# Building a 5000 gallon Aquarium!



## Izzydawg

I'm a newbie to the forum, I am an oscar and EBJD lover. i curently have 6 oscars, 1 EBJD, 1 jack dempsey, 2 fire eels, 1 bicher, and 1 pleco. My house is full of tanks right now...lol :wink:

Most of my oscars are rescue missions, like Gizmo, who was going to be flushed down the toilet when his old owners were going to move and couldn't take him.( I saved him 1 hour before his potential doom). :x

My tanks are very stocked, so I am forever doing water changes, but I just can't see theese fish have a septic system for a graveyard!

As soon as the snow is gone, we plan to start our 5000 gallon tank. That will lift the weight off my shoulders...lol

I plan on rescuing Oscars and other cichlids that people are constantly trying to drop off at the lfs because the people didn't realize that they got that big. The lfs told me that they are always turning down large cichlids especially oscars because they don't have large enough tanks to house them. They said that the longest time they went without someone showing up for that reason was 1 month!

So, I guess the only way to think posative about this is that it will be cheap or free to stock my new tank when it's ready, and the bonus would be that I'm helping homless cichlids.


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## Fishy Wishy

wow, well done you!

5000 gallon tank!   whats the plans for this then? where is it going?


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## Izzydawg

When we built our home, we built it so we could add on, we started smaller, so we could just move in earlier. Now we are going to sdd on a larger living room. we are going to build it on the far side of that room so we can also see it in the dining room. I'm thinking that it would be good next to an exterior wall so we can ventalate it, because there is going to be a lot of moisture.

I wanted to decorate that room like a jungle with big windows and large plants. We want to put rock work on the livingroom side with a plexigalss window about 4x12' .

My sister suggested to get a large piece of driftwood, cut it in half, so that half of the driftwood is in the tank, and the other half is on the outside, so it looks like it is comming out of the tank. :thumb: I thought that was a neat idea...

Anyone out there have any ideas?
We are still in the design stages, so I wouldn't mind hearing other peoples thoughts... :wink:


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## TheFishGuy

Welcome to the C-F!

This may be more appropriate for the DIY folder. Would you like me to move it there?

And speaking from experience.... Rescueing cichlids can be an arduous task... Sometimes you feel great, other times you feel... well.... sick to your stomach as to what people do.... so be prepared, and good luck with the build :thumb:

TFG


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## Izzydawg

Sure... move it over there if ya like 

What were your experiences? Did you build a large tank too?...or do you know anyone who has?


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## BlackShark11k

He's built an 800, I'm building a 500, CHB gator built a 600 and 94daek(or something like that, i can't remember his username) built a 1000 gallon tank.


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## TheFishGuy

I've changed you title and now I'm going to move it. It'll guarantee you some attention by the big tank builders


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## TheFishGuy

Lomax is who you want to talk to if you plan to build a tank. Mine was kind of revolutionary for it's size and I'm not sure I'd do my style of tank on something like a 5000 gallon... Here's the link to it's thread(s)....

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/view ... p?t=103294


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## Izzydawg

Thanks :thumb: Any ideas for decorating the inside? Any good filter set ups?


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## TheFishGuy

For five thousand gallons I'd double what I have on my tank. My tank's filter could more than likely handle 3000 gallons when fully operational. Only 3/4 of the prefilters are used at once. 

My filter is designed to filter a 5000 gallon pond... But I tend to do things a little overkill when it comes to filtration :lol: The filter on my 240 could probably keep my 800 clean :lol:


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## CHBGator

Izzydawg said:


> Thanks :thumb: Any ideas for decorating the inside? Any good filter set ups?


First off WOW! 5,000 Gallons. "Honey we have to get rid of the kids because we cant afford my tank if we keep them." 

As TFG just said is go overkill on filtration. IMHO there is no such thing as over filtration, its better to have it there if you need it than to not have it there. Maybe fit in a fresh water Refugium somewhere full of lots of fast growing plants to suck up the nitrates. As for decorations inside the tank if I had the cash I'd get a BIG cypress stump and a few logs and mimic a SA biotope the best I could.


