Long term LARGE reef tank planning questions

[venlaren]

Your biggest pain will be keeping algae off the glass of a 6' tall reef. FORTUNATELY the hobby has been devising some cures for that, including a magnet cleaner that looks like an old-style razor, (Tunze makes it). I have a tank deeper than my arm is long and would be lost without it.

The magnet cleaners are wonderful. I use the MagFloat ones on both of my freshwater tanks.

OTOH, with that weight of water comes a diminishing return on glass thickness. Glass thickness on a 100 g tank is about 5/8ths inch. I don't know how much water 5/8ths can hold back safely, but a 12' run may need some bracing. And you may need to go to acrylic. Seattle Aquarium's big display dome is likely that. And it has good visibility.

Doesn't the acrylic tend to scratch really easily?

Here's one other thing to think of: an infinite tank, ie, a cylinder. They require special mounting, because the 'works' have to be in the center, and you have to get access somehow. But it would take up less area, while the fish would never have a turnaround, and the rockwork would conceal the water intakes, etc. There are companies that do that. I got my tank from one such, and it is real, real solid. Heavy. We're going to redo the living room floor soon, and it's going to be interesting. But it can be done. And such future things should be on the planning list. Access. And refurbing.

I have seen tanks like this, but had not considered one. I may look into that a bit more.

 

[Sk8r]

Acrylic can scratch easily, and I have known it to bow alarmingly if not thick enough.

The company I bought from does only glass, and they have some way of bending it. Mine is a quarter cylinder bow (aka corner wedge) and it's all glass. 105 gallons, 36x36x36 or something like that, and it took two strong men and a woman to get it onto its stand. Whole pallet (shipped) weight 800 lbs, counting the standard shipping pallet and plyboard protective sheet. I set this one on multiple large Teflon furniture glides, so it would move, and thank goodness I did. Now if I empty the water way down temporarily I stand a chance of sliding it.

 

[ThRoewer]

Your biggest pain will be keeping algae off the glass of a 6' tall reef. FORTUNATELY the hobby has been devising some cures for that, including a magnet cleaner that looks like an old-style razor, (Tunze makes it). I have a tank deeper than my arm is long and would be lost without it.

OTOH, with that weight of water comes a diminishing return on glass thickness. Glass thickness on a 100 g tank is about 5/8ths inch. I don't know how much water 5/8ths can hold back safely, but a 12' run may need some bracing. And you may need to go to acrylic. Seattle Aquarium's big display dome is likely that. And it has good visibility.

Here's one other thing to think of: an infinite tank, ie, a cylinder. They require special mounting, because the 'works' have to be in the center, and you have to get access somehow. But it would take up less area, while the fish would never have a turnaround, and the rockwork would conceal the water intakes, etc. There are companies that do that. I got my tank from one such, and it is real, real solid. Heavy. We're going to redo the living room floor soon, and it's going to be interesting. But it can be done. And such future things should be on the planning list. Access. And refurbing.

Glass Cleaning
For a tank of that size I would go with a robotic glass cleaner like this
http://www.oceanswipe360.com/
or this
http://www.robosnail.com/index.html

Glass Panels
For a tank of this size I would go with laminated security glass like this: https://www.guardian.com/guardianglass/GlassSolutions/LaminatedSafetyandSecurityGlass/index.htm
Plexiglas would be the other alternative, though it would need to be quite thick and therefore expensive.

Large Round Tank
Here is a 32.000 liter (8453 US gallon) round 2 story reef tank in a German bank: http://www.meeresaquaristik.de/html/hauptteil_32000.html
(that site also gives you a bit of an idea what scale of equipment you will have to consider for a tank that size)