A ~19,000 Gallon Fish Tank

nahham

nahham

Member
Hello everyone,
This is kinda show and tell and a bit of questions.
A little bit of context: We live next to a waterfront and currently have a small fish farm (~40,000 gallons) and wanted to expand on that. So we decided to build an aquarium next to that facing our houses (4 of them). There will be no filtration systems to speak of expect for sand and live rock. The water circulation will be directly for the sea which from our experience was good enough, especially that we are not planning to get hard to keep fish.
Enough with the talk now for some photos:

The fish farm next to the aquarium

An overview of the aquarium, looking at it from my SOHO (100 feets away 1st floor).

Aquarium Dimensions.
Now for some questions:[list type=decimal][*]What will be a better front glass or acrylic? We are thinking of having a middle divider since having an 11m front is not feasible.
[*]Should we have internal lighting? It will be for show because the sun will be the major source of light for whatever is in the aquarium.
How much water circulation? I've read that it should be high for usual tanks, but this is a bit different considering the fact the water is totally changed and the tank is huge.
What else should we consider?
[/list type=decimal]
 
spanko

spanko

Active Member
WOW! I can't answer any of your questions but I do want to keep track of this thread to see what you do and how it progresses.
 
meowzer

meowzer

Moderator
Originally Posted by spanko
http:///forum/post/3169129
WOW! I can't answer any of your questions but I do want to keep track of this thread to see what you do and how it progresses.
+1....welcome to SWF....what an exciting project!!!!
 
t316

t316

Active Member
Awesome project...

Where is this at? Are you in the US?
Regarding #2 and #3, I would suspect that you would need a lot of water turnover due to the fact that you are in direct sun all day. Wouldn't this cause the water to "cook" all day, making the pool water temperature extremely high? Maybe some shade would help keep temps down.
 
nycbob

nycbob

Active Member
wouldnt pollution be a problem since its right next to a seaport? i dont think its gonna work without filtration. the only fish that could be kept r edible fish, not reef fish.
 
nahham

nahham

Member
Thanks everyone for your interest.
@T316: This is a project in the Ajman, UAE (United Arab Emirates). I lived in the US for a while and had an aquarium and this is how I know saltwaterfish and it was the first place I thought of when I started the project. As for temperature, we didn't have a problem even when it was extremely hot outside reaching 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit), maybe that was due to the fact that we get the water from ~ 2 meters (6.5 feet) below the surface. Shade is not entirely out of the question though. People from the ministry of environment and water's fishery department came by and tested the water quality and temperature and found it to be acceptable. Final comment regarding water circulation, we currently have 2 pumps that does 40,000 gallons/h but are not planning to have them on all the day (kills my electricity bill) :)
@nycbob: Referring to my comment to T316, those same people from the ministry mentioned that the harmful pollution in the water are concentrated in the upper two feet of the water surface. This is the reason why we choose to go deeper to get water. We are also planning to get fish that are available in the local sea; an amazing variety. I agree that reef fish might be a stretch, but we don't have good suppliers anyway and saltwaterfish don't ship that far and if they did it would be extremely expensive :)
 
E

eric b 125

Guest
this is going to be sweet... now to go change my boxers
 
nahham

nahham

Member
Hello everyone,
Thanks for all the encouraging comments. It has been a bit slow; we were trying to get the proper people to do the glass front. It has been finally decided:
  • 3 pieces of glass
  • 12 mm + 12mm thickness
    Laminated + Tempered + Polished
A couple of updated photos:

An overview of the aquarium. The area in the front will be a sitting area measuring 11m (36ft) x 5m (16.5ft).

This is the view of the front of the aquarium while sitting down.
I'll have more updates as soon as the glass is installed. Should be around 20 days.
 
nahham

nahham

Member
Originally Posted by skate020
http:///forum/post/3174189
AMAZING!
i love it love it love it!
any thoughts on what your going to put in there yet?
We haven't really decided yet. However, we are thinking to start with fish only with sand and live rock, and then go from there. I'm just worried about the water circulation.
As for fish, some of the colourful types I'm planning to start with are:





There is a lot more but I'm a bit illiterate in the names of local fish; will have to go back to my encyclopaedia (my father) :)
We are also planning to have several types of crabs and snails.
 
skate020

skate020

Member
that stocklist sounds good, you should maybe try find something that'll grow largeish in there as a eye catcher:D
maybe a volitans:DD:D:D:D
but that might be abit annoying when you wanna clean the tank lols
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top