8' or 7'

n8rad

n8rad

New member
Hey Guys,

I am looking for some input from some long tank owners.

I am about ready to pull the trigger on an envision 3/4" tank. The two nailed down dimensions are 34" wide and 25" tall.

The only hard decision I am having is the length whether to go 7' or 8'. I have room for either but for some reason and I dont know why I cant nail the length down.

Maybe its my desire to not upgrade any of my current flow pumps and. I currently have 4 tunze 6105's and a gyre 150 and personally have never seen 6105's in a tank longer than 6' but i havent really searched that out.

So what do all you long tank people think? Your input is greatly appreciated. I would really like to hear from 8' people who wish they went smaller and why...... also 7' people who wish they would of went longer and why.

Hope this makes sense :)

Thanks!
 
I currently have 7' long tank. 8' is better, IMO. More length for the fish to swim and more real estate for more corals. However, 1 extra foot means more $$$ on lighting and possibly additional powerheads might need to get more flow, extra foot of tank to clean. If $$ is not an issue, I'd go with 8'.
 
Excellent decision to go with Envision...james is an artist and he built my 8' display and my frag tank. I love my 8' tank but I also run two closed loop systems powered by Vectra L1's. I also run mp40qd's and could see flow being an issue if I did not have the closed loop system. I have no access to my back panel to place powerheads on the back. I was without the closed loop pumps for a few days and I really had to crank the mp40's to get decent flow across the entire tank. Problem was everything on the ends was getting blasted with heavy flow. If you have access to the back of the tank and can place powerheads on the rear panel go 8ft!
 
This will be a peninsula build with all flow coming from the end next to the wall. I am not interested in a closed loop design and plan on the flow coming from 2 6105's for a few hours creating a gyre movement in the tank and then will switch to the other 6105's to create a gyre the other direction.

I also plan on only putting rock and coral in the center 4' of the tank. This leaves 2' on each side of open space and tons of room for large fish which i like. I am also doing this so i dont have to buy anymore lights and equipment.
 
I honestly think the best person to ask would be roger from tunze. You might want to post this question in the tunze forum
 
Yeah i talked to Roger after ordering my last 6105. In his opinion he thinks its enough flow, but was just hoping to find more input from 6105 owners. It is more than enough currently in my 5' tank but to add another 3' im not sure. Plus ill be going barebottom again so i definitely want enough flow
Also if they ever release the bigger gyre pump perhaps two of those mounted vertically to create the desired gyre along with my tunze's as well.
 
A peninsula tank is going to be the hard part, but if you place your pumps correctly then you should have no problem with 6105s, water is incompressible so the water near the pumps is going to push the water next to that, and that water pushes... well we all know Fluid Dynamics 101 right? :) So the "if you have you place your pumps correctly" part is making sure there's an area (often the bottom) that doesn't have pumps, this is going to be your path of least resistance for water that's pushed higher in the tank to come right back along the bottom (basically how the Gyre pump works). However even if you place 2 Tunzes low and 2 high you'll still get water movement, it probably won't be strong though because the low pumps will fight against the high for pressure.

That said I don't think it will make much of a difference whether it's 7 or 8 feet, as far as whether or not your pumps need to be upgraded... and lastly, in the grand scheme of things upgrading a couple pumps won't absolutely kill the budget (unless your entire budget is going into the tank itself).

Plan B, if you have a LFS with an 8 foot tank, or know anyone see if they'd be willing to let you use your pumps on the tank for 30 minutes just to see if if water can move like you want.
 
Good points..thank you....
Yes an upgrade of a couple pumps is not a big deal if it comes to that. It does make sense the pumps fighting with eachother. I wonder if just a straight line of tunzes with nothing underneath would be better. Would almost act like a surge/wave coming in all the time. Downside to that is its never random flow and my corals would probably grow not ideal?
 
Well I don't have any experience with the Gyre pump so I'll defer that to others, I do have some Tunze experience (6100s unfortunately not 6105s) (as well as Vortech, and "those other guys with the similar knock offs"), IME having a line of pumps that has ramp up/down patterns still works fine, they key is open space. If you get corals that grow like gangbusters (which I had) then they really restrict all that open flow, and bring everything to a halt.

So really it depends upon how your rock design is & coral growth as well. And nothing says you can't angle a pump towards some rock structures with some oscillation while other pumps (or the Gyre) does most of the heavy lifting of the the major water flow through the whole tank.
 
I have a 7 foot tank. Wish it was 8 foot. That being said I know what you're going through trying to figure out flow on a peninsula. I ran a gyre and 2 6105s on one end of my tank and it worked OK. Not outstanding flow but enough to get by. Now I also run another gyre suspended from the top brace about 2/3rds towards the other end on gyre mode. Definitely helps the flow. You could always try that, assuming you'll be eurobraced.

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk
 
are you open to trying closed loop??? I have no experience with it but being a 7 or 8 foot tank and only wanting the powerheads on one side it seems like that might be the best way to go.
I have a 5ft tank and run 2 gyre 150s (one on each side). If you did stick with the idea of powerheads on one side I would think 2 gyre 150s along the top would provide best flow. As you should know since you have one there flow is legit. mine push water 5 ft no problem on 40%... im sure 7 or 8 ft would be no problem.
 
I want to avoid closed loops. It will just be more noise, power, and plumbing when i know tunzes can do exactly what i want.
I think my (4) 6105's and 2 gyres mounted vertically on each corner will do perfectly.
 
Have you thought of just using 2 gyre 150's on either end. Maybe even their 180 that is due out soon.

Personally i tried tunze 6000,6100,6095's and it seems that your eyes are drawn to it and were much noisier. I replaced a pair of each pump to a gyre xf150 controlled by apex and never looked back.

There is a youtube video for xf180 on a 10ft tank.

Good luck.
 
I do not want anything on the side that is not against the wall. All flow will be coming from the wall side. So far i have (4) 6105's and one gyre 150 which will be in the center with (2) 6105's on each side of it.
Like the attached picture
If i need more flow i will be getting the cheap jabao 60's ;-)

This thread was really just to reach out to folks with 7' and 8' tanks and getting some ideas what they hate or love about those lengths.

 
I wish my 8' was an extra 2'. I love the 8' length. It's a sweet spot for me, 6' is nice but a tad short. If I could, with an 8' length I would want at least 30" deep but 24" is ok. 10'x30" deep X 24" high is my dream dimension


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I have a 10' peninsula tank that I am in the process of setting up. 120 " x 34.5 " x 30 "

I do not have access on the back to place power heads. I can't imagine setting a tank up this size w/o a closed loop.

On my system I will be running two sea swirls from my return, and 2 OM 4 ways with a RD3 230w for each one. This will be plenty of flow.

Since you do not want a closed loop, you should look at the Panta Rhei Pumps. The ECM 63 Hydrowizard would be enough flow your tank alone and could be mounted on one end like you want. That said, they are not cheap!
 
Plan out what you're going to do for lighting. If you're using T-5's it might look off balance using 2 different fixture sizes to give the tank good coverage.
8 foot might be better in that case.
For circulation on my 8' I had tunze 6255's but took them out because they can't be angled without dislodging from their brackets. I replaced them with WP60's.
8 feet is a long way to push water from one end of the tank only, imo.
Your coral placement will have to take that into account. Watch out for areas of detritus accumulation as well especially if you're putting in any sand.

I really like having the 8' length. 7' no thanks.;)
 
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