I went a LFS and said Yup, I want those... To the aquarium systems, not fish.

[Sburns1369]

I was cruising the Internet and was looking for some small tanks and idea shopping to make a few racks of tanks...

Then I found a LFS that was relocating and had four systems sitting conveniently on the 2nd floor of a building needing to get gone.

This (hopefully) will be my adventure of setting up four 3 tier tank systems. I was told they together hold about 900 gallons of water. Each unit has 6 tanks and a sump. So with 24 tanks, 4 sumps all in need of work and restoration, this will be my winter project.

The first 48....
In nutshell the first half of the battle has already commenced and is going with plenty of hitches. My ex-wife and her BF (Seriously, doesn't that sound like a great start to a story with out alcohol involved) teamed up to pick up these systems from almost two hours away. The initial plan was to leave at 4-430. (Insert witty ex joke) It wasn't till after 5pm the arrived. So we got off to a late start on an almost two hour drive, and 25 bucks in tolls for two vehicles and a trailer. It was my goal and intent to get them all in one trip. The original of plan of laying them in the side was a no go. The tanks where all glass (no acrylic/plastic besides the overflows). There would have been no support on half the glass bearing weight and it wasn't worth the risk. The owners of the LFS were cool and smart and blocked off a section of parking right infront of the door. I was 4 minutes away when they called informing me someone moved a cone and parked right in the middle of where we were planning on putting the trailer. We managed to block and hold a spot in an alley for the truck and trailer, doubling the distance of moving the tanks.

Currently we haven't tried to kill each, and it was much easier to convince them to make a 2nd trip.

6 of the 12 sections are laying in my backyard presoaking in the rain before the cleaning commences.

 

[Devaji]

OK fallowing this one. be curious to see what you end up doing with these.

glad it all worked out getting them. I once drove 10+ hrs for a 240 used tank.
so I know the pain of planning something.

it's nice you can be friends with the ex. why not right.

 

[Sburns1369]

I'm curious too I figured this I'd finally do a tank thread, since this can go all sorts of ways. I also kinda curious on peoples input on different things todo. There is 24 tanks, and 4 sumps. I was considering only use two dumps as sumps, and using the other two base units for basically refugiums, possibly macro alga farm in one, and a deep sand bed and use it for curing live rock and frag plugs.

My current thoughts are tie all 4 sumps in together and have shut offs between systems for a massive water base. Have two sumps for skimmers with roller filters... I'm sure there will be more space for more toys, or more biological homes. I was going to build a raspberry pi style controller, or even use an actual PLC todo lightning controls and other task. I'm in the electrical field by trade, so I can wire and build my own LED lights.

There is 4 cabinets. 1 cabinet I was going to try my luck with 3 sets of clowns and clay pots, and possibly 2-3 sets of damsels with clay pots since it was a pair of yellow tail damsels laying eggs that really drove my curiosity off the deep end off saltwater. The second cabinet may be home to more curio type things. One cabinet will be reef, perhaps a zooia garden and one for more stoney corals, idk this is where I start get wrapped up in the endless ideas of what todo, and what I can/should do.

My current task is to get all the equipment. Build a riser that can take the weight and level them. Evaluate and build the plumbing and figure out how to isolate as needed. Clean the tanks, repair atleast one broken glass area and repaint the outside. Quite a bit of work to-do.. When built with the manufacturer stand, for which is old and rusty and covered in salt they are 89 inches tall. I have 87.5 inches of clearance. I was thinking about treated 2 x 4 laid flat, sanded to be level with the floor and painted to help deal them. That should drop off 3 inches and make them all fit. I was going to try black Rust-Oleum paint on the OUTSIDE of the back and sides to give them a fresher clean look. The existing blue paint is chipped, falling off and faded.

Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated. I believe this are early Dutch Aquarium Systems set ups. I used to deal with these 10 and 20 years ago when I worked in an aquatics department.

I current culture a few algaes for Phytoplankton to feed BBS/Freshwater microorganisms and my coral. My big tank is (only) a 125 Reef with a 60 gallon breed as a refugium/sump. I do BBS daily for pygmy Seahorses. I'm quite engaged with saltwater and seriously stoked about doing this. I've joked when I was 20 years dumb how cool it be to have my own fish store set up. Now I have some wisdom and one....

They are about 89 inches with stands tall, 51.5 inches long, and 20 inches across. One is badly cracked in the back and needs repaired. They have been out of service for a bit and hopefully still hold water. Most of the plumbing is laying around, but no electronics or pumps.

 

[Devaji]

Yeah you have a ton of options.
That’s the good news!

I want to do 3 tanks in may basement one each for softies LPs and sps or macro tank.
And one monster Folwr

I have a raspberry pie an 8 plug controllable power strip that I bough a couple years ago never used as it was way over my head.

