240 Gallons of Room

etheonut · Post by **etheonut** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 12:17 pm

If you had a 240 gallon aquarium, what would you do with it?

btw, that is 8' X 2' X 2'

Kevin

Josey · Post by **Josey** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 3:02 pm

Make a planted tank on an amazon theme with large schools of cardinal tetras a few whiptails... place it in the center of the living room so it could be appreciated from all sides. Maybe a power drop from the ceiling with a custom hood to hide all the goodies...

Sorry you got me started.

HiroPro · Post by **HiroPro** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 8:10 pm

Ditto to what Josey said. I'm into the planted tanks right now and have been looking at large tanks myself. Unfortunately, I can't do anything until we sell our house and find a new one. The good news is I get to have a fish room in the new house. Yipee!!

Room divider would be cool. I like massive schools of fish - looks awesome! In my 55, I have a school of 24 Ember tetras and they look really cool as a school.

pinkrblu · Post by **pinkrblu** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 1:24 pm

For starters, I would have to put some supports in the basement to accomodate the weight, but yeah...I could do that!
I would put it between our formal dining room and the living room. Lots of plants and large schools of tetras, a school of panda cories, a couple pair of something like cacatuoides and maybe some angels. I would much rather have a lot of smaller fish than a few larger ones.

Why? You have one just sitting around you want to give me?

etheonut · Post by **etheonut** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 2:57 pm

240 gallons is a lot of space to fill, and a lot of lighting. How would you guys propose lighting this monstrosity?

Seems like a lot of people are tending towards South America for their ideas. Most water, that hobby fish come from, in South America is both soft and acidic, most water, in the Ozarks, is both hard and alkaline. Two hundred and forty gallons is a lot of water to try to keep even remotely softened and acidic. I don't know about the rest of you, but my water comes out of the tap at pH 8.4 and over 21 dkh? (I don't remember the scale) in hardness. My scale actually stopped around 21....

Keep the ideas flowing. I love to hear peoples ideas. Who knows, maybe you will get to see your idea come to fruition. No, I am not giving anyone a 240 gallon aquarium.

Kevin

Post by **sumpnfishy** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 3:09 pm

If you go with Tropheus you would not need all that much lighting. Just a thought! We are debating between discus and Tropheus for our 135. I think Tropheus may win.

pinkrblu · Post by **pinkrblu** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 6:55 pm

Ok, well, see I was operating on the assumption that I personally wouldn't be seeing this aquarium in my house anytime soon. You're right, of course, my water is too hard to breed most of the fish I love. They survive ok, but the eggs never hatch. My mom and dad have very soft water, though, and they just live in Joplin.

Josey · Post by **Josey** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 8:27 am

I used to purchase RO water from my lfs in Indianapolis for 1$ a gallon in their container or if you brought your own bucket $0.50. All of the city's water is very hard (cleaned the build up of the sinks once a month or so) the whole area is on a group of major wells. The lfs the reef was really a top notch place.

etheonut · Post by **etheonut** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:34 am

RO water at $1 a gallon seems reasonable, particularly if you are maintaining a saltwater aquarium. I purchased an RO unit a couple years ago for $80. I have since filled three 5 gallon buckets every other week with that unit. I believe that purchasing an RO is a necessary part of equipment right along with a protein skimmer and an aquarium if you are doing saltwater.

The water in Joplin may be soft, but if it is, that would be because they filter it for softness. Now I have something to investigate, because if the whole city get soft water from the tap, then the local fish stores do too, hmmm.

Kevin

HiroPro · Post by **HiroPro** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:58 am

If you do a planted tank and inject CO2, then that will help lower your Ph level into the acidic or neutral ranges.

Lighting - I would look at the Tek T5 fixtures. Expensive but well worth it. With that size tank, I'd consider 2 48" fixtures with 4 x 54W bulbs. That would be total of 432 watts and 1.8w/gallon. Watt per gallon kind of lose their meaning with large and small tanks. You should be able to grow most anything with that lighting. The Teks have individual reflectors for each bulb and with the bulbs as thin as they are, there is less re-strike than other fluorescent bulbs. I have the Tek 48 " 4x54W fixture over my 55G and I run 2 bulbs for 9 hours and the other 2 bulbs come on for 4 hours for a midday burst. I have been able to grow anything I put in there and have had to do weekly trimming to keep the plants in check.

Advantages of T5 systems is that they use less energy than CF or MH fixtures. Also, the bulbs last up to 2 years without losing much intensity and the Teks are quiet since they don't have a cooling fan.

etheonut · Post by **etheonut** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 2:06 pm

That is some interesting lighting ideas, lots of lights there.

