Hey everyone,
I'm currently in the process of creating a custom jellyfish aquarium, aesthetically based on the Cubic Pulse 80, as part of my bedroom redecoration. I'm about to strip out my whole room and put down wooden flooring, new furniture and all that good stuff, and the jelly tank is going to be the centrepiece. I'm buying a large corner desk and the tank will sit on the worktop, visible from the front and both sides.
So, why build one from scratch? Well, I've been looking at Cubic's range of jellyfish aquariums and while they look pretty cool, I'm not comfortable paying about £1200 for the whole setup. Plus, I wanted to add an additional viewport on the front panel so you can see in the tank from all around the room (apart form the back, of course). I am going to see if it's possible to build an all-in-one jellyfish aquarium which is just slightly smaller than the Pulse 80 (my design is WDH 250mmx600mmx500mm, compared to the Pulse 80's size of 270mmx600mmx600mm). The good thing is that I'm only planning on keeping 3 or 4 moon jellies at first, so the tank is way bigger than necessary. You can reportedly keep upto 100 moon jellyfish in a Pulse 80, so I'm expecting the capacity of this tank to be (at absolute maximum) around 80 juveniles, given that additional space is used in my design for control surface to help regulate their movement. You also have to bear in mind that 100 jellies would require greater water filtration to remove their waste (and a ton of food), so I can get away with using a very basic internal filter for now. The rear compartment is designed to fit a Fluval U1 internal filter, which will be more than sufficient for even tens of jellies. I will go into more detail on my filter choice further down.
As of writing this (13/6/16), I ordered all of the supplies today, and they are all being delivered tomorrow (with the exception of some additional clear perspex I need to order now, since I changed my lighting design after ordering the acrylic).
Before I go into more detail, here's a basic render to show the overall style of the tank and to list it's features. Note that there are hatches on top to access both the main tank and the filtration compartment, plus a side panel to access the lighting (under the filtration compartment). Please note that the render does not show the lighting change I made. I'll post an updated design later on which better shows the filtration and lighting systems.
I notice that there are maybe 3 or 4 posts related to jellyfish per month on Reefcentral, so it's probably worth me explaining a couple of design constraints in case you're reading this but haven't looked at other jelly tanks before.
The main issue is water flow. The current must be regulated so that the jellyfish stay afloat and can swim around the tank, but do not become trapped anywhere. In the past, many jellyfish aquariums ended up with jellies being shredded in the tank's filters, which isn't what I'm going for. Luckily all of the modern tanks seem to be Kreisel tanks, which are tanks where the water is circulated around the tank in a circular motion. In my tank, this will be achieved with a half-submerged spraybar placed above the filter intake. When the jellyfish get near the filter, the current from the spraybar will push them down to the bottom of the tank. The current from the filter intake will control the horizontal flow, therefore creating a circular current throughout the tank.
Other considerations are salinity, pH and temperature, but this isn't really a part of the build. I will include the salinity of the water in the journal once I get around to actually filling the thing up, but aside from that these are environmental. Some people would recommend a chiller but I live in the UK, so there really isn't much risk of a nice day. My ambient room temperature is typically around 21 or 22 degrees Celsius, which means I can control it either side (depending on the species) with my own heating. It's not the best plan for temperature regulation but nothing extravagant is needed here, given that the ambient temperature will be about right for most species anyway. If it turns out that I need to keep the temperature down a little then it will be easy enough to make a fan-based chiller, some simple radiator fins mixed with a couple of fans to pull heat from the filtration area (I always have plenty of PC stuff lying about the place, especially fans) If you live closer to the equator, I'd imagine a chiller with a temperature you can set would be necessary.
Maintenance and feeding will be optimal with the large ceiling hatch as I'll be able to get my arm in to the tank without any trouble. I plan on feeding the jellies a diet of Cubic Medusa, a balanced food specifically for jellies in home aquariums. On paper, this thing should work out pretty well.
But for now, I'll go over the tank in more detail. The lighting system I mentioned earlier consists of a single LED lamp, approximately 12cmx8cm, which will sit around halfway up the tank behind a perspex sheet. Again, the lighting section is below the filter system, so the bottom half of the back section will be used to house the light and it's wiring. It comes with a remote-controlled remote so I can instantly change the look of the tank. While reading through other forum posts, I came across some concerns that this confuses the jellyfish, and that it can damage them. This, at least as far as moon jellyfish go, is completely false. They lack the organs capable of distinguishing between colours, which some jellies do have. Therefore, the colour has no effect on them but will have a great effect on the surroundings; moon jellyfish reflect colour due to their translucent structure and so they will appear to glow the same colour as the lighting. I am looking forward to seeing how this turns out in the final build.
I'll be posting updates as I go, with images of my progress. I'm hoping to cut the main acrylic shapes tomorrow so I can begin assembling the exterior as soon as possible. The biggest problem I can see is bending the acrylic. I need to create a jig which will allow me to create curves to match the radial curves of the side windows. I also need to bend these curves into additional sheets to cover the filter and to place at the bottom back of the tank. Acrylic heat bending aside, I'm confident that this build will go more or less as planned. I'm looking forward to sharing this with everyone- please leave me your thoughts or let me know if you have any questions
I'm currently in the process of creating a custom jellyfish aquarium, aesthetically based on the Cubic Pulse 80, as part of my bedroom redecoration. I'm about to strip out my whole room and put down wooden flooring, new furniture and all that good stuff, and the jelly tank is going to be the centrepiece. I'm buying a large corner desk and the tank will sit on the worktop, visible from the front and both sides.
So, why build one from scratch? Well, I've been looking at Cubic's range of jellyfish aquariums and while they look pretty cool, I'm not comfortable paying about £1200 for the whole setup. Plus, I wanted to add an additional viewport on the front panel so you can see in the tank from all around the room (apart form the back, of course). I am going to see if it's possible to build an all-in-one jellyfish aquarium which is just slightly smaller than the Pulse 80 (my design is WDH 250mmx600mmx500mm, compared to the Pulse 80's size of 270mmx600mmx600mm). The good thing is that I'm only planning on keeping 3 or 4 moon jellies at first, so the tank is way bigger than necessary. You can reportedly keep upto 100 moon jellyfish in a Pulse 80, so I'm expecting the capacity of this tank to be (at absolute maximum) around 80 juveniles, given that additional space is used in my design for control surface to help regulate their movement. You also have to bear in mind that 100 jellies would require greater water filtration to remove their waste (and a ton of food), so I can get away with using a very basic internal filter for now. The rear compartment is designed to fit a Fluval U1 internal filter, which will be more than sufficient for even tens of jellies. I will go into more detail on my filter choice further down.
As of writing this (13/6/16), I ordered all of the supplies today, and they are all being delivered tomorrow (with the exception of some additional clear perspex I need to order now, since I changed my lighting design after ordering the acrylic).
Before I go into more detail, here's a basic render to show the overall style of the tank and to list it's features. Note that there are hatches on top to access both the main tank and the filtration compartment, plus a side panel to access the lighting (under the filtration compartment). Please note that the render does not show the lighting change I made. I'll post an updated design later on which better shows the filtration and lighting systems.
I notice that there are maybe 3 or 4 posts related to jellyfish per month on Reefcentral, so it's probably worth me explaining a couple of design constraints in case you're reading this but haven't looked at other jelly tanks before.
The main issue is water flow. The current must be regulated so that the jellyfish stay afloat and can swim around the tank, but do not become trapped anywhere. In the past, many jellyfish aquariums ended up with jellies being shredded in the tank's filters, which isn't what I'm going for. Luckily all of the modern tanks seem to be Kreisel tanks, which are tanks where the water is circulated around the tank in a circular motion. In my tank, this will be achieved with a half-submerged spraybar placed above the filter intake. When the jellyfish get near the filter, the current from the spraybar will push them down to the bottom of the tank. The current from the filter intake will control the horizontal flow, therefore creating a circular current throughout the tank.
Other considerations are salinity, pH and temperature, but this isn't really a part of the build. I will include the salinity of the water in the journal once I get around to actually filling the thing up, but aside from that these are environmental. Some people would recommend a chiller but I live in the UK, so there really isn't much risk of a nice day. My ambient room temperature is typically around 21 or 22 degrees Celsius, which means I can control it either side (depending on the species) with my own heating. It's not the best plan for temperature regulation but nothing extravagant is needed here, given that the ambient temperature will be about right for most species anyway. If it turns out that I need to keep the temperature down a little then it will be easy enough to make a fan-based chiller, some simple radiator fins mixed with a couple of fans to pull heat from the filtration area (I always have plenty of PC stuff lying about the place, especially fans) If you live closer to the equator, I'd imagine a chiller with a temperature you can set would be necessary.
Maintenance and feeding will be optimal with the large ceiling hatch as I'll be able to get my arm in to the tank without any trouble. I plan on feeding the jellies a diet of Cubic Medusa, a balanced food specifically for jellies in home aquariums. On paper, this thing should work out pretty well.
But for now, I'll go over the tank in more detail. The lighting system I mentioned earlier consists of a single LED lamp, approximately 12cmx8cm, which will sit around halfway up the tank behind a perspex sheet. Again, the lighting section is below the filter system, so the bottom half of the back section will be used to house the light and it's wiring. It comes with a remote-controlled remote so I can instantly change the look of the tank. While reading through other forum posts, I came across some concerns that this confuses the jellyfish, and that it can damage them. This, at least as far as moon jellyfish go, is completely false. They lack the organs capable of distinguishing between colours, which some jellies do have. Therefore, the colour has no effect on them but will have a great effect on the surroundings; moon jellyfish reflect colour due to their translucent structure and so they will appear to glow the same colour as the lighting. I am looking forward to seeing how this turns out in the final build.
I'll be posting updates as I go, with images of my progress. I'm hoping to cut the main acrylic shapes tomorrow so I can begin assembling the exterior as soon as possible. The biggest problem I can see is bending the acrylic. I need to create a jig which will allow me to create curves to match the radial curves of the side windows. I also need to bend these curves into additional sheets to cover the filter and to place at the bottom back of the tank. Acrylic heat bending aside, I'm confident that this build will go more or less as planned. I'm looking forward to sharing this with everyone- please leave me your thoughts or let me know if you have any questions
