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+--- Thread: What size of the tank do you wish to have? (/Thread-What-size-of-the-tank-do-you-wish-to-have)
What size of the tank do you wish to have? - Thor - 03-09-2012
Many of us have one reason or another for not be able to get the tank of our desired size. Such as not enough room, or not enough budget, or not enough time to take care of a bigger tank, or because of the opposition from the family.
That does not stop us from planning, or sometimes dreaming of having a bigger, better tank.
Myself for example, my current biggest aquarium is only 40 gallon...claimed by the manufacturer Seaclear. It is an acrylic tank of
36" (long) x 15" (wide) x 16" (high).
So it is really just about 37 gallon.
For tank size calculation
http://www.greertank.com/tankcalc.htm
I got this not because of any of the reasons I mentioned above, it is actually because I live in a small town where only Walmart has up to 20 gallon glass tank. Not a single other pet store existed until last year.
I had to order a fish tank online. Shipping a glass tank would be troublesome, even if I could find a place do that. So I had to order the acrylic tank online from PetSmart. They don't ship any of their glass tank, and acrylic can't be broken easily.
It was about $239 not including shipping and tax, if I remember correctly.
The more I look at it, the more I feel my tank is not big enough. Especially the height, since this tank is used as a planted community tank, it is too shallow for many of the taller plants. With the plants need 2~3.5 inch deep substrate, and the water can't be filled to the top edge, the actual water depth is really just about 12" at most. Many background plants can grow way higher than that. I had to keep trim them down quite frequently so they would not hit the surface and start to bent down. The width isn't enough either, because it is said that a planted aquarium needed 3 levels of plants, foreground, middle ground, and background. 15" just doesn't cut it, it is only enough for 2 clear levels.
Not to mention the fish, most of them are middle level fish, but there isn't much room for them to go up before hitting the surface, I'd also like to see the length extended, so my schooling fish would not have to turn around to go back and forth so quickly. I also have Dwarf Gourami and German Blue Ram, they often show aggression. A bigger tank means they run into each other less often, so less trouble between them!
Now, my dream tank.
Bigger is better...or is it?
While of course I've thought of having a big giant tank to have a personal huge aquarium, the thought of the amount of time/work I need to spend on the maintenance keep me having a clear mind.
For example, I normally do 30% partial water change weekly to each of my tanks. 30% of a 10 gallon tank is only 3 gallon, while 30% of a 100 gallon would be 30 gallon, that's well over 100lbs of water need to be removed, and refilled. Not to mention the cleaning, the "gardening", etc. That is quite easy to understand that the extra amount of work increases as the tank size increases. So I am not going to get something like a 180 gallon or 300 gallon.
I concluded that I want a tank of
48" (long) x 18" (wide) x 24" (high) = 90 (U.S.) gallon.
It would be perfect for my need in foreseen future, since I also prefer to keep small school fish of no more than 3.5 inch long. I can keep a lot of them in there.
As a planted community tank, the standard T5HO lights have the exact 48" long models. 24" high would be enough for most plants, as well as a better depth for the fish to go up and down.
30% water of a 90 gallon is less than 30 gallon, sure it will increase the work load by almost 3 times compare to my current 37 gallon, I can manage if I retire my 37 gallon.
So this 90 gallon freshwater planted tropical community tank will be my show tank with the other 3 smaller tanks (2x 10 gallon, 1x 5.5 gallon) as supporting tanks.
What is your dream tank setup?
RE: What size of the tank do you wish to have? - Ram - 01-12-2013
PetSmart got just the thing for your dream plan.
Here is the product link,
90-gallon acrylic tank with dimensions of 48" L x 18" W x 24" H
You can save 15% on it with free shipping if you buy it before 1/19/2013. I just made a thread with the coupon code here.
You know we both have almost identical setups right now, but my future plan is way above yours. The height and the width can stay the same as in your plan, but the length should be doubled to 48" x 2 = 96". It will be exactly 180 US gallon. I will be able to get larger fish like Discus.
It will have two canister filters, one on each side. I have my eyes on EHEIM 2078. Two of them will give me total flow rate of 980 gallons per hour, which will go through all of the water 5~6 times each hour depend on how much water I actually fill the tank up to. You can never have too much filtration.
It will of course be a planted aquarium with about 3" thick of eco-complete as substrate.