I am not sure how much injecting CO2 into the high carbonate hardness water of my area would lower the pH. The buffering capacity is simply incredible. That is one of the reasons why low hardness water is recommended for planted tanks. Not because the pH is less stable, but because the buffering system of hard water actually takes the CO2 out of the water before the plants have access to it for photosynthesis. In other words, to get the same concentration of CO2 in my water as in softer water would require a lot more CO2 be injected.

Kevin

ps. If everything goes as planned (and it hardly ever does) I will be picking up this 240 gallon aquarium this weekend.

pinkrblu · Post by **pinkrblu** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 6:46 pm

How cool! And what have you decided to do with it?

etheonut · Post by **etheonut** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 8:02 pm

The aquarium is sitting in the back of my father-in-laws truck outside. I haven't completely decided what to do with it. I know it will go in my classroom. I don't know what I will keep in it yet. I have many ideas, and it will be interesting to see which one wins out in the end. I have never had a tank larger than 58 gallons, so thinking in these dimensions is a little difficult for me still. It is hard to think about getting a school of 100 fish and still having lots of room to fill. I am sure I will manage though.

Here are a few of the ideas I have right now:

Tropheus (2 schools of 30)

Frontosa

Cichlids of Madagascar

Native Stream Tank

Discus

pinkrblu · Post by **pinkrblu** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:58 am

I think it would be cool to do the native stream tank, since it is one of your great passions and the size would make it more stable and realistic. Whatever you do, I know it will be awesome. Let me know if you need help getting it set up and going. Sounds fun!

LoveMyPleco · Post by **LoveMyPleco** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 10:10 am

I'm SOOOOOO Jealous, yes I know thats not an endearing quality but hey.

I would vote for the Frotosas, my 5 are beautiful!!!!!! Or a large cichlid tank, thats what I would do!!

If anyone comes across a 215 or larger for sale, will someone please!!!! let me know!!!!

Jenn

etheonut · Post by **etheonut** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:30 pm

I believe I have decided on a pod of Tropheus moorii. I will go with bemba orange flame, ikola kaiser, or if I can find one that is just stunning one of the rainbow variants. I am looking at a colony of 30 fish and also have a small group of julidichromis and Synodontis petricola in there. I thought about mixing two tropheus species, but most of the accounts I can find report that mixing two means that neither one shows off it's full color and pattern.

Kevin

LoveMyPleco · Post by **LoveMyPleco** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 2:21 pm

Neat, where can I sign up for buying some babies? Cause your gonna have em!

Jenn

etheonut · Post by **etheonut** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 2:45 pm

If that time comes I will be offering babies to the club before offering them any place else.

Kevin

Colby · Post by **Colby** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 1:52 am

White sand substrate

three leopoldi stingrays

a couple of wide bar datnoids

and one pink giant gourami

or maybe just pack it full of neons

pinkrblu · Post by **pinkrblu** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 10:54 pm

How's this project coming along?

etheonut · Post by **etheonut** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 10:58 pm

Slow right now. I am spending my money on other things than Tropheus. I will probably pick the Tropheus up next fall. I don't want to get them just in time for summer break when I won't see the tank for 3 months, and I can't get them now because of shipping.

Kevin

pinkrblu · Post by **pinkrblu** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 11:24 pm

Well, if you need any help, let me know. I have a real soft spot when it comes to school aquaria.

etheonut · Post by **etheonut** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 10:45 am

Well, the 210 (only 7' long, not 8') now has its main inhabitants. I added 19 Tropheus moorii 'illangi' to the tank last night. I would have added more but A. Apparently I can't count to 20 and B. I ran out of cash.

Kevin

Josey · Post by **Josey** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 2:03 pm

I looked around the interweb for info and pictures of Tropheus moorii Ilangi. It says they are no longer found in the wild due to overfishing and collecting. Sounds like Kevin has a species maintenance project on his hands.

paramedic07 · Post by **paramedic07** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 6:27 pm

Discus. All discus.

Lets see 240 gallons, say 7 inches average each adult.

30 discus to be safe swimming in a 240 gallon tank, nice.

kcmikey · Post by **kcmikey** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:24 pm

Kevin, I can tell you that I am very happy with my 180 that houses central american cichlids. Now I do lean towards some less agressive varieties, but there is a Trio of Thor. aureus, 4 nics, 2 rainbow cichlids, 4 HRPs (Albino). The Trio has already rewarded me with some fry and the nics have turned so blue.
Mike

Jackielee · Post by **Jackielee** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 10:54 am

Well I found myself in that situation and here is what I did. I had been wanting another big tank for big fish. Mine is stocked with giant gourami, large SA cats and i could not resist and rescued a little pacu from a Petsmart. My 10 foot long 300 has arowanna, cats, pike cichlids and an umbee in it. Addiction noted and verified.

Jack

Post by **mewickham** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 12:24 pm

I bet Jack has a bumper sticker that says, "My tank busters will eat your cardinal tetras."

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