the garage needing constant attention.
And with that behind us, on with the show…

 

[Albertan]

THE TANK

It’s taken me probably six weeks to finally settle on my tank. I started out trying to decide between 120X36X30 and 120X36X36. I found out that the 36” height almost doubled the price, so I abandoned that and started looking wider. The next decision was 120X36X30 or 120X48X30. To my surprise, the extra foot of depth was much less expensive than the extra 6” of height, and that’s the direction I went. I arrived at the shop building the tank to sign the paper work, and during the process I happened to ask about bigger tanks. I was told that the glass sheets are 11’3” long, so I wouldn’t be able to go much bigger unless I wanted to try to track down some exotic (read $$$) pieces of glass from Germany or Japan…no thanks. But I did ask if I could make my tank bigger to use a full sheet on the front. That is how the final length of 130” was arrived at. That is as big as the tank can be made with glass available in NA after it’s trimmed for use. My quote was completed, I paid a $6,000 or so deposit, and left to complete a 10 hour round trip journey to pick up some fish from Jeff Rapps. The quote for that 130X48X30 810 gallon tank is shown below.



During the long drive home with my new fish from Jeff, I had a gnawing question. How much would it cost to go wider? I called the shop back the next business day, waited a week or so for the tank builder to get me a new quote, and found that the final price was acceptable to me. And that is how I arrived at a final tank dimension of 130X60X30, or 1013 gallons.

 

[Albertan]

INITIAL SYSTEM DESIGN

This post is where this thread gets interesting for me, and is in fact why I am posting in the first place. As I mentioned previously, my goal with this tank is to keep the tank as close to zero maintenance as possible. I’m still learning about the possibilities, and I’m asking fellow MFK’ers to share their expertise. The tank will not be ready until Spring, so I have time to make changes if I choose. I am also having the stand and sump done first so I can have everything in place, level and ready for tank delivery.

You can see from the quote in the previous thread both an Ultima II filter and a 230g sump are spec’d for this project. I asked the shop to give me a quick drawing of what they were planning for my system, keeping in mind my goals. That quick sketch is shown below:



If you look at the parts in the quote and the drawing, the initial design should be pretty clear. The tank will have two tiers of filter socks…200 microns and then 100 microns most likely. I am a big fan of filter socks. They are easy maintenance. I like easy maintenance…

A couple of other directions I am leaning at the outset. First, there will definitely be a drip system in place. I was going to do RO, but have read that it’s not ideal for tanks and so I will look into another drip system. I am hoping to design a system that uses filters instead of injecting Prime to remove the chloramines in my local water supply. Again, I am fortunate to have a water supply and floor drain right next to the tank. I will be using a 3D background across the back of the tank and most likely some sort of ceramic tile on the bottom for the best compromise of esthetics and low maintenance.

 

[Albertan]

FINAL SYSTEM DESIGN

[HR][/HR]

I want to state at the outset that while I received input from several members on the site with large tanks (especially my Cichla-keeping brothers ), 90% of the credit for the design of this filtration system goes to kendragon. Thanks for taking the time to respond to me several times a night over the past two weeks to answer my questions, make recommendations, and politely point out my faulty logic when necessary. I printed off our conversation for future reference, and it's over 20 pages long! You are one of the site's most knowledgable assets in this area. Basically, you rock!

In the final design, the external filter boxes were changed to internal trapezoidal boxes and the sump was deleted in favor of a full closed loop system. In shooting for 10X turnover on the tank for the Cichla (10,000 gph), it quickly became apparent that a sump was not going to be capable of enough throughput to contribute significantly to the goal. Several members with large tanks also expressed to me a level of maintenance with their sumps that I wanted to try to avoid. Even with the two-tier sock system proposed in the initial design, a sump on a tank this size simply had too many logistical problems.

Starting with my 10,000 gph filtration goal, I then worked backwards to establish my filtration needs. The Ultima filters really appealed to me for their ease of use and low maintenance/backwashing capabilities. But these filters do have some limitations in terms of their mechanical filtration capabilities, so I started looking elsewhere to meet my mechanical needs. Several modified pool filter systems were explored. While I think they work well, they still involved a level of maintenance I wanted to avoid. Trying to hose down filters in my garage in the winter was a messy proposition. A few members like kendragon have started using glass bead filters on their Cichla tanks to handle the bulk of their mechanical filtration. As I learned about these filters, I came to believe I had hit pay dirt in terms of meeting my goals. The BioWave glass bead filter works similar to the Ultimas in terms of its ability to be backwashed for easy maintenance. As a bonus, it also uses a lot less water to backwash...something that became a consideration with the Ultimas late in the design (more on that below). Due to the nature of its filter media the BioWave excels at mechanical filtration, taking a lot of the mechanical load off the Ultimas and leaving them to handle more of the biological filtration.

I went with a 1/4hp Wave I Series pump (6228gph) to handle the 22" BioWave. That left approximately 4000gph left to allocate. An Ultima 4000 was the easy answer. But then I found out that filter would need more than half the water in my tank to backwash, causing problems with the design of my filter boxes. So, for the benefits of redundancy and to keep the backwash to a more manageable 3-400 or so gallons, I decided to run two Ultima 2000's instead. Each Ultima is plumbed separately with a 1/15" Wave I Series pump (3000gph). So in the end, I wound up closer to 12X turnover. I'm happy with that outcome. The picture below is an early concept drawing showing the pumps required. I've since decided to run all the lines over the top of the tank into the boxes to avoid drilling the tank at all...





With the filtration finalized, I had to decide how to integrate everything into the tank. External overflow boxes are of no use without the sump and were discarded. Knowing I wanted to use a 3D background on the tank, I decided to use trapezoidal boxes so that I could adapt the background around them with the least amount of problems. I also wanted to try to have some sort of a bottom sucking design to keep the bottom clean, as well as to retain the surface skimming abilities of a conventional box for a sump. Grates were incorporated into the boxes to allow both goals to be met. A close to scale Paint picture of the back wall is included below...





All three filters will draw from within the boxes, and all will have outflows on the face of the boxes pointing at the front wall. The idea is that the outflows will agitate the surface, sending water across the top of the water column towards the front of the tank. The water will then hit the front wall and curl down and then back along the bottom of the tank towards the bottom intake grates on the boxes. The intake for the BioWave will be near the bottom of the box so that it draws most of the crap off the bottom before it gets to the Ultimas. The intakes for the Ultimas are as high in the box as the water necessary to backwash them will allow...probably somewhere around the middle based on a 3-400 gallon backwash and a safety margin. The Ultimas will get some water from the bottom and some from the surface. A side view of the box is shown below. The returns have since been moved inside the boxes to keep everything clean looking.




With the bulk of the filtration system addressed, I had only a few odds and ends left to deal with. I went with a 2kW Aqua Logic titanium in-line heater and a 116W single chamber high output dual bulb UV system, both sourced from wlim products.

 

[Albertan]

MOVING DAY 1

 

[Albertan]

MOVING DAY 2

 

[Albertan]

SYSTEM SETUP

 

[Albertan]

STOCKING

 

[Albertan]

THE END

 

[muskieboy]

Can't wait to see pics of this beast.....will be following along.