Fish Wall Plan Ideas

[darkdep]

As some of you know, I'm building a new fish wall setup.  I'm planning the filtration and was wondering if some of you multi-tank setup folks might have some thoughts.

On paper, the tank config will be 2x75gal, 4x10gal, and 6x40gal breeder, arranged like this (I hope this gets the arrangement across):

Code Select Expand

   10
75  10  40  40
   10  40  40
75  10  40  40


So, the 75's are stacked on the left, 10's stacked 4 high in the middle, and the 40's stacked 3 high on the right.  I have room (with spousal approval of course) to expand the stacks of 40's out later on if desired.  There is a pillar where the 10's are, which is why they are going there.  There is a 4.5' space between the pillar and the wall, which is why I'm using 4ft tanks.  I only have a 6'6" ceiling in this spot.  I will be building racks out of 2x4, with 1/2" plywood and 1/2" styrofoam to deal with any irregularities in the frame.  I've planned for 6" of clearance between tank top and bottom of next 2x4.  Lighting will be bolted to the bottom of the next layer of plywood and should fit nicely in the 3.5" nook created by the 2x4's.  Lighting won't be high; just enough to light the tanks up and maybe keep some low light plants alive to assist in the breeding process.

I'm thinking the lighting will just be controlled by a few remote electronic ballasts and will likely be on one or two timers.

I will likely add a front frame of birch plywood, and may either stain it or paint it black.  I will put little sliding doors in place to access the tanks, so when closed it will appear fairly solid.

All wood will receive a few coats of some sort of water-based waterproofing varnish.

For heat, I will likely just use a heater in each tank.  Heating the room is not feasible.  I figure with the tanks being close together, with the lights, a lot of heat will be held so the electrical cost will be pretty low.  I will probably deploy electronic thermometers just for that high-tech look

Ok, so now we come to filtration.  For the 10's, I'd like to use air-powered box filters with a powerful air pump.  The 10's will be fry birthing/growout tanks, so this is ideal.  I would like to have a single air pump...not sure what's out there that would do this.  Something pretty powerful...I want good waterflow through the boxes.

For the 8 other tanks, I'm unsure.  I'd like to possibly do something centralized, but I don't know that much about central systems.  The biggest drawback as I understand is the potential of spreading disease if you have an outbreak, but with the advantage of much easier maintenance.  I DO know that whether I go with central or distributed, I'd like to run PVC intake and outtake pipes to each tank for a standard look, and pipe them down to a filtration cabinet (which I may have room for under the 75's, otherwise a seperate cabinet will be built beside the 75's).  I was thinking of possibly DIYing the filters...building large DIY Canisters out of PVC sections powered by some good pumps.

Anyway, I've got some of this down, but would love to hear any thoughts or ideas anyone has before I start constructing.  Thanks!

[repeej]

Go see Steve000's setup before you do anything.

[Seanc]

you should also get PVC for water changes, turn a leaver and your water change is done. should make it alot better, and easyer.

[az]

Go see Steve000's setup before you do anything.

what does he have?



did i mention he is a very good pool player!

[zippity]

hey DD, awesome man, cant wait to see the new setup, oh heck i wanted to see the old one too. I read things over again and unless i am having a dumb blonde moment, oh wait u need hair for that so i if i am having a dumb bald moment, what are you plugging everything into, are all the plugs going into one breaker or are you distributing them around to other outlets or surge bars or whatever? Are you being careful to fire?

[repeej]

Go see Steve000's setup before you do anything.

what does he have?

Not much....a few tanks.....don't worry about it.  :wink:

[az]

Go see Steve000's setup before you do anything.

what does he have?

Not much....a few tanks.....don't worry about it.  :wink:

he told me he has over 1000 africans....i need to see his setup!

[repeej]

Go see Steve000's setup before you do anything.

what does he have?

Not much....a few tanks.....don't worry about it.  :wink:

he told me he has over 1000 africans....i need to see his setup!

well go buy a couple fish off him and he'll show you his tanks.

[az]

no more buying till april 30th or i sleep alone!

Go see Steve000's setup before you do anything.

what does he have?

Not much....a few tanks.....don't worry about it.  :wink:

he told me he has over 1000 africans....i need to see his setup!

well go buy a couple fish off him and he'll show you his tanks.

[BigDaddy]

Go see Steve000's setup before you do anything.

Ditto

Definately the nicest "wall o' fish" I've seen.

[darkdep]

I'll drop him a line and see what he's got going...anyone know what he uses for filtration?

[repeej]

I'll drop him a line and see what he's got going...anyone know what he uses for filtration?

Eheim

[darkdep]

Like, a row of Eheims?  That's cool, but not the way I want to go.

How can I keep my rep as a DIY guy if I go buy a filter?  :lol:

[BigDaddy]

Yup.

He's got Ecco's all in a central spot, with the tubing running up through a wall and down into the individual tanks.

If you wanna DIY.. then go see Loyed's central plumbing system he's putting in his tanks.  Plus, he lives close to you so you don't have to whine about how everything is in the East end....     :lol:

[darkdep]

Are you suggesting I've ever whined about such a thing?  

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea (and the look I'm sure) of a stack of identical canisters sitting side by side.  But, before I go down that road I'd like to consider the centralized route.

I'll get in touch with Lloyd

[BigDaddy]

Are you suggesting I've ever whined about such a thing?  

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea (and the look I'm sure) of a stack of identical canisters sitting side by side.  But, before I go down that road I'd like to consider the centralized route.

I'll get in touch with Lloyd

Loyed's central system is just for water changes though.. he's not doing any filtration with it because he is strictly using sponge filters.

Planning on doing one filtration system for every tank are you?

[mseguin]

What about sumps like the ones on the marine tanks at BA. Wouldn't have to be nearly as big.

[darkdep]

I'm open to filtration.  There aren't a lot of resources for this sort of thing I'm finding...possibly a big air pump with sponges, maybe drill all the tanks and use a sump.  Hmm.

[BigDaddy]

I'm a little leary of a central sump system myself.... plus that means all your tanks have to have the same water params.....

[squeeker]

My 2 cents...

If I were to design a fish wall, I would never do a central filtration system UNLESS I was using a UV sterilizer.  

You might want to consider 2 central systems so that you could have 2 different sets of params.