500G Cylinder

[xroads]

I am looking at a used 500G cylinder. It is roughy 4 ft across & 6 ft tall.

How would you light & aquascape it if it was you?

 

[cj hill]

use one of the lights on the piramid in vegas if you can see it from space it should reach the bottom of a 6 foot tank

 

[ricks]

You will need a snorkel and mask to clean..

It will be a major PITA...

Happy Reefing

 

[JPA]

Wow very positive comments already.

I'm assuming it is a center overflow so I would use no rock in the display and just mount caps directly to the overflow about mid way up and then have a shark and about 6000 chromis.

And for lights I would use a solar revolutions light mover and a couple of Lumenbright reflectors with 400Watt Radiums

 

[sivert55]

that's alot of depth to light for corals. Shouldn't be a problem for fish-only setup though.
And cleaning ANY curved surface is very difficult.
I assume it's acrylic?

 

[jacob30]

Use two 1000 watt halides and plan for low light softies at around 4-5 feet and as you move up you could put some hard corals. Lots of water column fish like chromis or anthias maybe a few tangs. Could be kinda cool. Cleaning would be a pain unless you can get in it or have a really good magnet.

Or go FOWLR with lots of predators.

 

[JRF]

SOunds like a very interesting tank with a ton of possibilties!! See ATM's web site for lots of pictures of similar tanks. Magnet cleaners are now available for curved / cylindrical tanks..If its what you want to do, go for it! Dont let people talk you out of it if its a project you are willing to take on!! It will have its challenges, but usually it ends up being worth any troubles...

 

[xroads]

Yes it is acrylic. It has tons of possibilities.

It is sealed on each end so I would have to cut an access in the top & make it so I could reseal it like a skimmer. The nice thing about that is I could use a pressure pump & pump the water through it & not have to worry about a return pump

 

[PreacherMan607]

WOW! A tank of these dimensions presents allot of problems. Flow, maintenance..lighting...etc. I would try to find someone that already has a tank of similar proportions and get some feed back on what they did. Good luck though!

 

[LOTUS50GOD]

Almost all of the cylinders I have seen have center overflows, with closed loops coming from the bottom and the overflow.

I personally would not do it as algea at the bottom of the tank would bother me. (I have OCD).LOL... 2-3 1000w with lumiarcs shoud allow you to get close to the bottom for mushrooms, and other low light softies.

I agree with the shark comment... Cylinders make awesome shark tanks.

 

[xroads]

Of course I just realized the stairs to my basement are only 43 inches wide.

I am now thinking about cutting it in half & making 2 shallower tanks out of them. Maybe make a bar with a tank on each end of it.

 

[GlassReef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13499989#post13499989 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by xroads
I am now thinking about cutting it in half & making 2 shallower tanks out of them.

That is the best solution. A 48" in diameter X 36" tall tank - you could do some cool stuff with that.

 

[Plato]

The height will kill the project for a reef tank. Too much cleaning and not enough space. I just finished a 473 gallon cylinder. 87" tall, 44" diamiter, by 2" thick. I was a hyperbolic chamber I resurfaced. James at Water Dog inc provided the fiberglass pan for the tube. It has a reef insert from Oceania out of south africa, lookes amazing. The tank is lighted with 4x 96 watt power quad pc. Gerry @ seavisions made me a custom CADS filter and there is a dialyseas to do water changes and do my maintance for me. I use a mighity magnets fh12 to clean the algae and it flotes if it comes off, very nice. My tank is a display for a business park office. But if you took your idea and made two tanks you would have a excelent reef tank. I would recomend not to go over the 36" height so 400 watt MH could be used.http://www.seavisions.com/