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## BlackShark11k

There is a guy who goes by ccdoido and has a 5500 gallon tank...he is not a members of this site though...i beleive it is made of cement with a glass pane in the front.


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## tunerX

What are the dimensions? The dimensions will determine if you want to go with wood, steel, concrete or a mix.


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## Guest

post pics!!!!


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## lomax

if its going to be that large and you are going to build around it i would use cement.

i have a few questions.

what type of foundation do you plan for the extension?

5000g is going to put a lot of stress on your foundation system, you may need bigger footing or deeper piers if you are doing a slab foundation..

anything under 1000g is ok for most slab foundations, any tank over 500g will need good planing on a house that is over a basement. of course the shorter the tank is the wider the foot print and the less stress there is per square foot, so i need to know how tall are you going?

then next problem is bridging the 8 foot gap, IF you are going to use plywood. you will need to use layers of plywood unless you custom order special extra long panels.

i think it would be best if you use a slab foundation, with extra pier supports and extra reinforcement of the slab. this is so there is NO movement!

then make the walls and front from pored cement or block, but be sure there is enough rebar and fill all the holes if you use block.

then it can be coated with a water proof cement like hydro stop or use a cement sealer like drylock. Or any of the good pool epoxies that are made for cement.

you may need to place the glass in the tank even before you frame the walls as very thick glass will need a crane to move into place.


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## Izzydawg

The footing,..... Concrete, concrete, and more concrete....reinforced of coarse. We are looking into the piers, the original concept was just a really heavy reinforced slab, on plenty of packed gravel well below the frost line. This should be easy to achive as our new addition will be a sunken in livingroom. There is no basement.

The demensions would be 14' long x 8' wide x 6' high. We were going 10' x 4' x 1" with the acrylic panel.

The tank itself will be made of reinforced concrete. Only one long side will have an acrylic window as one side will have the filter and pump assembly.

Thanks for the epoxy idea, we are looking into that.

We chose acrylic over glass because of how much lighter it is.


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## TheFishGuy

C'mon now... let's get tequnical.... that's really 5007.631578947368 US gallons :lol:

Gonna be an awesome tank :thumb:


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## TheeMon

the pittsburgh zoo has the biggest oscar i have ever seen... i wanna see yours in a few years


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## Turtlemaxxx

actually, if those dimensions are outside dimensions you would need to take off some for the wall thickness. so lets say the inside dimms are 84 x 156 x 72 = 546cubic ft, 546 x 7.48051945 is roughly 4084.3636197 gallons. (assuming you will have the full 6ft water column)  and maybe i did my math wrong but the other dimms will get you 5026.9090704 gallons. :?:

I. WANT. ONE.

-matt


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## orcy

I saw an interesting build a while ago where an insulated shipping container was used. possibly a little bigger than your looking at, but not as silly an idea as it sounds

biggest problem with a tank that big is keeping it warm enough. especially as you talk about waiting for the snow to melt to start. the energy requirements will be huge in winter

good luck. i think it will be great


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## TheFishGuy

Turtlemaxxx said:


> actually, if those dimensions are outside dimensions you would need to take off some for the wall thickness. so lets say the inside dimms are 84 x 156 x 72 = 546cubic ft, 546 x 7.48051945 is roughly 4084.3636197 gallons. (assuming you will have the full 6ft water column)  and maybe i did my math wrong but the other dimms will get you 5026.9090704 gallons. :?:
> 
> I. WANT. ONE.
> 
> -matt


 :lol: :lol: :lol: You know.... you could just use this sites tank calculator :lol:


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## CHBGator

orcy said:


> I saw an interesting build a while ago where an insulated shipping container was used. possibly a little bigger than your looking at, but not as silly an idea as it sounds
> 
> biggest problem with a tank that big is keeping it warm enough. especially as you talk about waiting for the snow to melt to start. the energy requirements will be huge in winter
> 
> good luck. i think it will be great


