Marine "River-Tank"

[Martin Thoene]

When I visited with George from Greenscape interiors, he told me I should visit North-American Fish-Breeders and check out his tank system.

John at this place is known as an adventurous tank-builder. YOU HAVE TO SEE IT TO BELIEVE IT! The shop has some of the largest tanks I've ever seen not in a zoo.

Right, try and imagine this.... A tank around 8 feet long by (I'm guessing) 36" wide, and about 18" deep. Water enters from a sump at the right-hand end. The piping is about 3" in diameter!
But this isn't a rectangular tank....the left end turns left along the other wall for about another 8 feet! Then there's a kind of overflow arrangement with a weir. On the other side of that there's another tank the same size and at its left end there's a weir where the main body of water overflows. Imagine about 3/4" of water going over a 30" wide weir and dumping into two 4" drains. These take the water under the last tank and back under the second part of the L-tank. They dump into a sump that's around 36" wide by 5 or 6 feet long that has skimmers and stuff in. Honking great pond pumps move the water back via flexible plastic pipe and dump it back into the first tank. The whole shebang is built from 1/2" thick glass.
He told me it moves 6000 gallons an hour. The whole thing is chock full of for-sale marine inverts.

I asked him for a quote for a 72" x 18" x 18" tank with some "extras" (which I'm not revealing right now). He quoted for half-inch glass @ $400

I have this cunning scheme for two of these one above the other. The lower one may effectively be the sump for the upper one, but they'll both be fish-holding River-Tanks. Then I can keep "breeding" type hillstreams in the upper one and the more predatory ones below where they can't eat babies. I can retire some smaller tanks then.

Martin.

[shari2]

going into 'the business' eh?

[Jim Powers]

That sounds VERY interesting!

[Martin Thoene]

Let's just say Shari, that I'm seriously considering doing "the business" on setting up a truly dedicated system for Hillstreams that goes beyond my River-Tank manifold.....actually does away with it. The principal would be the same, just differing in how it's done.

I tell you what Jim, if you halved the width of the tank I described it would make an absolute dream system for hillstreams. The water was so clear, I couldn't really see the flow, but the amount of water going over the end weir was astounding. Lots of slurping and gurgling too

Martin.

[Emma Turner]

Sounds very interesting indeed! Without knowing all the ins and outs of it, how would you stop any teeny fry from going over the weir into the tank below? Maybe you should keep the more 'predatory' fish in the upper one, with the breeders down below?
The system you describe would no doubt work better for freshwater fishes anyway as the natural environment for marine inverts rarely consists of a uni-directional flow, what with currents, tides, surges etc.
Looking forward to hearing more about all this!

Emma

[Mark in Vancouver]

And then there's the nice family that lives downstairs from Mr. Thoene... Don't worry, they prefer a bit of damp...

[Martin Thoene]

Simple Emma. A bulkhead with a big window in it covered in door screen. Not something you can buy just anywhere in England, but here it's all over the place. I'm talking about plastic mesh bug-screen. It's designed to give good airflow, but keep mosquitos out, so it's very fine.
Sandwich it between two sheets of Lexan, so it's pulled tight. I can screw the two sheets together with small stainless steel screws from Home Depot. Have a solid weir beyond it set at the predetermined water level. Drilled tank base with two big dumps into the lower tank and another screen at the opposite end of that with the pump(s) behind it. It would isolate all clutter from the actual fish part of the tank. Filter intakes, etc go behind the screens out of site. Probably put a blanking panel over the end chambers front glass so you can concentrate on the actual fish part.

That's only the shared system setup though. I have a River-Tank system worked out that will actually provide the big flow. Sucker -bodied hilly's top tank gets bigger pumps than the bottom one which is more Brook-Tank. Part of that is the "extra" I need him to build in.

Martin.

[AwesomeCoolstein]

Is this an all glass tank, or is it a glass front on some other kind of container?

This is very interesting, I have plans in my head for a 8ft plywood tank, I'd like to see ones that work though

[helen nightingale]

is this one going in your bedroom? if it is youd better get yourself a potty for thoswe cold winter nights

[Martin Thoene]

Nah! There's a 120 at the foot of the bed and a 20 on a chest of drawers.
I have my 65 gallon River-Tank on the wall to the right of where I now sit and type, with a 30 gallon next to it. There's quite a gap between them.

My idea would be to move the 65 to the bedroom (I have a space) and take down the 20 and 30. Then I would have the two 6' x 18" x 18" tanks one above the other along the wall beside me. Probably on a custom-built steel stand.

The sound of water in the bedroom is more of a sleep problem than a urinary system stimulater. On the 120, apart from a Fluval 4+ internal and Fluval 403 cannister, there's an Aquaclear 150 HOB. One night, the water-level was down and the sound of the water coming over the filter weir and dropping into the tank was driving me nuts. Couldn't sleep. So I jumped out of bed and pulled the plug on it!

Martin.

[Graeme Robson]

Indeed interesting!

[Martin Thoene]

I will do a schematic and post it.

For now, I'm going to start building my new Clown Loach tank lighting system, which I will take pictures of because it's completely unorthodox.

Martin.