Let me know if you have any interest I would like it to be used.
I am sure we could work out something.

For the stand conciser T slot will more $$ up front but tons of options and if thing change down the road you could still use it.

Have fun!!

 

[ZoWhat]

You starting a new west wing of the Greater Cleveland Aquarium?

 

[Sburns1369]

You starting a new west wing of the Greater Cleveland Aquarium?

Not quite. Maybe in a few years, if I relocate my washer and dryer out the basement onto the first floor it would free up a good section of the basement to build a small reef lagoon with a pair of small sharks.

On that note, the money to set these tanks up was from me putting up some money with the intentions of doing a pond liner or plywood monster saltwater tank. I oddly find this more practical.

 

[Devaji]

Not quite. Maybe in a few years, if I relocate my washer and dryer out the basement onto the first floor it would free up a good section of the basement to build a small reef lagoon with a pair of small sharks.

On that note, the money to set these tanks up was from me putting up some money with the intentions of doing a pond liner or plywood monster saltwater tank. I oddly find this more practical.

I have been looking into plywood tanks for years. maybe someday...

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I am following along! This is going to be an interesting build

 

[Sburns1369]

Lots of works but little to show. Sadly the metal frames the bottom tanks sit in are just rusted beyond repair, short of wielding. I would be unable to level the system and rather skeptical of all that weight on super rusty threads.

I'm painting 2x4 for the two sumps and laying them flat. For the other two systems with out a sump, I will probably use 4x4 to have clearance for the plumbing underneath and that should work out perfectly for ceiling clearance. My boss erm, wife candidate picked out a spot with my and we are doing two systems back to back, and tying them all in together. The room facing side will be nice tanks, and the wall facing side will be have a set for breeding attempts, and breeding attempts.

One sump will have a Bubble Magnus filter roller. My original skimmer plans are simple two small, and I'm back to the drawing board again on that. I'm going to run a dedicated electrical circuit for the system, and possibly tie in a 2nd circuit incase of problems for the pumps. The system will be conveniently about 6 feet from a floor drain for maintenance. I'm thinking I may tie in a traditional fish tank on the one side of the systems and a water reservoir under it for a top off system (I'm trying to hit the thousand gallon water volume mark on this system).

There may actually be two dedicated electrical circuits. I need to sit down and calculate the amount of amps that would be pulled from the wattage needed to heat this system. I'm going to look in further added another boiler fixure in the basement to keep it warmer... But I live in Ohio and it can get dang cold. Since it's in the basement, cooling the system isn't a concern.

I'm still drawing up ideas on lighting and controls, but I think I'm going with building a raspberry pie reef controller, and considering having blank PCB boards printed with pads and traces so I can customize the LED lighting to each tank as needed. The previous owners cut plastic electric gang boxes and siliconed them on and had fair success with 48 inch strip lights.

I'm total it is 2 sumps, and 10 units each with 3 tanks. Two of the units I'm going to remove the divider panels and make them one big tank (roughly 50 inches long, 20 inches across, I really need to measure depth). One of them is going to be a garden eels set up, which should fulfill my deep sand bed desire in it. The other I'm not fully sure, but keep going back and fourth with the idea of a macro algae forest. Copepod plantation.

Part of my and the boss lady was very hmm... Forcefully on doing seahorses. I'm not liking how shallow these tanks are for seahorses so I may end up doing those for her in a 90 gallon tank that is currently not in use.

I was at a local fish store looking for metal air valves my phytoplankton and noticed they had a pair of Clarkii clownfish marked down to 9.99 each and painted on the glass was "Bonded Pair" and they where snuggled up in an anemone and I was informed they.... Well, didn't like tank mates. Yup... I bought my first clown fish (and stupid anemone) since Finding Nemo came out. I have them in a 40 gallon tank waiting for the first part of this system to stand up and be the lucky or unlucky fish I use to cycle.

Cleaning this tanks are a pain. I'm diluting 30% vinegar at 1:5 ratio with water and spraying the insides and the paint. The old paint is coming off in a single pass when it's wet and using about 4 razor blades per tank (two outside, and 2 inside), and spraying out with a garden house. It is still taking over 2 hours to clean each tank (ouch). The repainting proces I'm using black standard Rust-Oleum paint and a foam brush on the back, doing 3 coats. I think I'm going to leave the sides unpainted, so you can look through the sides and just paint the back. I'm not overly concerned about the bottoms since that should be covered up with substrate.

I'm hoping that I will have at least one sump and one tank up and running by the end of next weekend. I still am cleaning up from a massive storm weeks ago, and have end of life services for a family next weekend. Reality says in two weeks, I'll be starting to get sections up.

Anyone have any good hook ups for getting about 300 pounds of salt?

Pictures are of the second and final half of the tanks. We have up using a dolly and used an old wooden table as a sled to get them down the stairs safety and in once price.