Pro's and Con's to a Large Tank

[cr reef]

You can see my current tank in my signature.

Now for the reason I'm asking;

I'm buying a new house in 6 months to a year, I have informed my wife I will be buying the house 3-6 months before we move so I have time to get my tank set up properly.

My plan was 200-300g but the more I read the more it sounds like I'll need reactors and many other complicated equipment for a large tank that I don't need for my current set up. Money is not a concern, just the what if's on something going wrong with the equipment.

So I would like to know your all your thought on the pro's and con's to going bigger.

 

[808lazyd]

pros: easier to manage water quality. more room for corals and other livestock

cons: equipment is much more expensive but if you get good equipment you dont really have to worry about the quality or what not

 

[elFloyd]

Double post

 

[elFloyd]

I am upgrading from a 90 to a 200. I have all the equipment upgrades I need:
Bigger sump, bigger skimmer, bigger GFO and carbon reactor (the least of my expense), more lights, bigger UV, bigger return pump, bigger stand, bigger tank, and bigger canopy.

In return I get a bigger piece of the reef... More varieties of coral... And am able to keep fully grown fish.

 

[jk1138]

Con: The running cost is greater. Lights, water changes, salt, etc

Pro: A large aquarium

 

[Hagisan]

Money is not a concern

First off, one big pro you have on your side...

pros: easier to manage water quality. more room for corals and other livestock

cons: equipment is much more expensive but if you get good equipment you dont really have to worry about the quality or what not

I concur.

Con: The running cost is greater. Lights, water changes, salt, etc

Pro: A large aquarium

Again, I concur.

I'm ditching all the tanks to have just one big one.

Good luck with your move and the new tank project.

 

[hpfunk]

Just because you go big doesn't mean go complicated. Scale up what you are familiar with. Read all the large tank builds on this forum and steel ideas you like, ask or avoid stuff that you don't understand. I like the idea of keeping it as simple as possible while still including everything I believe to be an asset to my setup.

If money is no concern I only see positives!!! happy reef building

 

[dahenley]

im a college student, and i picked up a 240 reef, and have been going strong ever since.

My tank ran for over a year before i ever had to deal with dosing or reactors.
after that part, water changes would keep up, but i suck at the water changes so thats when reactors have come in handy. (i do water changes every 3-4 months because they suck, and my calcium reactor takes care of cal and alk. i run dolomite in it so it keeps up with my magnesium.)
my tank rock and inverts take care of everything else....

i went without any controllers for 2 years before getting the reactor.
(i was still manually topping off till about 3 months ago.... (over 5 gal a day))

so its easy, but great equipment and controllers make things easier....
hope that helps.
(and like mentioned above, read all the good and bad builds because you will learn a lot from them)

 

[elijaher]

Since money is no problem it won't be much of a con's. Keep os posted on your built.

 

[sfsuphysics]

water quality
Could be pro or con... while I'll agree more water volume equals more "stability", it also takes a lot effort to correct any issues. Temperature, sure you can more easily handle spikes in the ambient air temp, but if it doesn't spike and stays constant it would take significantly effort to cool it down (dumping a frozen 2-liter bottle of ice in the sump won't work ). You'll also need to keep on top of your parameters as a result, I've been lazy with magnesium, noticed one day some coral issues, no idea why.. found out my magnesium was quite a bit low... took on the order of a kilogram of Mag-Chloride to fix the problem. Basically big tank = big ship.. little things aren't a problem, but you were lazy, don't see that iceberg, ... well we see the Titanic couldn't correct it's course very fast either

Cons:
Water changes are larger (not too bad if you can streamline a method though, i.e. if you've been using empty salt buckets to do water changes you'll need to think larger)

equipment tends to need to be larger (skimmers, number of pumps you need for flow, lighting requirements, etc).

you really need some connected "fish room" with larger tanks as wheeling out a 30+g drum of freshly mixed saltwater over the wood floor tends to get angry looks from the wife

evaporation will be larger maybe to the point where you need to actively remove air due to humidity issues (I believe that was one major issue not seen by Mr.4000 with the original 4k tank)

electrical requirements will be larger, where a smaller tank you can very easily share a single circuit with other "non-heavy" appliances in a living room, the larger you go you'll end up needing dedicated circuits, and very often multiple circuits just for the tank. Larger volumes of water require a bit more energy to heat up, 1000+ watts for heaters can eat up a lot of circuit capacity. Of course the cost of electricity will increase as well, and depending upon your power company rates that could be a very shocking increase, i.e. mine doesn't scale up with usage, so if I use 4x as much as I used to it costs me more than 4x, in fact I have a tiered system such that the highest tier (which is really easy to achieve if you have a reef tank or an A/C system) is almost 4x the cost per unit of electricity as the lowest tier.

