Questions about those 275/330G Tote Tanks

[CHFIII]

Hi All....

I figured you guys would know if anyone does!

I am getting back into the hobsession with Angels and Discus after 20 years in recovery... I am playing with plans for converting the garage into my breeder and growout area and have started toying with the idea of using those 275 and 330G "Tote Tanks" you can pick up on craigslist for $50-100. For those who ain't familiar with them, they are more or less a 4' Cube plastic container inside a stell cage on a pallet.

So I gets to thinking.... 200g (48x40x24D) or so is a great growout tank size for me. I don't waste money on glass or acrylic for growout tanks and was thinking I could cut these down to about 30" tall and cut a 'Window' for viewing similar to those incredibly overpriced fiberglass tanks with a window (That run around $7/Gallon!). Thing is, I have never seen one of these up close. If you cut it down to 30" and filled it outside the cage would it hold up? Plan B would be to retain the cage and cut it down as well but what a PITA that would be if I could simply cut down the plastic without it losing the shape? If so I can build overflow boxes for that handy 2" drain valve and hang spray bars for the water return and get by with a couple large sponge filters and a heavy stock load in these puppies and have room to do rows of 4 tanks, 2 high. So Question 1 is whether those are rugged enough to hold shape if I cut them down to 30" or so and fill to 24". If not I'm thinkin I need to get something stronger than my Dremel and faster than my hacksaw as those steel bars look to be pretty damned thick


Question 2... It just makes sense to get two more - 1 for holding fresh water where I can fill it up and aerate the hell out of it, adjust PH and whatever for 24 hours before using it to top off tanks after the daily water change and another to use as a bio filter. The scrap from when I cut down the others would give me the right sized pieces to divide it into sections and channel the water through several filter media before returning it to my tanks. I have several ideas in my head but am guessing that my similarly aflicted brethren here are way ahead of me on this one. I'll probably divide it into 6 or so chambers where the water goes down one column, up the next, down, up, down, up, down out. It would be some work to build it but from my old days 20 years ago I became convinced that the answer to "which of these ten types of media is best" is "All of them!" and from my reading it appears that while I have been out of the hobby there have been some good studies done and written up explaining that different types of benny bacs do better on different substrates and oxygen levels. So... If I use one of the bigger (330G) tote tanks I'd divide it to force the water to "travel" further. See if I can explain this one... Half the dividers would come above the water level and leave a gap at the bottom, the other half would be sealed at the bottom and come to just below the water level (repeat) before getting to the drain in the front where it would get pumped back to the tanks. That way, instead of following a random 4' path through different media levels of 6-24" each I can make it go through 4 feet of EACH media type and each droplet has to travel through 20 or 24' of media before it gets to exit.... Does that make sense?

I'm assuming folks here have done something similar or are chuckling at me thinking "dude, you are way off - here's how to lay it out".

For media I have some ideas but welcome others - first chamber would be a prefilter so foam layers of graduated porosity followed by good old filter floss, then maybe up through Pond Matrix, down through scrubbies, up through a mix - matrix, bio balls, scrubbies, foam block cubes of varying pore size.... basically whatever I can think of with as many different properties as possible to encourage some microbial 'diversity'. Lots of variables here - is is helpful to have air assisting the upward sections? I'm assuming that would help and then I could have it spill over onto a drip plate before the next 'down' section to get the wet/dry effect. I was thinking plastic milk crates stacked could seperate mayers of media within each chamber and prevent it from squashing down on the the 'Down' sections.

Ok so fire away - what's wrong with the idea, what would make it better? Overkill? ...I don't have the same luxuries of time at 42 that I had at 22 and my hope here is that i am a bit wiser these days and can keep up water quality without having to spend hours on water changes every day despite a pretty heavy bio load. Anyone have any thoughts on how big of a load a filter like I am describing could handle? Inside each of the tanks I'd use probably a pair of large foam filters and the overflow box would contain a big foam block (24"x4x4 probably). Water would return via spray bar for oxygenation and to avoid current I don't need.

