Tanking It Up Diy Style!

[§tudz]

hey,

I've been thinking this over for a few months, and it'll be a few years till I make it, but anyway here goes.

I want to build a tank, but not a normal tank, I'm looking at tank maybe over 6'x5'x5' maybe larger.
I know that glass wouldn't be a good idea for this tank, so I was thinking plastic, but what type, perspecs or acrlyic? and how thick?

Then as for connecting peices together, I'd use silicon, but would I have to use special sealent or just normal bathroom sealent. I read some time back that you shouldn't use any sealents with fungiside in.

seeing the hight of the tank, it will be floor based, and as for decoration, I would be able to use concrete as long at it sealed with epoxy?

what sort of filtration would be the best idea?

This could be a load of rubbish, and I'm barking up a tree which is so wrong it might even not be a tree... lol...

so any feed back, anyone made anything like this before?

 

[andywg]

Perspex is a brand name for Acrylic, so there isn't really a choice there.

If you make the tank from acrylic you need special bonding agents that are nasty and need to be used outside, or with extremely heavy ventilation.

Epoxy sealed concrete should be fine in there.

Best filtration would be either sump based, a bubblebead, a Fluidised sand bed or some form of macro algae.

You will probably need a bed of about 5-6" of concrete underneath the tank to take the weight as well.

 

[§tudz]

Perspex is a brand name for Acrylic, so there isn't really a choice there.

If you make the tank from acrylic you need special bonding agents that are nasty and need to be used outside, or with extremely heavy ventilation.

Epoxy sealed concrete should be fine in there.

Best filtration would be either sump based, a bubblebead, a Fluidised sand bed or some form of macro algae.

You will probably need a bed of about 5-6" of concrete underneath the tank to take the weight as well.

lol I thought perspex was acrylic, but wasn't sure

any other materials I could use?

I've seen a few tanks like this in a local aquarium, they have the acrylic front glass, but concrete sides and back. with an open top, but I don't want an open top for obvious reasons. would it be possible to place a tank like this outside? as on a patio.

The only problem I can see is the freezing of the water in the winter near the window.

As you know this is all just thoughts flying around at the moment.

 

[windsor-aquatic]

Conventional silicone won't seal a tank this high; apart from the fact that it can only be used on glass and not acrylic, it is not suitable for glass tanks over 42in. high unless the tank is supported with a steel frame. The water pressure at that sort of depth can cause the silicon to "unzip", much like you would peel a banana.

 

[dylema]

I have seen similar sized tanks in large aquarium shops and a couple of public aquariums. I have seen them made with acrilic that has been bent on the corners (not two pieces together) and then where the two ends meet I think they had screwed it together as well as slealed (I think they are about an inch thick). I recall seing a tube as well ('Aquaria', K.L. Malaysia I think) that was about 2 stories high and about 6' in diameter but that had no joins to be seen. Very cool though.

I think one had an overflow pipe in the center with all the rockwork stacked against it to hide it. I guess you could do something similar and lay pipes into your concrete base and piped into a sump etc in another room. I would hate to get a blockage though.

 

[Fish'InMN]

A 6'x5'x5' tank is approximately 1100 gallons, grossing in at just over 9000 pounds. With just the water. You'd need about 450 pounds of sand for a 2 INCH substrate. So, using 10000 pounds total, with a base of 72"x60" or 4320 sq in, that's about 2.3 pounds per square inch. "Most paving-grade concrete has a compressive strength between 3000 psi and 5000 psi. High-strength concrete has a compressive strength of at least 6000 psi and compressive strengths of 20,000 psi have been used in building applications" Linky

Besides the engineering, that tank would be incredible! Ideally, the top of the tank would be exposed to sunlight so you wouldn't have to worry about lighting, however a few metal halides could probably be supplemented. A big ol' fluidized bed filter would be my weapon of choice for filtration. Get a nice piece of driftwood, perhaps a sunken tree stump, so you don't have to worry about it floating!

But, like I said, I'm an engineer.