varanus37 Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 So I've been running this idea through my head for some time. I've got a small tank that I think holds amazing possibilities. I believe its a 5 or maybe 10 gallon but its low and long. So check this out. How cool would it be to put only a certain type of coral in the tank and let it grow to cover it? Like a "field" of xenia or anthelia? Or how about zoas just covering the bottom of the tank? You could even go with monti cap and just watch it grow across the tank. I'm a big fan of encrusting and plating types of growth so I think it would be sweet. Heres my crazy idea: You have an island in your kitchen. Where the drawers would be on each side you have 2 of these tanks instead. That would be 2 on each side so that the long side of the glass is facing out toward the viewer. So thats 4 total tanks that are low and long like that. I think that would give you several coral options and some interesting growth patterns. Now on one end would be a columnar tank that in my family's case would house gorgonians, seahorses, and possibly sponges. I'd like to have some nice looking macro in there as well. The portion visible to the viewer would obviously be what is normally considered the front. My wife's big interest is seahorses but we can't accomodate them in my 55 reef. Now the other end of the island would house the sump and fuge. There would be some shelving involved in this matter because the "drawer" tanks are higher up but quite small. I think the plumbing for this type of project would be a little hectic but possible. My real concern is lighting over the small "drawer" tanks. This same concept could be applied to some sort of coffee or end table construction to facilitate better viewing if you have a galley style kitchen or some other design with less space. Sorry about the long post but what do you all think? What do you think of the idea of having the encrusting corals just growing out along the bottom? What would happen when the encrusting growth reached the edges of the glass? Would it simply stop or grow in some new way? Whorling patterns or simply grow up the glass? All of these questions interest me. Let me know what interests you. Bill Link to comment
irishtexan Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 Sounds like great idea! I think that a tank full of Anthelia/xenia would be awesome. And plus they grow really fast, flow in the current, and look great. Link to comment
Pship Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 How would these tanks be covered? Link to comment
MDeth Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 Duct tape =p Acrylic is cheap. Not hard to cut either Link to comment
varanus37 Posted June 19, 2007 Author Share Posted June 19, 2007 I was thinking of just the standard top to a kitchen island, wood. Now that I work through it, ventilation may be an issue. It would, of course, be removable but still... Possibly vents in the top? I'm not sure really. I'm still in the "this would be sweet" planning stage, haha. Pship, any luck on shipping out today or are we going the refund route? Either way let me know. Hope all is well on your end. Bill Link to comment
civicsit Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 Sounds really complicated, but would be really cool if you got it to work. You have a lot of things to think about on that one before you build it. Try to get a full drawing or model of it first so that you know how you can fit everything and plumb it. You may have to stagger the drawer tanks to make them fit better, depending on how long the tanks are going to be. It would be really cool to have the coral encrust or grow across the tank. Once it got to the glass, it would just grow up the glass. Depending on how the setup is, you might have to worry about flow under the plate type corals once they get big enough. Just trying to answer some questions and give you some ideas and get you thinking! Link to comment
varanus37 Posted June 19, 2007 Author Share Posted June 19, 2007 I've been wondering how to plumb from one drawer tank to the next. I think staggering them may be the best way. They're fairly short so I don't think drilling them would be feasible. So would you put a small pump in the little tank to take water to the next tank? The flow for the next tank would come from that pump obviously. Now do you have another small pump in the second "drawer" to continue the flow? I'm wondering how the sump/fuge combo will work. The water would be pumped from there to the first small tank. It wouldn't have contact with the fuge or sump again until flowing through all tanks. Could this be a problem? Would each tank need to be plumbed to the sump/fuge? The plumbing is getting more complicated as I get deeper into this, haha. Maybe the water is pumped from the sump/fuge to the first drawer. This has an overflow with bulkhead drilled in it. The second drawer is lower and that overflow goes to the second drawer. Now from here pump the water to the column tank on the end? This tank could be plumbed to the sump/fuge all on its own. Then the water is pumped up to the 3rd "drawer" on the other side and overflows into the 4th just like before. From the 4th tank do I overflow to the sump/fuge or pump? I think my main problem with plumbing right now is 2nd "drawer" to the column and 4th "drawer" back to the sump/fuge. I'm also not sure how I'd set up the sump and fuge. Any ideas on that would be greatly appreciated. Bill Link to comment
irishtexan Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 I think that a pic would really help us all! lol Link to comment
varanus37 Posted June 19, 2007 Author Share Posted June 19, 2007 A pic of the little tanks I'm talking about? Or like a drawing of the idea? I'm just mentally going through this right now, lol. Mostly just writing some stuff down and picking brains on here for ideas. I don't have the columnar tank and I've only got one of the little tanks. If I can work it out I'm going to start getting supplies. Which would you like a pic of? The tank or the drawing? Thanks for all the input and ideas so far. Bill Link to comment
civicsit Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 I think a drawing of your idea, maybe a couple, would help. One way you might be able to do it is have the column tank and the fuge water level above the top 2 drawers. Have an overflow(bulkhead) from the column that goes to the top tank in one set of drawers, and an overflow on the fuge that goes to the top tank of the other set of drawers. Then have the top drawers overflow into the bottom drawers. Then, at the very bottom of the island, have another "tank" that would just serve as a water reservoir and have the bottom drawers empty into it, have a pump that will pump the water up to the column and fuge. There you go, the complete cycle. I think you would need bulkheads on everything to make it easier and safer. And you would still have to figure out how to run the lines so that you can still pull out the tanks (I'm guessing your going to put them on heavy duty rails, like ones for tool boxes) for easy access. You could just have the lights mounted to each tank, and have a piece of wood at the front that would be attatched to to the tank that would enable the lights to still be connected to the tanks, but hide the lighting from outside view while the drawers are in. sorry, but this one has got me thinking. I think it is kinda natural now, saying since I'm one year away from being done with my mechanical engineering degree. Link to comment
irishtexan Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 No I mean just some pics of the drawers so we can visualize it better. -texx Link to comment
Krib Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 Maybe you could drill them on the bottom, and put in overflows or standpipes? Then just split a return in four, with four ball valves. I think that not drilling would make things very complicated / unstable. Lighting could be DIY HO or PC, built into the bottom of the wood counter... if you wanted to do MH I bet you could, but you'd need some ventilation ducts. I think this could be really cool and original. Considering I'm a guy that's in the process of building a custom acrylic nano plant tank with a wet-dry... inside an old Mac SE computer shell, I'm all about this stuff. Link to comment
varanus37 Posted June 21, 2007 Author Share Posted June 21, 2007 Now thats a kewl build. I don't even have any of the supplies yet, just one of the small tanks that started my idea, haha. After hearing all this great discussion though my plans may have to get jump started. I agree that not drilling would make things pretty difficult. Thanks again for all the input everyone. I'm working on some drawings now. Bill Link to comment
Withers Posted June 21, 2007 Share Posted June 21, 2007 A pic of the little tanks I'm talking about? Or like a drawing of the idea? I'm just mentally going through this right now, lol. Mostly just writing some stuff down and picking brains on here for ideas. I don't have the columnar tank and I've only got one of the little tanks. If I can work it out I'm going to start getting supplies. Which would you like a pic of? The tank or the drawing? Thanks for all the input and ideas so far. Bill www.sketchup.com It'll really help you get a handle on what this will take and what it'll look like. Link to comment
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