New tank coming! What should I use?

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Anderman

Polypterus
MFK Member
Jun 8, 2007
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In the next 3 months I am having a 96" x 36" wide x 30" high( 450 gallons) tank being built in my house. I have kept fish for 16 years and I currently have 5 tanks and my biggest being a 230 gallon. The only filters I have had are underground,aquaclears,fluvals.eheim and fx5. I currently use a Eheim 2028, Aquaclears 110,Fx 5, and various powerheads. I also use Ebo jager heaters.

The tank will have cichla(tems and oscellaris),oscars,lents,clownloaches,yellowjackets and a black aro.

I want to keep the filtration simple and fairly cheap. I don't know nothing about sumps and I am no good with plumbing. So I was wondering if I could go with a couple of aquaclears 110's on the back with two FX5's. I would also have two powerheads for water movement and I don't know what I could use for heaters as the lfs only carries ebo jager 250 watt. I know there is bigger heaters but are they accurate and what would I use?

The lfs said I should go the sump way but they said if all I know is canisters and hob filters and I am comfortable with them, then that would be the way to go.

Can anybody out there give me a hand and let me know what I should use for filtration and heaters for this size of tank. If anybody has a 450 gallon that uses canisters and such what and and how many filters do you use?

Keep in mind this tank will be in a fully furnished basement and I want to make it aesthetically pleasing to look at.
 
I'd recomend two fx5's along with a pair of emporer 400's. Normally I'd say to add two doubled hydro5's but you might not be able to hide them well enough in a show tank. As far as heaters go...I'm going to switch all of our tanks over to in-line heaters. much better heat distribution and nothing in the tank to look at...
 
running a wet/dry is a lot easier than what it may seem at first. and prolly the best bang for buck would be a wetdry. ive never worked with plumbing in my life until i workd on my wet dry.. and it all turned out great. so id recommend looking into building a sump for a wet dry system, especially for that size tank.
 
Enter the your next level of fishkeeping and go for the wet dry. There are plenty of people here to help you...
 
I felt the same way until I setup my W/D, you will think it is too easy after initial setup, seriously, once you get them running, you are home free as far as maintenance. Plus, you can keep all your heaters and such out of sight!
 
I use an Oase Filterclear preesure pond filter on my 12' tank plus 2 Fluavl 405s that return into a glass tank attached to the baxk of the main tank. This is 6" x 6" x 12' and full of alfagrog. The last 18" is clear and houses my 4 heaters to prtect them from the fish. This is a heavily stocked tank full of big cats, cichlids and a Giant Gourami and the filter system copes well.
 
Wow that tank is gonna be huge. Nothing goes better with a huge tank then a huge sump. With all the space you'll have under the tank you could easily put a couple 75 plus gallon tanks to use as sumps. Lots of room for bio media and a big prefilter for mechanical filtration. Could even add a light and some plants to a sump to decrease nitrates. You also can move your heaters to the sumps. With a sump you really have many more options.

It is also easier to adapt a auto water changer to a sump.
 
2 eheims, 2 fx5's an fbf and a diatom filter
 
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