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RE: NFC: Re: Large Tanks
The guy who wrote this page is often available to chat with in some of the
more popular fish chat rooms under the alias "Neptune". I saw photos of
this tank a year or so ago when I had 20" pacus that were rapidly outgrowing
my 135G tank. He showed me photos of his pacu to let me know the worst was
yet to come. Unlike the popular LFS myth goes, these fish DO NOT stop
growing if they are in a smaller tank than their maximum natural size would
support.
Now my tank is not HUGE. But it is BIG. 135 gallons is not a tank to take
lightly. It is also too deep to do proper gravel cleaning. The lighting on
it is very poor and cannot sustain live plants. I've got a pair of whisper
5's and UGF filters with big powerheads. Right now the tank is very lightly
populated with some dollar sunnies and a pair of slender madtoms, but I dare
not put much more than that without getting a better filter(s).
And like I mentioned earlier, lighting is a problem. Two rows of
flourescent tubes is not enough. Metal halide would be needed even for
freshwater plants. We did saltwater in here before and there was ZERO green
algae. All the algae was brown and red. The height also causes a problem
with algae scraping when the lights are strong enough, as magnetic algae
scrapers don't work on such thick glass and the stick types usually aren't
long enough to reach everything without getting into the water up to your
shoulder.
The lid for this tank is nothing like a well fit lid on a smaller tank. It
is made up of plates of glass, and there are large amounts of surface area
that are completely open which translates into massive amounts of
evaporation every week to take care of.
I've been putting off and putting off the day that is coming where I will
have to invest in all new hardware for this tank from the lids to the
lighting to the filtration and more. It's going to be very expensive to do
this, but it needs to be done. A UV sterilizer IMHO is not the way to go
because it would take way too long for all the water in the tank to cycle
through the UV unit. Ozone may be a better solution. I've used it very
successfully in a marine environment despite all the claims that ozone will
burn your fish. Mine worked for a couple of years with zero disease in the
tank. Then I moved and the ozonizer broke in the move, and I never did
replace it.
If I were to do a "big tank" all over again, I'd definitely go with
something much much lower. No taller than a 55 gallon tank.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nfc at actwin_com [mailto:owner-nfc at actwin_com]On Behalf Of
Anthony Andrew
Sent: Saturday, March 04, 2000 3:24 PM
To: nfc at actwin_com
Subject: Re: NFC: Re: Large Tanks
On Sat, 4 Mar 2000 13:12:16 -0600, nfc at actwin_com wrote:
> Thank you Tony... But mybe we could see the article listed somewhere ?
Whoops! That would help, wouldn't it? Here's the link-
http://www.tomgriffin.com/aquamag/pacu.html hth
Sorry :)
Tony Gustafson
DeKalb, IL
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The only problem with the gene pool is
there is no lifeguard.
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