Mindset needs to change (this could be a Pro though), how everything is arranged in a large tank won't mimic that as a smaller tank, much more open space, width, etc, allows for creative looks that you couldn't get.

Sound, more equipment = more sound... if that's an issue.

More rock/sand (if you go that route), corals, etc... but money isn't an object so you're good to go


Pros:
You have a large tank, you'll be able to further immerse yourself in your little slice of the ocean.

Livestock, you can have many different types of fish that you ordinarily couldn't with a smaller tank. I cringe if I see a tang in a 90g tank, however go to 300g then put a couple wouldn't be horrible (I'm quite conservative as far as fish stocking levels mind you). Why have 1 pair of clownfish, if you can have 4? Multiple anemone! (If that's your thing). Choices become much more easy to make

 

[Mouse]

Pro : BIG tank
Con: Tough to come up with a reason to start another one anytime soon

 

[SaltwaterAdict]

You can see my current tank in my signature.

Now for the reason I'm asking;

I'm buying a new house in 6 months to a year, I have informed my wife I will be buying the house 3-6 months before we move so I have time to get my tank set up properly.

My plan was 200-300g but the more I read the more it sounds like I'll need reactors and many other complicated equipment for a large tank that I don't need for my current set up. Money is not a concern, just the what if's on something going wrong with the equipment.

So I would like to know your all your thought on the pro's and con's to going bigger.

Yes, there are cons, but not many. First off, you obviously got the tank to enjoy and not make it a lot of work. Given that it would be best to go with a tank which is realistically easy to service. For instance, if you go with a very tall tank it's going to be near impossible to get to the bottom to retrieve something that fell or to glue down a coral, etc. If you're not big into tough maintenance then going with a shallower tank will make this job "way" easier which is always a plus on ur part! Recommended height would be 25"-28" depending on how long your arms are. A 29" and up tank can be quite hard to maintain unless you like to bring out the towel and take a dip. lol

Simplifying the water changes with tubs for water storage and valves helps out.

Besides that there really isn't much else to be too concerned of.

Enjoy your new "big" tank!! :fish1:

 

[KEITHHAYS_2000]

Once you realize how much weight and water you're dealing with three things become important before you ever setup the tank.

First, almost no one's house is built to hold up a 300 gallon reef tank, Sump, QT, etc., so structural support is a big issue unless it's in the basement. Think engineer and contractor, not running to home depot.

Second, plumbing becomes more important: what do you do with a 50-100 gallons worth of water during a water change and suddenly you are adding a vented, trapped tap to the sewer line (just an example), mixing station, etc.

Third, is the electrical; GFCI circuit breakers instead of just a plug; you will want dedicated electrical lines. You will easily double the number of electrical connections just from power heads, etc. Most likely you will need to have a generator in the plan. "¦.and oh yes, you need two of just about everything because; you won't likely be running to LFS for most of the equipment.

The complicated equipment is purely personal taste, but the basic setup can get complicated and expensive. ...it all just adds to the fun! <O</O

 

[cr reef]

Thanks All for the Pro's and Con's

Yes, I'm planning a fish room, wife wants a exercise room so, we both win oh and the 4 kids will be in college so someone can lose a room

As to the structure; that is why I need to find the house first, so I know what design I want the tank and how big/where it can actually go. My wife's only rule is the tank can't degrade the look of the house. No worries there, tanks always make the house nicer

So far I'm not hearing much in the way of con's that I haven't thought of, first two things going into the new house will be A/C and an automated generator.

My two concerns;

Presently, I'm able to maintain my parameters with KALK, and mag occasionally, from what I've read this won't be enough on a larger tank?

Now it's possible that it wont be enough on mine by the time I move, not sure as I've only been doing SPS for around 8 months, wife likes softies and LPS and I always worried about SPS, thankfully not anymore as mine are growing and doing well.

The other question is on overflows or drilling the tank, my layout will be a 90 gal sump,50-100g resevior for automating the W/C (at least be turning valves) and ditto for the top off water. The waste will either go straight to the sewer or through an outside wall, again depending on house layout.

Hadn't thought of two of everything, that just ticks me off

I've seen where people wish they hadn't gone large but they never explained the reasonings.

Anything I might be missing, Thanks ALL

 

[slief]

Having run a large tank for more than 20 years, I would have to say the only cons I can think of are setup costs, maintenance costs and electricity costs. My maintenance costs are minimal though.

