New Shark Tank

[Kangadrew]

Hey guys,

I'm setting up a new shark tank. I have an established 2,000 gallon total volume system, which has been doing great for the past few months. I don't want to put another shark into my 2,000 gallon system, so I would like to set up another one. I am about to order a 240 gallon custom aquarium, which I will be ordering this week. It's 8 feet long, 1.5 feet wide, and just over 2.5 feet high. I will have it custom made to include 2 glass wall overflows, 2 holes for each overflow, a glass lid, acrylic covers for the overflows, 4 bulkheads to fit the pre-drilled holes, and a custom stand, which included an extra side door to easily move and remove the sump. That tank isn't too cheap, running me $2,200. Aside from that, I will be purchasing:

• 2x 3-foot 4-lamp Wavepoint T5 light fixtures
• 4x 460 Actinic Bulbs
• 2x Actinic 420 bulbs
• 2x Coral Growth Accelator bulbs
• 250 pounds of live rock. This will be separated into 5 different towers using 1/2" PVC pipe and a drill bit. The pipe will just be for internal structuring purposes
• Corals (3x mushroom colonies, 3x zooanthid colonies, 1x kenya tree coral, 1x pagoda coral, 1x green finger sinularia coral, 4x Whisker corals, 4x clove polyps)
• Fish (1x blueface angelfish, 1x sailfin tang, 1x epaulette shark, 4x Bluestreak Cleaner Wrasse, 7x damselfish)
• ASM G-4 Plus Protein Skimmer (in the 60 gallon sump)
• A RODI unit (http://www.pure-pro.com/fs201.htm), plus a 60-gallon stock tank, an air pump, and heater for the stock tank to match the main tank

Now for some questions (the main point of this thread):

1. Is a filter necessary on this tank, or could I get away with the protein skimmer? I don't want to do large, frequent water changes.
2. Do I need an auto top-off system for the tank? I have one on my 2,000 gallon and like it, but I don't want to invest in one for this tank
3. Could someone recommend what pumps/powerheads I should get for this tank?
4. Could someone recommend a heater for this tank?
5. Could someone recommend what substrate to use and how much of it for the tank? In my 2,000 gallon, I have 100 pounds of play sand, 400 pounds of crushed aragonite, and 300 pounds of aragamax sand. I don't want to take sand from my big tank.
6. What should I feed this tank? I already have an ice cream freezer that's filled with frozen silversides (60 pounds) and frozen capelin (33 pounds). That should be good for the shark.
7. Can anyone revise this stock list for the tank? I plan on adding in the future: 2x columbian shark catfish, a zebra moray eel, and a golden moray eel. If they would do fine in the tank, I'll just add them when I stock it.

That's all I have for now. Cheers,

Drew

 

[Kangadrew]

I have sort of answered my own questions a bit

1. I will be getting a filter - it'd be irresponsible not to, considering what fish are in the tank and the significant bioload of them
2. I will not be getting an auto top-off system for this tank
3. For pumps, there will be a 1,000 GPH pump to power the sump, and 2,500 GPH worth of powerheads in the tank (no dead spots!)
4. A heater has not been decided on yet. I will do some looking around tomorrow.
5. For substrate, I'm going to do 120 pounds of crushed aragonite, 90 pounds of aragamax sand, and 30 pounds of play sand. I just want to match the conditions of my larger tank. This tank will be in the back room, so I'm the only one it has to look nice to (kids and girlfriend allowed in the room if I go with them; friend and dad allowed back there to help with water changes, etc)
6. I'm going to feed the corals by a plankton supplement every so often (say, 2-3 weeks?). Additionally, there will be a ton of them in my 60 gallon sump when the tank is first started up. The fish with the most specialized diet is obviously the shark, so let's start with him. He will be fed a little bit of what the other sharks are fed (live shrimp, frozen shrimp, and silversides), but mostly crabs and bloodworms (all frozen). The cleaner shrimp will be started on tiny bits of scallops and frozen shrimp from the shark freezer, but hopefully they'll move on to accept pellets/flakes. I'll have some just in case. For the tang and angel, I will stock up on nori sheets. However, the angel will also eat small pieces of chicken breast and mysis shrimp. The damsels will actually be moved to my 2,000 gallon system with the others (once the tank has been cycled), so they will be fed a diet of mysis shrimp and scraps of whatever frozen foods the sharks don't get to.
7. I figure, I'm more used to getting in the actual tanks to clean them and sometimes feed. I'm not too used to sticking my hands around in the tank. So eels are definitely not going to happen. And with the catfish, I'm just not a fan of saltwater cats (ever since an incident in FL which left my ankle swollen past the point of me being able to walk for nearly a month).

 

[pegasus]

I suspected you would figure it out on your own, since you have prior experience with sharks. The only question I have is why you don't want to use an ATO. Something as simple as a float-type ATO in the sump sure will make life a lot easier. Not sure what the evaporation rate will be for this tank, but an ATO sure beats hauling and dumping several gallons of freshwater into the tank every single day. It would also help keep the tank more stable. Just my opinion... take it with a grain of salt.

As for cleaner shrimp... they'll eat pretty much anything you feed them, so there's no training period. I wouldn't hesitate to start feeding them pellets and/or flakes. Everything else looks like a good plan.