Swimming Pool to an Aquarium

[cgrant]

I have a pool and its not that expensive to run.
My 210 actually cost more to run than my pool when you figure in cost of fish, salt, chemicals, etc.
pool shock and chlorine is cheap, the most expensive cost when i open up my pool is my de filter cartridge(one per year), its about 60 bucks, i have paid more for a fish.
Having a pool as a reef tank would be awsome but expensive!
It dont look like he is hurting for money so I think it would be cool!

 

[wattsupdoc]

Originally Posted by emmitt
Might be easier and cheaper to maintain than a pool???
You can maintain a pool for $40 a month. You cant maintain a 300 gallon aqaurium inside for that much less a30,000 gallon outdoors one. Not do-able without UNLIMITED $.
Never heard of a pool pump that could give 15-20x turnover while pumping up and down pits of huge coils of pipes either or 1000 foot trenches.

You dont have to pump water down. Gravity does that. Spiral down and then back up diagonally. So you add a couple more pumps. You dont have to get all your turnover throught the pipes in the trenches or pits. Do you do water changes on something that size?If so how often? And why? Seems like a total ecosystem would be the way to go there. I am new to salt but freshwater all my life and I RARELY did water changes on my freshwater setups. when i did it seems as though they were for other reasons. Allways had excellent water quality. Trates allways 5 or less. LOW BIOLOAD>GOOD FILTRATION>GOOD FEEDING PRACTICES>CARBON>FILTERCHANGES. Maybe I was just lucky but it worked for me for like 20 years. What about reclaiming your salt?

Can that be done? For water changes? Water evaporates and leaves the salt behind. Right? Can that be reclaimed and reused without other contamanents?

I dunno Im a newbee but very intrigued here. Just throwing some things out there. :thinking:
JMO
Charlie

 

[wattsupdoc]

Pump the water straight up in the air and then let gravity take over! Or use some natural landscape? :thinking: How hot does your pool water get in the summer know anyways?Water dissapates heat. It aint getting to 100 degrees in the pool in the summer! Maybe upper 80's but not 90 or 100. Water cools down throughout the night. Your propane or LPG pool heater works pretty well at heating the pool doesnt it. You can swim comfortably year round cant ya!Check your temps in it periodically this year and see what they get to. I'll bet your not all that far off.

 

[maxalmon]

Originally Posted by TimDaddie
If you dig into the earth far enough the temperature of the earth gets colder, and usually stays about the same temperature. This is why the drinking water in most houses is on the cool side. You could dig down run "a mile" of piping under the ground.
Um, I think you kinda have that backwards, the farther down you go the hotter it gets, thats why in deep mines they have to pump down refrigerated air becuase temps can hit 140 very easy.

 

[wattsupdoc]

Originally Posted by maxalmon
Um, I think you kinda have that backwards, the farther down you go the hotter it gets, thats why in deep mines they have to pump down refrigerated air becuase temps can hit 140 very easy.
Hes not digging that far down. Caves keep an ambient temp of about 60 or so year round. Ground temp doent change much from below the frost line to ......I dunno a couple hunderd feet or so maybe less maybe more

 

[emmitt]

Originally Posted by wattsupdoc
Pump the water straight up in the air and then let gravity take over! Or use some natural landscape? :thinking: How hot does your pool water get in the summer know anyways?Water dissapates heat. It aint getting to 100 degrees in the pool in the summer! Maybe upper 80's but not 90 or 100. Water cools down throughout the night. Your propane or LPG pool heater works pretty well at heating the pool doesnt it. You can swim comfortably year round cant ya!Check your temps in it periodically this year and see what they get to. I'll bet your not all that far off.
My pool is already at 83 degrees, by august it will be in the 90's unless we have a ton of rain. Last year it topped at 92. The pool is unbearable by june and constantly needs large ice dumps if you want to use it in the day. Water doesnt cool much during the night when the temp is mid 80's and 95% humidity with no wind.

