Extra water volume

[lilcreep13]

I currently have a 40 gallon tank and want to add more water volume to make my water quality more stable. I was thinking of just buying a 35 gallon trash can and having my overflow flow into that and pump it back in to my tank. Does anyone see any problems with this? Also after reading these forums a little i decided i wanted to add some calurpa(sp?) in there. What would i need to do in order to make sure that the calurpa grows?

 

[granny]

Very interesting thought! HMM< other than the appearance of a trash can sitting in your room, I cant think of any drawbacks. Try to purchase one of the rubber ones from Lowes and the wheeled cart it sits on. They are durable and safe for salt water use.
Are you planning on having a separate heater in the can? It would probably be a good idea rather than up the size of the one in the tank.
Where will you put your skimmer and your biomedia? Are you going to run a separate canister or hang on tank? Just curious.
As far as callurpa or any marine algae-it is pretty easy to grow. I have a planted tank and it is beautiful-plants continue to reproduce. Marine plants use the calcium in the water rather than roots to grow so just make sure your water parameters are excellent, sufficient light and water flow are also necessary and that you are past the brown diatom/green or red slime stage before adding plants.
Oh and I reccomend purchasing plants attached to rock-it is easier to place them
some need a deep sand substrate like the mermaids fan and shaving brush.

 

[lilcreep13]

Right now i have two tanks set up in an L shape against a wall so that you can see both tanks clearly but there is lots of room behind them for maintnace. so the trashcan will sit behind those. Both tanks are empty right now, but i will be filling them up soon. My ultimate plan is to have both tanks drain into the trash can and pump into their tanks so i turn a 40 gallon and a 50 gallon tank into a 120 gallong tank so to speak. I have a fluval 304 for the 40 gallon and a fluval 404 for the 50 gallon. both of those will be running with about 20 lbs of LR in the 50 gallon (my brother is cheap) and i will end up with about 65 lbs of LR in the 40 (i'm not so cheap and want to keep some corals) I will do a test run to see if the two heaters that are in the tanks will be enough to keep the water the correct temperature without putting too much stress on teh heaters. I also have a seaclone protein skimmer on the back of the 50 gallon tank.
As for the calurpa, will i need to set up a light over the trashcan for it? I plan to keep the lid on so i don't lose much water to evaporation, and also to keep debris out. But i could easily cut a hole in the lid to fix a light to it.

 

[granny]

This is pretty innovative-cant wait to see how it all turns out!!
The green stuff needs to be in your tank-under daylight/actinici bulbs. It wont last in your trash can!
So you and your brother are sharing water-different tanks. He is cheap, you are not.
What are you doing for lights? what substrate will you use?
Are you going to have similar livestock? or do you have different tastes in fish?
I like the fluvals. They are great for packing in carbon and other filter media. A good skimmer is a must have these days.

 

[lilcreep13]

I run a coralife PC 96w 10K light with 96w acitinic(sp) and on my brothers tank we have two 36 W PC's. I know there is a white and a blue bulb. not sure of the Kelvin rating on them. Thats why he doesn't have as much live rock. his is mostly a FO tank. where i will want to keep some low light corals and fish. But as far as taste in fish we are basically the same. We like clowns mostly. we both want a flame angel but know we can't keep it with the current tanks we have. He is buying a house soon, so i am saving up to get a 175 gallon with metal halides when he gets his house. as for substrate we both are using sand. Right now he has about an 1.5 inch sand bed. I will be buying more sand to make mine about 3-4 inches.

 

[coachklm]

Originally Posted by Granny
Try to purchase one of the rubber ones from Lowes and the wheeled cart it sits on. They are durable and safe for salt water use.
Are you planning on having a separate heater in the can? It would probably be a good idea rather than up the size of the one in the tank.
.

ohhh do not purchase the wheeled cart your asking for trouble......the wheel load bearing are to low for the wieght of the water ussually....and i am hoping you dont plan on moving a trashcan full of water.... just a warning i would hate to see wheels brake and trashcan tip.
basically you'll be adding a sump ......put everthing into that and walllaahh...all done