PNW Temperate Tanks Using Marineland Commercial Systems

[C-Rad]

I think I will try the double paned acrylic cocept on the old seagrass tank and see how it works out and start keeping my eye out for used acrylic tanks that I can buff out and insulate and add the second pane to the front.

Smart. Experience is a big deal when working with acrylic. My first and last attempt at making air-tight boxes failed, but next time I'll probably get it right.

 

Thats what I was thinking for doing the second pane on the front, I could make a completely air tight seal by bonding the second acrylic pane onto the tank and putting in some small air valves that into the seam that I could fill and remove air from.

Acrylic can be easily drilled and tapped, so it should fairly easy to do.

With a 1/2" airspace, on the front of a 24" x 48" tank, there are 540 cu in of air there. Air will expand and contract about 10% in volume between 50 and 100 degrees F, and I'm worried about high or low air pressure blowing out a seam, or at least causing thin acrylic (1/4"?) to bow. It might be a good idea to run a little tube from the airspace between the panes to a sealed non-gas permeable bag (mylar balloon?) inside the stand, that is half filled with extra air (at room temp) and can hold at at least 85 cubic inches of air (about 1.5 quarts). That'll keep the pressure inside the airspace equalized with the room pressure, regardless of the temperature, or the barometric pressure, and still keep humidity out of the airspace.

 

BTW, silicone sealant, while water tight, is gas and water vapor permeable, so if you use it to make a seal for double paned windows, water vapor can get inside under humid conditions (that's one of the things I learned the hard way). Butyl rubber (like they use to seal car windshields and RV windows) is not gas permeable.

 

If you want to get really fancy, Argon or Carbon Dioxide each insulate about 40% better than air, so using acrylic with a 1/2" argon space insulates at about R-3.17 (vs R-2.37 for air) (sexy stuff )

 

[My 50 gallon system is] still just a little too noisy to have in the same room with the TV, especially when the chiller comes on.

I meant that you could run water from and back to your 110 in the garage, and just use the 50 as an insulated tank (silent). But I get it, it's also not very cool looking, and you can get $250 for it, so sell it and put the money toward a better tank for inside.

[AquaticEngineer]

So after all the talk and ideas about doing a dual paned acrylic front, I think in the end run its going to be easier maintenance wise to make my tank with a 1" thick front viewing panel and the rest of the tank out of 1/2 inch or 3/8 black acrylic and attach the foam like you did, or spary foam onto the tank and shave it down after.

 

I've been thinking about the size and design of the stand and I'm going to make it a viewable height when sitting down on the couch in my living room, which will be a perfect height to view it from above when standing over it. I'm planning to get black acrylic panels cut to fit the front of the stand since no filtration will be housed there or in the house.

[AquaticEngineer]

I meant that you could run water from and back to your 110 in the garage, and just use the 50 as an insulated tank (silent). But I get it, it's also not very cool looking, and you can get $250 for it, so sell it and put the money toward a better tank for inside.

 

Huh, I guess I could LOL, it had crossed my mind at one point but I got so set on building my own super cool custom tank after seeing Steves that I had forgot that entire idea.

 

Dang, I have everything I need right now to do that, the only thing I would have to do is figure out a way to quiet down the standpipe overflow. Then run the PVC through the wall and get the connections prepped.

 

I guess if the sale falls through then that may be the route I go which is how I had intended it when I purchased it. Funny how things come full circle

[AquaticEngineer]

I meant that you could run water from and back to your 110 in the garage, and just use the 50 as an insulated tank (silent). But I get it, it's also not very cool looking, and you can get $250 for it, so sell it and put the money toward a better tank for inside.

 

Ok so I have been brain storming what you said and I think I have come up with an idea to make this work inside my house ( wife and god permitting, they may be one in same )

 

I'm going to run a 90 degree elbow off the existing standpipe and run it do the back of the tank. I can build a black overflow box there that will surround the stand pipe and I can add a durso setup to it to reduce the noise.