 

[gormetlady]

My pool already has already been in the 80s this spring, as well. And yes, it does get into the 90s and has hit 100 in the past summers when the air temp stays over 100 for a couple weeks. Normally it is in the high 80s in the summer. That's why I was wondering how hot is too hot, so I would know how many days I would have to cool it. I'm going to start studying the water temp this summer to see how much it needs cooled.

 

[gormetlady]

Originally Posted by maxalmon
Here it is, this is Bio11. Bio1 was the one I ws talking about.
http://www.pbs.org/opb/intimatestran...ere/index.html
Maxalmon, Thanks so much for this link!!! Ya'll are great with your help! When I lived in OH the theory of digging deep to get cool water would have worked well. I did have a 300' well on my property and the tap

water was cool all year. However, where I live in Texas we are already at the water table and cannot dig deep enough for cool water. It comes out of our taps warm. It is a city supply, not my own well.

 

[gormetlady]

Originally Posted by Murph
Its a long thread and I will admit to laziness in saying I did not read through the whole thing so if I am repeating something forgive me.
It can be summed up in a few words. Fresh water intrusion. Its going to rain and sometimes rain alot. You just cant keep the levels right under these circumstances.
If you want to start spending that kind of money and don't mind not being able to see your charges from the side through glass look into setting up a lagoon system as large as the space indoors will allow. One of the LFS in my town runs one and they are quite spectacular.
I think its Bang Guy who is the expert on these types of setups and probably would be glad to help you out with some info.
Does anyone know the percentage of freshwater which can be added before it drastically changes the gravity level? In an aquarium, adding an inch of freshwater would be a substantial percentage to the whole. In my pool, even in the heaviest rainstorm (during hurricane season) my water has only risen 3-5 inches. This is compared to a body which goes from 4' - 6'. I know that I would have to keep a constant watch, but I'm thinking that the amount of gravity change would not be instantly significant. However, based on this very good advice, I will consider enclosing the pool so that rain water and other contaminants will not enter it. I was just going to screen it in, but now I think that a glass type roof and roll up plastic sides may be a more prudent solution. PS. We have not had direct hits with hurricanes since I live far enough inland (about 80 miles). Even the one that hit Houston last year did not hurt us, although we did evacuate due to the fear of loosing utilities (which didn't happen). I only am referring to the heavy rains during this time and not hurricane force winds.

 

[cgrant]

JMO...If it was me i would get like a 3000 gallon tank and build it into the basement, you could have a whole section of basement dedicated to it, that way you can have both a pool and a huge tank.
With the amount of money it would take to get that pool setup as a reef you could easily get a huge tank setup in the basement of your house.
I am not sure if you have kids,etc. but I know my family would have a cow if i took the pool and did something like this.
A friend of the family works at the shed aquarium, she is the person in the round display tank when you fist go through the doors that feeds the fish, etc. She's a voluntee.
Alot of the employee's at the shed aquarium are volunteers due to the big $$$ that it takes to run that place.
I am not trying to talk you out of anything...I just know my wife would kill me

 

[tnt]

Originally Posted by Isistius
i know that pool filters can be used. when i interned at the national aquarium in baltimre, they were running pool filters with sand in them for their filtration on most of their tanks. but then again, most of their tanks were in the 5000 gal and under category.
We switched to using a pool sand filter this year on our 450g outdoor freshwater pond. It's been working great, however I have to backwash it twice a day because the free floating algae gunks it up and slows the flow. This also means adding water quite frequently. I think once we get past the algae bloom it will be just every few days. Also, as you probably know, silica sand is used in these filters, which I would think would be bad for saltwater. Maybe live sand could be used in place of it.
Have you thought about water topoffs? Just my small pond evaporates several inches in a few days during the summer. Fortunately, we are on a well, and I can just throw the hose in there. You would probably have to have some sort of massive RO system for this.
I still think this is a fascinating idea! Definitely keep us posted with your ideas.