Wondering if I could run 2 rows off one filter (16 200G tanks instead of 8) and what sort of flow rate would be most effective?

Thanks guys - I figure if anyone is crazy enough and obsessed enough to have tried any of this and, more importantly, figured out the most useful 'tweaks' to perfect it then that guy probably hangs out here when he isn't messing with the fish

 

[CJH]

Those pallet totes are made out of HDPE so getting any sort of silicone or polyurethane caulk to bond well enough to seal a window may not be possible.

I say "may not" simply because there are now some sealants that do bond to these types of plastics. Last I checked none were flexible enough for sealing a viewing window in a highly stressed water tank. However, it's possible that has changed or that you could use one of these sealants as a primer that would then allow you to seal a window with commonly used products.

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[green day]

I almost bought one for 40$ but decided not to because I think the. Veiwijg panel would be impossible

 

[CHFIII]

Brain has been working on this while I was sleeping

So a couple new ideas....

1. Instead of the 275s I will go with the 330's and basically cut them in half. This will yield two tanks per container of about 160G but with dimensions far more favorable for growing out fry than a typical aquarium. The inner dimensions are 45x37x22 (It's taller but will fill to about that depth. The 'top', when inverted will have a 6" opening at the bottom, the 'bottom' has the 2" valve at the base.

2. To minimize labor required to get the fish waste out of the tanks and into the filtration system I want to figure out the most efficient way to get the crap to the filter. The halves with the 6" opening at the bottom just lend themselves to a 6" PVC pipe overflow box. I can cut slits at the top to prevent issues with current sucking fish in/against it and maybe hollow out a foam block as a capper to act as a prefilter.

3. In-tank filter.... I'm thinkin I will use 1" drilled PVC inside the 30 PPi foam blocks around the inside of the tank connected to an air-driven uplift. A LFS has some 20" blocks that are around 6x6 or 8x8" I will have to check. Anyone know a source for bulk sheets of this stuff???? Even two 20" sections would be like running 6 big sponge filters but may as well ring the whole bottom along the sides if I can get the material. That's in the neighborhood of 160" of foam 6-8" foam filter or around 20 sponge filters in a 160... I use one big one for 40g when doing lots of water changes so this would be like one for each 8 gallons... that alone would allow a pretty heavy stocking level without the central filter. My goal is to be able to keep a heavy bio-load with minimal poop vacuuming and easy and reduced water changes so overkill is the theme on filtration.... I'm wondering if using some snails in the tanks as scavengers would work well... I know some folks hate'm but they are machines and will get any leftover food and digest the poop a second time typically. Efficient. I sometimes get gammarus (intentionally) to colonize my larger pore sponge filters for the same reason. They are relentless scavengers and if you get too many the fish love them.

4. Think the central filter idea is sound and I have the vertical space to double it up if I need to. I'm thinking about adding a couple levels above the main filter I described. Perhaps the first would be a 'top' inverted to be about 12" deep with lots of small holes drilled in the bottom covered by several layers of filter floss and 8" of fine gravel for a mechanical/veggie filter. I'd plant that one with water hyacinths and other hungry plants and could vacuum that one easily enough if I needed to. Then drip it into the other half filled with plastic scrubbies as a wet/dry section and flow that into the first chamber of the filter I described initially. I laid it out on graph paper using 13 totes I can get a row of 5 and a row of 6 (doubled since they are 2-high) for 22 160 Gallon growout tanks) in the middle of the garage and my racks of Breeding, pairing and fry tanks around the exterior walls two high and between a couple LFSs that sell big trade in tanks around $1/g and Craigslist I can pick up 135-275G "show" tanks on top so I can pack a lot of fish into a 20x20 garage.... What I did not have when I was doing this twenty years ago was a good strategy for growout. I'd rather raise fewer bigger/better fish these days and sell them at a price that justifies the time/effort than selling 2000 angels at a time to wholesalers like I did in college.