 

This will allow me to do a lot of the things I want out of an indoor coldwater setup such as:

 

1)Have the auto feeder plumbed into the inside tank

 

2)Make it reasonably presentably to keep inside

 

3)Have it quiet enough to keep in the living room

 

4)Allow me to keep my Gorgonians, Strawberrys, and other really cool stuff inside where I can see them all the time

 

5)Get the plumbing ran through the wall in my living room to the garage for when I do get the money and time to build the inside setup.

 

6)It will add redundancy or two chillers on one system I can set the inside chiller to come on at 60 as the high and the larger outside on in the cooler garage to maintain the system at 58.

 

What do you guys think? It wont be a super cool custom built in badass system, but it will definately be cool

[AquaticEngineer]

Bought all the pipe to put a durso on the cube tank. Gonna go get the acrylic for the overflow on wednesday. Gotta drain it, test run it again with the new overflow setup and then the fun begins

[AquaticEngineer]

Its a little thrown together and scatterbrained but this is whats going to happen to the cube tank for the overflow and returns.

[C-Rad]

I like your design! You've got the closed loop blowing across the bottom of the tank, which will keep particles from settling on the bottom, and create a circular flow pattern that pushes water at the top of the tank toward the rear coast to coast overflow for good skimming. If the two returns at the top point down the back, it will further promote this circular flow. The partition overflow will turn the 50 gallon tank into a 37 gallon tank, but there's little alternative. I guess you could hang an overflow box on the back, and run a bunch of ugly pipes over the back wall for your closed loop, but I'd hate to trust an overflow box. If the siphon stops you would pump 110 gallons of water into a full 50 gallon tank in your living room, which is really bad for your rug. (maybe a float switch in the tank, and/or water sensor on the floor, attached to a kill switch would be a good precaution).

 

You mentioned acrylic for the overflow. From the drawing it looks like your overflow box will be a partition wall that will section off the back few inches of the tank, have two pipes going through it, and six outlets. Your tank has a false bottom right? So I'm assuming that your "overflow" wall is intended to keep animals out but not be water tight, since water can flow under it. If you want it to be a real water tight overflow, remember that silicone won't stick to acrylic, and it's very hard to make a strong bond between glass and acrylic. Also, the acrylic wall would need to be strong (thick) enough to hold back all the water in the tank, so essentially as strong as a tank wall. If water flows under the partition, instead of over it, then you won't be skimming floating stuff off the water, and might tend to let a film build up. Maybe the best solution would be to try to mostly block water flow under the partition, but not so much that the acrylic wall will ever have much more water pressure on one side than the other. That way most of the water will come over the top of the partition, but some will come under it, or through it (around the plumbing?), so it won't need to be very strongly bonded to the glass, but you'll still get descent skimming.

[AquaticEngineer]

I like your design! You've got the closed loop blowing across the bottom of the tank, which will keep particles from settling on the bottom, and create a circular flow pattern that pushes water at the top of the tank toward the rear coast to coast overflow for good skimming. If the two returns at the top point down the back, it will further promote this circular flow.

Thats what I was thinking, along with the intake for the closed loop being at the very bottom of the tank underneath the false bottom. This should be the best design to keep anything from settling near the bottom of the tank. The longer I can keep food particles suspended in the water column the better the chances for everything to feed on them.

 

The partition overflow will turn the 50 gallon tank into a 37 gallon tank, but there's little alternative. I guess you could hang an overflow box on the back, and run a bunch of ugly pipes over the back wall for your closed loop, but I'd hate to trust an overflow box. If the siphon stops you would pump 110 gallons of water into a full 50 gallon tank in your living room, which is really bad for your rug. (maybe a float switch in the tank, and/or water sensor on the floor, attached to a kill switch would be a good precaution).

I figured giving up a few gallons to put in an overflow that makes the tank look much cleaner and allows me to connect it into the big tank was worth it in the long run. I've dumped enough water on my floor in the past to never trust a siphon overflow, lol. The other design I had contemplated was just putting an overflow box around just the durso. That would give me a little more tank room, but the 2 returns would be visible in the tank and I'm trying to completely hid all the plumbing if possible.