 

[wattsupdoc]

HMMM>> :thinking: Wonder if you could turn the hot tub into a skimmer? :thinking:

 

[guitar]

why not try and build a greenhouse around the pool...wouldnt that help with temp fluctuations, because i think theycan be heated and cooled. Also this would keep rain and debris out of the pool and strenghten sunlight for coral and rock

 

[silleemee]

You could always put an Astrodom type cover over it.

 

[gormetlady]

:happyfish
Originally Posted by wattsupdoc
HMMM>> :thinking: Wonder if you could turn the hot tub into a skimmer? :thinking:

Yes, good idea. It is inset into the pool and has a waterfall that flows into the pool when the pump is on.

 

[chipmaker]

Just about anyhting is doable if yur willing to commit the $$$$$ to do it and maintain it. I know of a family that was emphatuated with Koi. They bought a house that had an inground swimming pool, and non of them ever used it. The pool was converted to a koi pond. They had initially built a koi pond but they wanted bigger, so they utilized the in ground pool. Much money later and down the road a peace, it turned into a higher expense than they had figured, and a freshwater koi conversion is definately a cheaper eaier to maintain setup than any marine setup would be.
Buy a big tank, keep it indoors, and enjoy it, and use that money for scuba trips instead of maintenance costs.

 

[darknes]

I think it's a bad idea.
IMO, you'll end up spending boatloads of money getting the whole thing setup, only to have it overrun with algae from the sunlight. You would end up with algae covering everything, and murky water, which you would not enjoy.
If you are really stuck on the idea, I would recommend enclosing the entire thing with some type of temperature controlled greenhouse, where you can filter the sunlight coming in to suit your needs.
As others suggested, you probably want to go visit a public aquarium somewhere and talk with experts that are familiar with huge tanks and the needed equipment.
Also, from what I understand, outdoor public aquariums only hold fish, sharks, and such. All the corals are usually indoors under a controlled environment.

 

[jwill]

Instead of saying no you cant do this or that, why not try and think of ideas to make it work. I for one thinks he has a great idea and have thought of this many different times. How cool would it be to go some where and pay a little money to dive with some very cool fish and not leave the shore. Many people are afraid of leaving the shore to go diving. I say when u retire turn it into a reef and then into a little business. Ive seen people diving in the shark and reef tanks at aquariums all over the east coast. Its def. doable if your willing to put the time into it.

Heck when i get done with college i plan on trying something simalar.

 

[ophiura]

1) You would need to boost up to several pool filters. Yes, "pool" or sand filters are used on large aquarium systems commonly for biological filtration. These systems also have very large "biotowers" (read huge wet dry filters) and skimmers as well.
2) You would still have to do water changes, IMO, just as would any major aquarium, and that is nothing to be taken lightly. Where, for example, would you mix the water to do even a small percentage water change? But yes, IMO it would need to be done. As you are local, I worked both at the Downtown Aquarium as an aquarist and at Aquarium World. Both obviously have very large systems. And both do significant water changes. In the end, it is still a "closed" system.
There are large "outdoor" aquaria but I believe most have seawater flow through systems so water is not an issue. Maybe not all though.
I am sure there could be more research on this....but for sure, as everyone has mentioned, this would require A LOT of extra money - really, IMO, there is no way around that. The pool could not run "as is" as an effective saltwater system, IMO.
And did I mention the thousands of dollars in stocking it? And feeding it? One fish at a time is not likely, in which case you would want to seriously QT things in large tank systems as well. Because if you had a disease outbreak, it would be a bear to treat...

 

[vanquish]

I agree, it sounds like its at least a million dollar project. you would also have to consider the resale value of your home after doing this. Is any one going to want to buy a house which has a multi-thousand gallon pool of an aquarium in it? Youd probably spend tons to build the thing, and at the same time see a decrease in the market value of your home which could hurt you a lot in the long run... I dont want to be a wet blanket so to speak, your idea is really cool but this is probably something to consider. :notsure: