Buliding a 500G Tank for Marine Research Project

[eternal880]

Hi mega reef lovers,

I am a scientific researcher would like to build a 500 gallons of marine tank in my new lab. I doing research on feedings for baby seahorse. As I am collabrating with a fish industry, I cant reveal much of my content of the project.

But will promise to post pics of my process of building up this mega tank in my lab.

Planning Details:

12 feet by 2.5 feet
Depth is 2 feet
With 3 compartment of 4 feet each with individual sump tank of 50G

I need your expertise on the following in terms of the design and layout:

- Sump Tank
- RO Reservoir
- Salt Water Reservoir
- Furniture to hold the tank
- Water flow circulation
- Any other accessories that maybe helpful for the tank
- Metal Halide Lamps

Thanks and Regards

 

[NickP123]

if you can tell us what you're putting in there aside from seahorses we might be able to help a lil more. for example if you are just going to have seahorses the MH lighting is totally unneeded and can be spent elsewhere

 

[eternal880]

Thanks for the reminder.

Beside seahorses, we are doing on soft corals and anemones for the first phase of the feedings. We are testing the feeds on them first.

As well as some fishes like angelfishes and tangs

Regards

 

[nickb]

Seahorses and anemones (or tangs/angelfish) aren't compatible in the same tank. The anemone will likely kill the seahorses while the fish would out compete them for food and the seahorses will starve (or die from being harrased). Flow requirements are also quite different, especially fo rthe anemone. Anyway, if the goal is to study seahorse feeding options, why wouldn't you just restrict the tank to seahorses (to remove extraneous variation in the exprimental conditions)?

Why only 3 sections? that leaves each section at about 170G which is very large for seahorses, leading to low food density. You could easily divide this tank into 12 sections (about 40G each) to produce many more compartments to contrast conditions, etc. If you really are only looking at baby seahorse, even 40G tank sections would be too large. For new fry, most people got with 5G tanks. The large tank is impossible to keep the food density at a level needed for the fry who have very limited mobility. You might better to get a set-up with 20-30 5G tanks rather than one large 500G tank.

If this tank is for experimentation, not display,. I'd aim for functionality, not esthetics. Get a simple metal stand with no wood-work surround (or make a simple wood frame stand). You could also buy some metal racks so that you could stack smaller tanks.

Seahorses like a low flow environment (e.g 4-5X volume/hour). They need holdfests to attach to. For an experimental set-up, artificial corals would be best (again, removing uneeded variation).

Have you posted this question in the seahorse forum? There are many people there with lots of experience which would be very relevent to your project.

 

[eternal880]

Hi,

Pls dont get me wrong, the anemones and fishes are not togther.

Because our focus is on the feedings, we will try them out for anemones and fishes in seperate tanks. And this tanks are joined together in 3 sections which is 12 feet long.

The main problem I have is not about the rearing and biological issues of seahorses or any living stocks. My concern is on the technnical adivces on the setting up of this mega 500G tank.

I need advice on flow setup between the tank and sump.

Thanks

 

[nickb]

Glad to hear they won't be together (that wasn't clear).

It's hard to give technical adivce if the set-up doesn't seem right for the goal. Raising seahorse fry in a 170G tank section won't work. Having well designed and functional stands, water reservoirs. etc aren't going to change that. So, the best advice to provide is to make sure that the basic organization is suitable for your goal. You will face a different technical set-up trying to provide flow, etc. to a tank divided into 20 sections (to get the section size down to a somewhat reasonable one for fry) than a tank with 3 X 170G sections. If you are firmly set on the 3 X 170G section approach, that's your call of course. But, you likely will spend a lot of money on a set-up which won't be able to achieve your goals.

Now, if all you are doing is testing methods of rasing food stocks without any fry in the tank, that is a different situation. Depending on what the tank are used for, you will need diffeerent flow rate, patterns, etc. This would impact on any technical advice. Without more details on what you will be doing, it's hard to be able to respond in an informed way.