Thought I'd post pictures of a new build my uncle and I are working on. Take some guesses at how many gallons it is!
Me in front of the basement viewing window

Top down view from the pool room with my uncle inside

Me standing in front of the skimmer holding the collection cup

Me inside the tank

Outer rim of the tank from the pool room

Heck yeah! I've wanted to do something like that with a room above it where you see it as a pond. Make it like a little rainforest up there. Just in my dreams though... I guess you're doing SW though, right?

I'd say that's about 9,000US gal.

Damn!! Nice spot for a tank! How are you going to treat the concrete to hold water? And for salt water the tank is to deep for corals etc so I guess this is going to be a shark/ray tank?

I would say this is about 20.000 gallons.

Danh: This will in fact be something of a rainforest above, with palms, bananas, and citrus trees in planters, hopefully along with some pitcher plants and a Titan arum(Amorphophallus titanum). We will build an extra planter near the tank for mangroves which will be attached to the tank, in which we'll probably place some kind of moray eel to reside amongst the roots of the mangroves.

Loubard: The concrete will be smoothed and then treated with a deep blue-colored epoxy, the kind that people use to seal warehouse and garage floors. It can take a beating and is non-toxic. This tank will be centered around 6 bamboo sharks and a few rays, but the goal is to be able to keep some corals in the upper 3-4 feet of water. It will be lit by 4x1000w and 8x400w halides, so corals that high will be feasible. The only question is can we have enough coral in there that the few butterflies and angels we keep cant eat faster than they can grow. I've got a plan for this which perhaps I'll fill you in on later.


I'm not going to say anything about the capacity yet. I wanna see some more guesses!

AWww.... I guess 9,000g from 14'x8'x10'


So you also have to keep birds in the "rain forest." Like a Macaw or toucan or something. To make my dream come true at least.

Sound very awesome mate! Please keep us updated on the progress.

Sweet Mother Mary of God.

WOW that's beyond impressive! your rain forest setup sounds sweet!! i know it's probably gonna be a while, but i can't wait to see it up and running!

i'm gonna guess around 10,000 US gal

Hoping for Winter of 2010 to have it operational and lightly stocked. building the filter at the moment. We'll add six shark purses and hope they all hatch. If not, we'll keep goin till we have 6 bamboo sharks. We'll raise them to a decent size as this tank will be quite active and a little rambunctious at times, so we want these fish to thrive and thus we'll give them a head start. And yes, the filter is large enough to raise 6 bamboo sharks.

So how big is it????

Oh, but the guessing game has hardly started! I've only got 3 guesses!

What an awesome build!

I'll be tagging along to see the progress for sure!


AJ

Come on, let's see more guesses!

Is there a prize for the winner?

haha, um, free tour?

I'll take that tour!

You have to guess the volume of the setup.. GUESS ALREADY!!

Okay, obviously no one has any interest in this game so I'll just tell you how many gallons it is and call it quits. 8078 gallons. 16x9x7.5 . Getting guesses seems to be like pulling teeth..

I reckon I was pretty close.

Yes, I was impressed by both yours and infblue's guesses. Impressive for eyeballing. For all you guys know, I might be 4'6" tall, so I wasn't much for a reference

4'6"?? Really??

Just looked into this thread...BTW, I would have guessed 15k gallons...lol.

Great setup/Idea. Keep us posted!

Haha, I'm 5'11"... I suppose I could deceive you all and say I'm the coveted 6'0", but I'll be honest.

I knew you weren't that short.

You can say 6'. 1" out of 6" is nothing.

So we're planning on building the filter the week of July 26, then adding water the following week. A crazy fast cycle will ensue, as we're getting biomedia from multiple tanks from around here, including 20 lbs of LR and a beach ball sized chunk of chaetomorpha algae from one of my tanks, and hopefully we will have added 6 bamboo shark purses mid-week of the week of August 16. The shark purses will produce waste and sustain a cycle until they hatch, at which point we'll begin keeping a close eye on things as far as NH4 and NO2 go. We'll be curing LR in a separate tank, and by the time the sharks hatch, it should be ready to add to the filter. The filter will be ~960 gallons

Any more pics of the filter or any other parts of the setup?

