Many of us describe our system volumes by the advertised volume listed by the tank/sump manufacturers, but the actual volume is always somewhat, or significantly less.
Tank sizes are usually listed based on the outside dimensions, not taking into consideration the glass thickness and running water height, let alone the volume taken up by the rock, sand, equipment, or even livestock. Generally this isn't a big deal and is industry standard, but how many of us use this volume when dosing or adding supplements or doing water changes? How many of us are significantly over dosing additives?
I recently took down one of my systems that consisted of a standard 29 gallon display with a 20 gallon sump. 49 gallon system volume, right? Not even close! I measured the water volume I removed at ~26 gallons (of which 10 gallons was in the sump). Typically when I estimate my system volumes, I ignore the sump capacity and just go with the display volume to approximate my actual water volume, but I was still over estimating by about 10%
Do you consider actual system volume when adding supplements/chemicals/etc. to you aquarium?
How are you measuring actual system volume?
Tank sizes are usually listed based on the outside dimensions, not taking into consideration the glass thickness and running water height, let alone the volume taken up by the rock, sand, equipment, or even livestock. Generally this isn't a big deal and is industry standard, but how many of us use this volume when dosing or adding supplements or doing water changes? How many of us are significantly over dosing additives?
I recently took down one of my systems that consisted of a standard 29 gallon display with a 20 gallon sump. 49 gallon system volume, right? Not even close! I measured the water volume I removed at ~26 gallons (of which 10 gallons was in the sump). Typically when I estimate my system volumes, I ignore the sump capacity and just go with the display volume to approximate my actual water volume, but I was still over estimating by about 10%
Do you consider actual system volume when adding supplements/chemicals/etc. to you aquarium?
How are you measuring actual system volume?
Last edited: