Natalia

Hi everybody,

I have been reading here for more than two years, but never posted before. I love this forum and have absorbed a great deal of advice. I have several planted tanks sizes 20-75G, but I always (or at least for some time) wanted a big tank. Well, the 210G (72”x24”x30”) arrived this weekend and it is BIG! I am very excited and hope you can help me figure out how to proceed without making too many mistakes.

Here is my first set of questions:

1. The tank was previously used for a saltwater setup, it came coated with a thick crust of salt/sand/algae and something purple. The guy who sold it told to spray it with a vinegar solution, let it sit for awhile and the stuff should come off. IT DID NOT! Scrubbing it with baking soda works better, but still will take ages. Are there any other tricks?

2. The original plan was to put the tank in the basement. However, the moving company sent just two guys, both not very strong. It became obvious that the tank would not make it to the basement in one piece, it had to go on the groung floor. I now think that it will not look too bad in the living room. Do I have to reinforce my wood floors?

3. The tank is drilled and has two black plastic overflow boxes siliconed to the back glass. I guess I have an option of using either a sump or a canister filter. What are advantages/ disadvantages of each system?

4. I plan on having at least 10x circulation rate (2100 gph). Does this sound right to you? What kind of filter/ pump will be the best?

5. I am not particularly excited about the overflow boxes. First, I do not like how they look, although if a black paper is mounted on the back they would not be too visible. Second, I can see that a lot of junk can get trapped in the narrow space between two plastic sheets. Is this a problem and how one resolves it? The tank will go against the wall, it is 24” wide and 30” tall, and is on 36” stand. I can see that cleaning those overflows will become a major headache. Is it easy/ wise to get rid of those boxes? What is the right way to do it without damaging the silicone seam on the bottom and how the plumbing should be modified?

I know that some of these topics have been already discussed, but it is difficult to find those posts now when I need it.

Thank you all in advance,
Natalia.

Seattle_Aquarist

Hi Natalia,

Welcome to APC, glad you have decided to "wade in" and post! That said, your questions are beyond my area of experience. Maybe someone else with some experience with a tank your size will be able to address your questions. Sounds like you have the start of a great setup!

BryceM

Oh, I love big tank setups.

I set up a 180g tank a couple of years ago. If I did it again, I'd use a reef-ready setup. There are plenty of things that you can do with the overflows. Also, other than very minor maintenence, they really don't need to be cleaned out very often - maybe once every couple of years. I'd leave the overflows. It gives you so many options like automatic waterchanges, automatic top-offs, built-in surface skimming, etc. It will also allow you to hide any other visibly obtrusive hardware. It's pretty easy to position plants and hardscape to mostly hide them too.

About the weight - I wouldn't put a tank that size on an upper level without a formal engineering evaluation. Even if it doesn't break through the floor there can be enough deformation (bending) that you risk splitting a seam. Think of 210g of yuck-water instantly going onto the floor and into the basement ceiling. You'd be much better off finding enough guys to get the thing moved safely into the basement. Offer cash & prizes (pizza).

Is this tank glass or acrylic? If it's glass, you can be pretty aggressive with removal of the coraline (purple reef stuff) which is mostly calcium. Razor blades work wonderfully. Be careful about the silicone seams though. You can also use dilute muriatic acid (HCl) which will dissolve the stuff easily. Don't use the concentrated stuff since the fumes can cause eye and lung irritation.

Personally, I'd try a sump. You might try opening a new thread to get advice on how to do this properly for a big tank.

Before you go any further, I'd strongly recommend carefully defining your goals. What type of plants & fish do you intend to keep? Can you reach the bottom? If not, don't plan on maintenence-intensive foreground species. Only after you define your goals will you be able to select appropriate lighting. This will be your single biggest expense and will dictate the entire future direction of the setup. Filtration and flow are secondary to this. I spent about two years planning my 180g and I still messed up plenty of things. You really can't "wing it" with a tank this big. Equipment mistakes at this level become expensive very quickly.

Kozy

And if it is Acrylic, an algae scraper from CPR works wonders or an old credit card works ok.

Avi

A guy I know has a 150-gallon planted tank and when he bought it he didn't know anything at all about doing it. He was advised to get a "reef-ready" tank...as you did...and he purchased a wet/dry filter with bio-balls. Once he got it...he read up...I know, a bit backwards for sure...and he was sorry he got the wet/dry for fear that it would deplete his CO2. It didn't and the tank is beautiful.

Natalia

Thank you all for replies.

Roy: Thanks for encouraging remarks, I like many of your posts and I have learned a lot from them. I surely will have lots of questions when it comes to planting.
BryceM: I red your 180g journal many times over, I love your tank. Thanks for clarifying many issues for me.

The tank is glass, so I will try 1/10 diluted HCL and razor blade/credit card, hopefully this works.

The overflows will stay and I take it that a sump is the way to go. I have no clue how it works though, and following your advice will start a separate thread on sumps.

The weight issue keeps bothering me. According marineland aquarium chart a filled 210 gallon weights close to 2200lb, plus the weight of substrate, decorations, sump, ets. This comes very close to the limit a standard residential floor can support (2880 lb distributed across 6 joists). This concern was behind my original decision to have it in the basement. You have made a very important point by mentioning that the bending of the floor could sprang a leak. I think most folks (myself included) are horrified by the image of the tank going down through the hole in the floor, but the leak option although less dramatic is nevertherless as disastrous.

My problem is that my basement is nothing like yours. It is unfinished, unheated, not well lit and has noisy equippment lincluding oil tank and furnace. I am pretty sure there are mice there and who knows what else. While we do entertain ourselves with the idea to convert it into a living space one day, realistically this won't happen in the near future. Therefore, if I put the tank in the basement half of the fun (sitting and watching it for hours) will be gone. I have to still think about possible options here...

I think I am all set with plants and fish. I decided to limit myself to the fish I already have (two plecos, five gold gouramis, three yo-yo loaches, six bloodfin tetras and three Garra flavatra). I plan to add more yo-yo loaches and garras to have 6-8 fish in each school, some extra tetras as well. I also would love to have a small school of cories in the future if space permits. I know that my fish selection is not the best for a planted tank, but these are the first guys I started with and I am sort of attached to them.

Oviously, with this selection of fish I will need a very good filtration, high water flow at the botton and some more quiet areas on the top for gouramis. I plan on having ~ 2 inch Aquasoil layer (to keep the pH low) topped with a 2-inch layer of coarse river sand. Large driftwood pieces and stones will do for a hardscape. Plants are to come from my existing tanks and will include several kinds of mosses, Bolbitus and Anubias. I also plan to get needle leaf Java fern. Plecos are currently housed with these plants and do not damage them.

Given my plant and fish selection, I aim for ~ 2wpg via HO/ VHO (not sure yet which ones) T5 bulbs. I plan to get 2 of 6x39wt retrofit kits and hopefully, my skills will suffice to screw them onto the canopy. Later I can add either MHs or extra T5s, if needed. I am not sure wether I will need CO2 for these plants, but if I do I have a complete pressurized set-up with regulator, in-line reactor, pH controller and 20lb CO2 tank.

For those of you here with incredible colorful tanks this setup might seem a little drab, but if i try hard it could be very exciting. Just give a look at the attachment below.

The maintenance indeed promise to be a challenge - something that I did not fully anticipate. I tested yesterday whether i could reach the bottom of the tank. Well, I could but only if my husband holds me by the feet. Some implements will be required for cleaning and I would like to know what you use.

Avi, I see you have Garra flavatra in your signature image. Do you keep them in your tanks and what is your experience with them?

Best regards,
Natalia.

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Avi

[quote=Natalia;464079]Thank you all for replies.

Roy: Avi, I see you have Garra flavatra in your signature image. Do you keep them in your tanks and what is your experience with them?QUOTE]

I do have one...in fact I have two. I find them to be a close to perfect fish for my planted tank. They are always active...don't bother each other or any other fish in the tank...they constantly forage around the tank and I don't see them taking any food but what they find on the plants without doing any damage to the plants. They aren't very colorful but they are still...to me, anyway...very beautiful with a nice full body with pert fins, strong shading with a reddish color to the tail.

I only recently found them to be available and I've had them for some months now. I'm sold on them.

BryceM

You might like your basement more than mine at the moment. Our two year-old flooded ours a couple of weeks ago with sewage. Don't even ask how that happened. Just today the workers came to replace the drywall they tore out. It's been a regular three-ring catastrophe here lately. Ugggh. Do you know how long it takes a 2 year-old to do $10,000 damage? About one minute it turns out.......

When thinking about the weight, imagine 15 or 20 full-grown adults standing quite close to one another. You'd be enormously surprised if a little group of people at a party suddenly fell through the floor. Probably no one here has even heard of such a thing. If your house is old and if the joists are full of termite holes, I'd proceed with caution. If the house is relatively new and you can locate the tank quite close to the load-bearing walls that support the joists you'll be much better off. It sounds like you're aware that spreading the load between cross-wise along several joists is better than placing it long-wise along only one or two. Depending on your basement you might be able to add some floor-to-ceiling supports in key locations to reinforce the area where the tank will be. These are commonly used to retrofit older homes that start to sag.

If you're going to go to the trouble of setting up a tank that big it absolutely needs to be where it can add beauty to your home. Done right, the overall effect is stunning.

For 'scaping, I use some 18" long tweezers and some 16" curved mayo scissors. I still go in up to my armpit at times. My wife was kind enough to buy me a stepstool. Without the cheating instruments it would be pretty hopeless.

Avi

It absolutely is a major consideration that you add beauty to your home with the major move that you've made with that tank. IMO opinion, second only to that is that even if you can't put it in a place that beautifies your home, it should beautify your life. That can only happen if you have the tank in a place where YOU spend a good deal of time. If the basement is just a place in your house that has room for the tank or can easily accomodate the weight without question, that, once again IMO, isn't enough reason to put it there. You want it where YOU are.

Natalia

BryceM: OMG, I am sorry to hear about your basement. Hopefully this will go back to normal soon.

Both you and Avi made a good argument in favor of placing the tank in the living room. Installing two support columns with the steel beam in the basement sounds like a good option and I will be calling a civil engineer to see what can be done.

I found that the floor question is one of the FAQs when it comes to large aquarium. Some time ago I found a web article that explains some of the principles of the residential floor designs in a lay language (see the attachment). Hopefully it will be helpfull for some.

Avi: I have my three garras for about two month, they are adorable. I have read that they are good for algae control, so when I saw them in my LFS (they were selling as gobys) I both all three that they have. However, there is not much data available regarding their maintenance.
Mine seem to eat algae from the glass and leaves, but they are also fond of algae waffers and shrimp pellets. In fact there are fights for the pellets betwen them at a dinner time. I have seen them picking bloodworms as well.

I also red that they are jumpers and I keep mine in the closed tank. I had an accident when two of them went into my HOB filter and one got seriously hurt. He somehow went into the impeller compartment and had his gill cover and one of the fins ripped off. He had to go in the quarantine bowl for a week. He did not do too well there - was very stressed and stopped eating. When the wounds closed I put him back in the main tank and it looks like he is doing beter. No HOB filters with these guys.