- - well, my wife and I are starting don the road of building a house - actually a large 2 story addition on a little house.........but i digress.......I've decided to build my office in the new basement and build an 8 foot long, 30 inch tall and 30 inch front to back tank...........i would like to put a ray or two in there but also have a "reef" type environment as well.....my question is.....is this do-able? if so, should i build the reef on one end and have an open area or build 2 smaller reefs with the center open.......I have to figure out filtration based on where i build the reef structures as well
the tank will be plywood, so i'll be able to put bulk heads just about anywhere i want/need to ........ this is going to be a 375 gallon tank and i'm thinking about pulling a 30-40 gallon sump off each end for filtration with a 3-4 foot "gutter skimmer trough" on the back into a 20 gallon with a monster DIY skimmer
any other ideas are more than welcome and do's and don'ts ....especially fromanyone with ray expierience....im just starting to research them,
wow boss..man no help from me. but after reading this. i got to say. i hope u do this!! lol. even tho i wont have no part in it wat so ever, would be cool to see some pictures or even videos. shit theres aquariums dat dont got a tank like dat. good luck bud. keep us posted!! i mean im not the best source. but if u gonna put up 30 - 40 g sumps. i think 50 would be better. it would equal 200 gl sump on a 375gl tank. not too shabby..:) well i think. but man this sounds cool.
that definitly sounds like a killer project, but for a 375 gallon, i would go with atleast a 100 gallon sump, is the show tank going in the wall? i dont know much about rays but i do know that some live in the reefs in the wild, so with such a massive tank i think it would definitly be possible to build a reef around them slowly. i would say this is a tank that needs well thought out aquascaping and budget lol. are you building the actual tank itself with acrylic or sumthing? i have experience in that department, my buddy at my LFS builds his own show tanks and tanks for other local fish stores and he told me exactly how its done. since, ive built a few things with acrylic including my sump, so if you have questions on how its done or what to use let me know i wish you luck with this and definitly keep us posted, would love to see the progress - Makaveli
ill be sure to keep good photo/video documentation for sure......the more and more i read on salt water rays...the more and more i'm shying away from them.....very easy to hurt them {they're all skin, and a scratch can kill em with infection} maybe after a few years I'd try one......
All super points on the sumps and such, thanks
yes the tank will be in the wall......well a false wall with a tank room behind it
MAK....I was leaning towards a 1/2 inch piece of safety glass, unless you can convince me to go with acrylic? only reason is I am constantly cleaning and I'm worried about "greying" up the front of the tank with scratches and such [not that glas won't scratch, just seems to be less likely}
the thought behind 2 "smaller sumps - -agin is for maintinence .....when i was running two HOB filter on my present tank I was able to service one filter every other week and leave one alone.....then switch the next week......might even be taking this monster HOB out I have now and going back to 2 smaller filters, just for that reason.....again pros and cons????
I might not know much of anything about saltwater, but dude. GO WITH GLASS. lol I'm sure you can see yourself now 6 months down the road and $5000 or more later invested in this project..and you realize you gotta swap out some panes in your nearly established project, becuase you can't see your rays. Do it right the first time. :) Man...I bet live rock would do a real number on acrylic. =P
yeah Schigara.......melted sand......lol .....sucks don't it....the things we do for our little wet freinds......................this project is just in the planning stages right now....we should be building the house by the end of April {hopefully} so probably a safe timeline would be water in the tank by fall...........it's very exciting to be able to look at other peoples setups, my own expieriences and try to improve on everything I can from the start...............thank-you all for your input....theres a big notebook mby the computer labeled "tank project" and all ideas, advice and opinions get entered in there ...so keep em comin .... lol this will be a "rate my fish tank" comunity project...............Snowboss
PS - -just don't forget whose wallet we're spending out of people...LMAO
i never had a problem with acrylic getting "grey" if cared for properly, check this link to my LFS that builds them www.AReefCreation.com. you can see his acrylic tanks there. i would use it because i enjoy working with it, i know how to care for it and i live right near great lakes plastics
IMO acrylic sucks . it scratches . i dont know about greying but bet your socks they scratch so easily . and one thing to mess me up is to see a small scratch on my tank . no matter how small it is, no matter what i hide it with , i will still know its there and it drives me insane. i had it once on my previous glass tank and i was soooo pissed . i even have it on my profile " glass is better that acrylic " anything to lessen the scratches . I HATE SCRATCHES .
other than that those are good dimensions . 8 foot long, 30 inch tall and 30 inch . lots of gass exchange . your smart. GET GLASS :) german glass with green tint is the best .