 

You mentioned acrylic for the overflow. From the drawing it looks like your overflow box will be a partition wall that will section off the back few inches of the tank, have two pipes going through it, and six outlets.

Pretty much, it will only have 1 pipe running through it which is the drain for the durso. The 2 returns come up through the tank bottom and up behind where the overflow wall will be. Then I'll run them to bulkheads with small nozzles.

 

Your tank has a false bottom right? So I'm assuming that your "overflow" wall is intended to keep animals out but not be water tight, since water can flow under it.

There is a false bottom, and the design of the overflow is mostly to hide the durso and return plumbing and to keep catalina gobies from being sucked down a normal stand pipe

 

If you want it to be a real water tight overflow, remember that silicone won't stick to acrylic, and it's very hard to make a strong bond between glass and acrylic. Also, the acrylic wall would need to be strong (thick) enough to hold back all the water in the tank, so essentially as strong as a tank wall. If water flows under the partition, instead of over it, then you won't be skimming floating stuff off the water, and might tend to let a film build up. Maybe the best solution would be to try to mostly block water flow under the partition, but not so much that the acrylic wall will ever have much more water pressure on one side than the other. That way most of the water will come over the top of the partition, but some will come under it, or through it (around the plumbing?), so it won't need to be very strongly bonded to the glass, but you'll still get descent skimming.

The overflow wall will be made out of 3/8 black acrylic so is should be plenty strong. I was thinking about that and I may use something more durable the just regular silicone since all the gluing will be done on the backside of th overflow that isn't visible in the tank. I was planning on having the intake for the durso be very close to the height of the overflow wall so that there would be a small drop for noise reduction and very little difference in pressure. Also with a small drop from the overflow wall, and it being a coast to coast, it should allow me to have a thin layer of water flowing over the wall and help reduce fish going over it. I was also planning on using the existing pipes from the returns and the pipe for the durso as connection points for the acrylic wall and using silicone as more of a gasket as opposed to an adhesive.

 

Most of all this is just a way for me to test a few designs and get all the kinks worked out for an inside tank before I build a custom one. But it will also make the cube tank a much more attractive and user friendly setup to someone else if I decide to sell it later on.

[AquaticEngineer]

Oh lord it figures........I finally figure out what I want to do with this second tank and someone emails me and wants to buy it

 

I guess everything is on hold until I find out what this person wants to do with the tank. I think they just want it for live lobster at a seafood restaurant. No sense in doing a bunch of mods to make it into a home aquarium then I guess.

 

On the plus side, if I get the price I want for it then my custom build is back on

[AquaticEngineer]

OK, so this throws another nice twist into my plans for a custom build acrylic coldwater tank.

 

The guy I bought my 110 Marineland tank from is a commercial recycler and just called me to see if I was interested in another one.

 

I told him depending on price and condition that it was in I would be interested, and if not me I know a few people who might be

 

Cool thing is that I'm selling my smaller coldwater cube, and my tropical reef tank this week and will have more than enough to buy this other 110 gallon if the price is right.

 

I'm not really sure what I'll do with it other than set it up right next to my other one and use them both as display sumps in the garage for the indoor tank, but hell that'd be cool too

 

If I buy this it'll stall the custom build by a few months, but in the end I think it will be much better having 220 gallons of sump, with 2x3/4 horse chillers 2xUV filters, 2xskimmers, 2x mechanical filtration on my system.

 

What do you guys think?

[Jamie]

you dont really need any more sump space... you should probably just give it to me.

[AquaticEngineer]

It'll be here for you when your back from school

[Jamie]

bah, so long from now!

[AquaticEngineer]

bah, so long from now!

 

Well this is my first house, and I'll have 2 kids soon, and I'm custom building my tank partially into the house, so I think I'll be here for a while

[Jamie]

Alright, well we'll see how college goes, then probably grad school, so I guess I'll shoot you a pm in 8 years-ish.