Well, as of right now, the filter is 3 4x8x1" sheets of acrylic, 2 4x4x1", and a 4x8x1/2" with openings cut in it for the top. We have glue, we're waiting on a caulk gun for weld-on 42 application. I could post a pic of the plumbing , but its just a bunch of 2" and 3" pipes coming out of the wall. Other than that, all we've got at the moment is the skimmer(which makes for a good game of hide and seek)..

ah nice! keep us posted on the progress! would love to see the set up coming together!
haha i just assumed you to be around 6' tall for my guesstimate

nice, wish i could do sumthin like that

Filter build begins tomorrow! Will post pics of progress!

Can't wait to see some pics of the progress.

cool...looking forward to it

Well, the project is finished, but we had to make some cuts.... money is a little tight.

I hope that's a joke

Ya got me. It was a joke. We just set that 55 up there in the window to cure the 135 lbs of live rock we got to start off the filter with. He's got that and a basketball-sized chunk of chaetomorpha algae going in there now, with about 2000 gallons of flow and a current skimmer rated for 225 gallons. We've modified the filter tank to be used as a display tank for the next year or so, until we can reach completion on the main tank. We mounted wall brackets on each side to create a gyre flow with 2 koralia 6's with 1/4" acrylic, because the 1" walls of the tank are too thick, and we'll be mounting crates near the top of the tank, partially submerged, partially emersed to act as filters, 2 with bioballs, one with macroalgae (that is the tentative plan anyway). We're going to try to do without the monster skimmer until we set up the main tank, but we'll see how this tank's inhabitants grow over the next year, and perhaps those plans will change. Here's a picture of the finished filter. Took about three weeks, a few hours here and there:

How big is that one? Not built beautifully, but not a show tank to sneeze at.

It's built for strength and there's clarity and beauty where it's needed: in the middle of the panes. Who looks into a tank right at the corners?
The inner dimensions are 92x44x48(l" x w" x h") , but we'll fill it to 42", giving a volume of around 735 gallons minus the 5-6 gallons that 135 lbs of rock will displace and the ~10 gallons that 240 lbs of aragonite will displace.

Awesome job man! If I had that setup, it would be an Amazon biotope/Rain forest scene for sure.

wow awesome! i didn't think that (filter) tank is that big till i read the dimension! amazing! one day may be i'll have a set up like yours...
thanks for the updates! can't wait to see it stocked

I would certainly agree with you Aeakos, but you have to admit that an 8000-gallon coral reef tank that is just loaded with tons of active fish will be quite the display.

I suppose I should have had a person standing next to the tank for reference in that picture. I have a couple of pictures with people standing in the background before we moved it into place... maybe I'll post those later on today

impressive... I'd have to say I'd go with the Amazon biotope myself. Though the bamboo sharks will be sweet.

Same here an Amazon tank that big would be awesome.

where can I get one? lol

Thats pretty sweet.

Put like 9000 tetras or danios in it haha. And one clown knife

So we added the 135 lbs of liverock and beachball-sized chunk of Chaetomorpha algae about 2 weeks ago, along w/ 240 lbs of aragonite sand. Last weekend, added 2 golf ball-sized hermit crabs which have been thriving, and placed an order about 10 minutes ago for the following:

1x pincushion urchin
1x black longspine urchin
1x Royal blue urchin
1x black brittle star
1x green brittle star
1x sand sifting star
8x ninja star snails
5x turbo snails
6x tongan nassarius snails
1x fighting conch snail
1x anemone hermit crab
1x emerald crab
1x horseshoe crab
4x asst. mushroom coral
3x sailfin tang



Should make for a decent amount of activity in the tank.... it'll be about 10% stocked lol

got any updates on this beauty?

Ya would love to see any progress that has been made.

come on its been months! we want pics!!!!

Sorry for the long wait, everybody, it's been a crazy semester. Since the last shipment, we've added somewhere around 15 assorted corals, mostly soft, a few LPS, and 3 sharks, one of each of the following: Hemiscyllium ocellatum (Epaullette shark), Heterodontus francisci (California Horned shark, my personal favorite at the moment), and Chiloscyllium plagiosum (white-spotted bamboo shark)

Here's and image of the horned, waters a bit cloudy, image is a bit blurry. He's right around 10"

love that shark! very cool!

i just joined AP today. whats up with this tank. they jus left the thread hanging. i was excited to get to the end i thought it was gonna show it finished.