Display tank with multiple dividers

[Mikey Donuts]

Has anyone ever thought about setting up a small system consisting of a display tank divided into multiple compartments similar to what the LFS's use for showcasing small specimens or organisms that aren't suitable for a community tank? Man that was a long sentence. Bobby's pom pom crab got me thinking of something like a 48" x 12" x 12" divided into five or six compartments. Pom pom or decorator crab, dwarf horses, tube anemone, Mantis, goby & pistol shrimp, frogfish. This sort of setup could be done pretty cheaply and would be a really interesting display.
What do you guys think? What sort of livestock would you include?
Just a thought.
Mike

 

[MrMikeB]

Well I do not call it a 'display' tank, but my quarantine systems are 9 compartments each on 3 shelves (I have two). I keep it pretty barren given I run medication and what not for my new saltwater friends. In those systems it is common to take advantage of the separators to house tank-mates that would otherwise not be so friendly to each other. They have hopped the dividers though, typically resulting in a very bad experience.

 

[Mikey Donuts]

Anyone else thought of doing something like this? I kind of like the idea of having six nano type displays in one tank.

 

[P.Kelly]

I have a seperator tank, but it is not display worthy. Acrylic and about 12-15 areas for fish and whatnot. Picked it up in trade.

 

[Mikey Donuts]

Cool, how many gallons? I'll draw something up quick in sketchup......

 

[Mikey Donuts]

Here's a quick sketchup...dimensions 48"x 16" x 16". Each display area is 8" x 10" x 16". Water flows from the main display to the skimmer chamber at the back left via an overflow, then to a fuge area, and then to the sump area. Water is pumped into the far right display and then flows to the left display via overflows. The main display is lit by some sort of fixture as is the fuge area. The total volume is about 53 gallons. This should be do-able for under a grand. I've already got a Tunze DOC skimmer. Any thoughts?

What would you guys stock in the individual sections?

 

[philter4]

I had a 40g that was divided into 3rd's. It was glass and I used pond ready create (very similar to the material used to make "live rock" at the nov meeting). I had the back wall and most of the sides done, when finished you could look through the sides like looking through a cave. The back wall had tubes left in so my canister filter hoses were completely hidden. There were 2 big problems that I had, the first was algae buildup on the dividers, even though they were covered with "windows" so it looked like the fish could swim through when algae covered it it was hard to keep both sides clean enough to look really good. the second was weight, when finished I think it weighed 200 pounds without water. It was a very cool tank, I had cave and nocternal fish and inverts in it and lit it with red and blue moonlight led's. It broke when I moved from San Diego to FL.

 

[JJ4417]

I was thinking to do a separated display representing the different areas of the world. For instance, coral and fish from the Pacific, Carribean, etc. I figured that having animals from the same environment would reduce stress and make a better display overall. I scrapped the idea due to the same water flowing through each of the tanks would defeat the purpose.

Your seems like it would work well as long as you didn't have anything that need a lot of room to swim.

 

[Mikey Donuts]

Both of your ideas sound really cool. I hadn't considered algae growth on the dividers, but I don't plan to keep anything that will need huge amounts of food relative to the overall size of the tank. I should be able to keep nitrates and phosphates in check. I may actually downsize the sketchup drawing and just make the tank 34" x 15" x 12" (about 25 gallons). It would sit on the current stand I've got to save more money. With five compartments, each compartment would be almost 7" x 7.5" x 12" or about 2.5 gallons. The fuge area would be about 4.5 gallons.

The plan will be to keep small fish/inverts that would be lost or impossible to keep in a large system. I'm thinking about 6 dwarf seahorses, a tube anemone (need to do more research on these however), a peacock mantis, Harlequin shrimp (rotate choco chip stars out of the fuge) and pom pom crab, flaming prawn goby/randall's pistol shrimp. I think it would make for a pretty cool little display (like five nanos in one). I was thinking a small cuttlefish, but from what I've read they get too large.

All I would need are the tank, lights, and return pump so it could be done relatively cheaply. I'm still working on the 150 reef and the planning the big seahorse tank so this is tank would have to wait a few months.

What do you all think of the livestock selection?

 

[Hooci]

We have thought of that since we now have ten frogfish. If you are able to come up with a solution please keep us posted.

 

[Mikey Donuts]

Hooci, I think the plan above would work well. It's basically the same layout as my cadlights 34 gallon. This sort of layout has the benefits of small nano sized display areas coupled with a relatively large water volume and efficient protein skimming ( I use a Tunze). You can re-size the compartments to whatever you would like for the frogfish. You can even use multiple skimmers because of the large amount of waste. I'm pretty sure I would like to try and put together a system like this next year. Let me know how yours turns out if you decide to build it.