 

In the mean time you should post more pictures!

[C-Rad]

If you've got the space, there's a lot of peace of mind in knowing that if you have a chiller or pump failure you can switch over to your back up system and just keep rolling along, giving you time to repair the broken component (or not) at your leisure. Another plus is that there may come a day when you show someone your system, and they are so impressed that they offer you a pile of money for your backup system. I want two temperate tanks because of the incompatibility between some species (I think Steve Weast had two tanks for that reason). Some very desirable animals don't mix, and you will could have the option to keep animals that don't play well together. I like my bimac octopus tank, but I can't keep any fish, or too many stinging anemones. On the down side, you are increasing the number of places that can spring a leak, require maintenance, and allow heat to enter the system, so your electric bills may be higher than if the 2nd system weren't plumbed into your system (except when the temp in the garage is lower than the tank temp, so you might get winter for free!).

 

All things considered, if you get a good price, and have the space, you'd probably be a fool to pass it up. If possible, test it before you buy it. If you discover that one critical part is missing or broken, you can get it for next to nothing because of that. Then you'll at least have backup parts (all but one), and an insulated tank at your disposal, for almost free.

[kenneth wingerter]

hey stu.

the article is up, you can check it out at coldwater aquarium article.

thanks again for some great shots, have a good one...

[AquaticEngineer]

hey stu.

the article is up, you can check it out at coldwater aquarium article.

thanks again for some great shots, have a good one...

 

 

Sweet

[AquaticEngineer]

If you've got the space, there's a lot of peace of mind in knowing that if you have a chiller or pump failure you can switch over to your back up system and just keep rolling along, giving you time to repair the broken component (or not) at your leisure. Another plus is that there may come a day when you show someone your system, and they are so impressed that they offer you a pile of money for your backup system. I want two temperate tanks because of the incompatibility between some species (I think Steve Weast had two tanks for that reason). Some very desirable animals don't mix, and you will could have the option to keep animals that don't play well together. I like my bimac octopus tank, but I can't keep any fish, or too many stinging anemones. On the down side, you are increasing the number of places that can spring a leak, require maintenance, and allow heat to enter the system, so your electric bills may be higher than if the 2nd system weren't plumbed into your system (except when the temp in the garage is lower than the tank temp, so you might get winter for free!).

 

All things considered, if you get a good price, and have the space, you'd probably be a fool to pass it up. If possible, test it before you buy it. If you discover that one critical part is missing or broken, you can get it for next to nothing because of that. Then you'll at least have backup parts (all but one), and an insulated tank at your disposal, for almost free.

 

Going to pick it up on monday since I'm off work with the holiday. The tank looks identical to my current one with the stainless and black but is a couple years newer and I'll be getting for the same price I actually have the opportunity to buy more of these from him for the same price, so if anyone is interested and is close to Portland, OR let me know and I can hook you up

[AquaticEngineer]

Yay!

 

I got my LED lights in the mail yesterday. Nothing super fancy but they are 100% waterproof so they can be right at the waters edge inside of my tank and keep it looking nice and clean

 

I'll get pics up tonight when I get home.

[AquaticEngineer]

Pics with the LED strip lights on the tank.

 

 

 

 

[Jamie]

sweet gorg.

[AquaticEngineer]

Few more pics

 

 

 

[amored]

this is a great tank!

 

an octopus would do well in this tank. they're awesome animals, i really liked mine. the coldwater species are hardier and many are diurnal.

[AquaticEngineer]

Thought I would give you guys a picture update of my tank, all the starfish and the gorgonians in here I have had since November of last year. Most of the anemones and the Corynactis I've had since July of last year.

 

Here's a couple pics of my orange Ochre Star eating snails from the market.

 

Picture to show you the size of the Bat Stars and Ochre Stars, I got big hands too.

 

My abalone with my finger in the shot for size reference.

 

My slowly growing strawberry fields

 

Gorgonians

 

Anemones