Labor wise, I change 25G of water a week but that is done using a litermeter III which completely automates that process. My top off is also automated. I have an RODI with 100G of fresh and 100G of salt water on hand and the only real maintenance I have to do is clean the algea off the glass twice a month, drain the skimmer cup once a week or as needed, swap socks 2-4 times a month, replace carbon and GFO every few montsh and mix salt water. Every 6 months to a year, I clean my skimmer pumps. The skimmer cleans its neck daily with an SCH. All and all, my maintenance is pretty minimal time wise.

The pros are a more stable enviornment if you do it right. More room for fish and corals etc.

I have 2 smaller tanks at my office and they require more frequent large water changes and are more sensitive to ambient temp changes and over feeding.

For me, I prefer the larger tanks.

 

[KEITHHAYS_2000]

Thanks All for the Pro's and Con's

Yes, I'm planning a fish room, wife wants a exercise room so, we both win oh and the 4 kids will be in college so someone can lose a room

As to the structure; that is why I need to find the house first, so I know what design I want the tank and how big/where it can actually go. My wife's only rule is the tank can't degrade the look of the house. No worries there, tanks always make the house nicer

So far I'm not hearing much in the way of con's that I haven't thought of, first two things going into the new house will be A/C and an automated generator.

My two concerns;

Presently, I'm able to maintain my parameters with KALK, and mag occasionally, from what I've read this won't be enough on a larger tank?

Now it's possible that it wont be enough on mine by the time I move, not sure as I've only been doing SPS for around 8 months, wife likes softies and LPS and I always worried about SPS, thankfully not anymore as mine are growing and doing well.

The other question is on overflows or drilling the tank, my layout will be a 90 gal sump,50-100g resevior for automating the W/C (at least be turning valves) and ditto for the top off water. The waste will either go straight to the sewer or through an outside wall, again depending on house layout.

Hadn't thought of two of everything, that just ticks me off

I've seen where people wish they hadn't gone large but they never explained the reasonings.

Anything I might be missing, Thanks ALL

The Kalk may or may not work, I used to add it as a part of the top off, but because I have now two 6ftx2ft tanks plumbed together and alot of flow, I evaporate about between 3 and 5gallons a day. The PH would soon be through the roof. If you have a more traditional tank, it might work.

 

[TJQ]

I can share a few things from my ongoing 300 Gallon build. My philosophy is try to make the tank as easy as possible to maintain, as big tanks can be a lot of work.

Most of the cons of a big tank are costs and time. If you can setup the tank with the technology you want to minimize maintenance, as well as hire maintenance people -- then the rest is all positive.

I would go as big as possible, but that goes well within your room. Yes, it is possible to have a tank the over powers a space. Originally I was going to do a 9 or 10' tank which I could barely squeeze in, but I'm glad I went 8' which my wife dictated. My final dimensions were 96x24x30 tall, which is the best I could do in the kitchen area. I have fairly modern/contemporary house, and I think it would have fit the look even better if the tank is never taller than the width. I could have done a monster system in the basement, but I think it's best if as many people can enjoy it while we are entertaining or just living upstairs.

Preparing the tank spot can be quite a bit of work as well. I brought out a structural engineer, and was quite lucky that I didn't have to make any structural modifications. In addition you will most likely need an electrician to install some additional power runs. Although I think with LED lighting some people might be able to get away without the extra power.

In terms of tank maintenance protocols, this is what I went with:
-Bio pellets (changed out a couple times of year I think)
-Two Part Dosing (refill containers every month)
-Continuous Water Change System (mix salt water every 2-4 weeks)
-Auto Top Off system that is connected to reservoir that is automatically filled with an RO/DI system. (replace / check filters regularly)

I would have liked to go with a Swabie to clean my skimmer as well as a waste drain line to the basement, but I just don't have the room in the stand unfortunately.

Hopefully that helps.

 

[cr reef]

Thanks for the responses they have all helped.

So it sounds like I'll need to do 2 part dosing and a lot of reading on how you guys have your tanks set up.

Reactors necessary or a must?

Electrical, plumbing and structural I can take care of, the figuring out on automatic dosing will need a lot more reading.

What about plumbing, drilled tank (never had one) or standard overflow. I like the look of the drilled, just worry more about potential fllooding etc.

 

[cr reef]

Oh, I still plan on a mixed reef, will give away some of my softie and LPS coral, but these are the wifes favorite so will be keeping these in the tank and SPS.

Shouldn't it be easier keeping a mixed in a larger system

 

[sfsuphysics]

ahem... '3 part' dosing... that's where my magnesium issue came into play. I don't believe magnesium (or anything for that matter) can keep levels maintained unless said saltmix has an over abundance in the first place.