5. Windows... Yup this would be tricky because they could not just be glued in place with sealant. BUT if drilled it would be easy enough to hang it loosely, silicone it and then tighten the bolts so that the sealant would be acting as a gasket more than glue. This is worth figuring out because you just can't monitor health properly from the top-down view of the tank and I need to be able to select out individuals for sorting out the 'Special' kids who go into the next breeding generation. I always select out the best specimens for the next level of growout anyway and they get more space and the most live food.


Plans are coming together, first few breeders pairing up now so hoping to put this in place in a couple months. If I can make the above work, that's $900 for 22 160G tanks ($900) versus the $9600 it would cost me to buy the $430 fiberglass aquaculture tanks with a window. Figure i will spend $30/tank on the windows and I'm still down around $1500. Goal one is to make my hobbies self supporting and then goal two is to make it profitable so saving $8K on the growout tanks is a big deal and frees up more $$$ for more important things.... I hate the idea of spending money on garage tanks since any vessel will do for my purpose.

Another nice thing is that since I will build this before I really need it I will be able to stock the tanks very lightly - put 50 dime sized Angels in a well oxygenated 160 gallon tank with plenty to eat and they grow like weeds. It'll take some time to get the benny bacs cycled but Fritz is about 25 miles from here and I recently experimented with their turbostart 700 with fair results, within 3 days the three 80G tanks I used the bottle on had dropped to zero on nitrites. I got it at a LFS and who knows if it had been kept at the right temp etcetera but I figure if I go over to their place once this is up and dump some into each tank and a bunch into the main filter after seedig the water with some nitrite and a lot of ammonia it will be interesting to see how long it takes to cycle. I'm sure that will be a thread when the time comes.

Still wondering just how good this filter system will be. On paper it sure sounds like it would allow for a tremendous bio load. The idea of ringing the entire bottom with a sponge filter would handle a big load on it's own but would still mean more water changes than I want (have time) to do. That central filter would seem to have an incredible bio filtration capability and I'm anxious to see if Matrix can scavenge nitrates as advertised if I dump a couple 20L buckets into different parts of the biofilter. If I can stock/feed pretty heavily and only have to do a small water change once/week without water quality degrading it would be a huge win for me. Plus, where I live we are under constant water restrictions due to drought and crappy city planning so if I have 5000 Gallons in my garage then 10% water changes every day would be expensive and get me some serious attention from the water police 10% per week would be much more palatable. Hmmm... time to start thinking about routing the gutters to some totes in the back yard to collect rain water I guess. Can't beat rain water.

 

[CJH]

I was going to mention the idea of bolting the window in place with a gasket but wanted to find a link for you first. Alas I haven't had a chance to do so yet.

There was a plywood build on this site where somebody bolted an acrylic window over a cut-out in a pond liner. Not exactly the same as what you propose but worth a look.

I believe it is in the sticky section of the DIY Tanks sub-forum.

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[CHFIII]

Thanks CJH - I found said link on an aquaponics site and it looked pretty simple to do. Getting more excited about the idea.

Have been reading some aquaculture sites where folks have gigured out how to raise RIDICULOUS poundage of fish in way too little water while keeping the water clean. Let's face it - Discus aren't Tilapia or Channel cats so I am not interested so much in cramming fish into the tanks , I am more interested in having a recirculating system where O2 is saturated and the water heading back to the tanks is better than the water coming out of my faucet. I'm in love with the complexity/simplicity of creating a near perfect recirculating ecosystem and the closer I can come to nailing it the better. It will be interesting to see if going completely overkill on filtering will have the effect I want. I'd like to limit the water going out of the system to whatever comes from poop vacuuming and if possible, I'd like to eliminate that as much as possible and just have to backflush the prefilters out to my daphnia and moina cultures to keep them fed and water quality good for my fish food....

Need to get to where when I travel for work I can give wife/kids an easy checklist of stuff that needs doing so that they can keep everything as it needs to be in 30 minutes/day tops. Not easy to do but a 10x overkill filtration system hides many errors