I think the whole WPG rule in regards to heating tanks needs to be looked at again. I went to a lot of sites looking for a calculator to find the appropriate size heater for my 600G and you'd be supprised at how many suggested between 2000-4000 watts. then I came across a few that took into account the temperature of the room the tank was in. In most of our cases with rooms behind the tank its merely a matter of keeping the room at a temp you want your tank at as TFG did which also helps keep condensation down in the room. I decided to use 2x 300W submersible glass heaters and it took about 2 days to warm my tank to 78 degrees and they are only on about as much as my 55G and thats in my basement in the winter granted getting the tank up to optimal temp might consume a bit of electricity but keeping it there I don't think is going to be as energy hungry as some might think. 
Here is the Calculator I used. Unfortunately it doesn't have the option for plywood or cement but I'm sure glass has less of an R value than plywood or cement. 
http://boonedocks.net/fishtank/ftweb.php

Here's an Idea for your filtration it its going to take up a lot less room than a sump big enough to filter that tank. 
http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fus ... 7/cid/4430
Use two filters and run a T in the intake so you can have 4 intakes in the tank then on the return run two separate UGJ loops one for each filter.


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## Izzydawg

The slab underneath the tank is going to have a hot water line in it from our exterior boiler, which will be hooked in line with a conventional domestic water heater. This way, we will have more precise control of the slab temperature.

As for the demensions, that is the interior measurements.  Being that we are using 6' for the concrete walls, the exterior measurement would 15'. And once you leave a bit of freeboard for the 6' measure, we should be pretty close to 5000 gallons. :thumb:

Thanks for the links too


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## Turtlemaxxx

:lol: :lol: :lol: You know.... you could just use this sites tank calculator :lol:[/quote said:


> i actually just drew up a block in Solid Works at work here and used a button to give me the cubic feet.  I'm not that much of a slacker that I would take the time to do it ALL by scratch...
> 
> dont forget to show us before and after pics of the area this thing is going in. And maybe add in a 10gallon for ref. that is, of course, steeling ideas from TFG's thread.
> 
> -matt


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## iceblue

Just something you might consider. If you have 1 or 2 two concrete walls that will be to the exterior of the house, you could build a berm of soil to the top of the wall. Thier are several methods of dealing with rain run-off and you won't be dealing with outside temperature. Ground temperature remains fairly constant. This will also add an opposing force to the weight of the water. Just an idea.


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## Tommi

Tank mayby be nice when finished, but reasons to do it? Because of ignorant LFS?? Comoon. Try harder to get those fish off the market, theres is no way you can save all the big fish sold every day to wrong people.


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## TheFishGuy

Tommi said:


> Tank mayby be nice when finished, but reasons to do it? Because of ignorant LFS?? Comoon. Try harder to get those fish off the market, theres is no way you can save all the big fish sold every day to wrong people.


You're right, there is no way, but there's still going to be some. I agree that education is the key to any rescue group. But there's still going to be fish/reptiles that need rescued no matter what....


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## Izzydawg

When people are giving them away, why not....They need homes too.


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## Aquanist

And on the DIY side; if it can be done (and if your wife lets you do it) why not do it. Personally I'd rather choose the fish based on what I really want instead of what people can no longer keep. :wink:

Nevertheless - keep us posted on this thank project. :thumb:


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## DarkMatter

Turtlemaxxx said:


> I. WANT. ONE.
> 
> -matt


just one?


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## Izzydawg

Well I love oscars...and there's a lot of them around...so it's a win, win situation.


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## Izzydawg

....and by the way, I am the wife..lol. :wink:


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## TheFishGuy

I didn't want to say anything until you did :lol:


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## Izzydawg

I priced out the acrylic sheets today. I need two sheets 4'x8'x1" and I was quoted $825.00 each before tax. That was a lot better than I was thinking. :wink: The plans are still evolving, we decided to have two 2 4'x8' sheets for the viewing windows. The price per sheet varied quite wildly beyond 8'.


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## TheFishGuy

Size matters :thumb:


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## Izzydawg

It sure does...can't wait to see the finished product though. It's easy to make the plans, but it always seems like the end result takes forever. GO. AWAY. SNOW!
There is already 2 large oscars to give away that I wish I could take home...this is killing me! 
I love oscars. :wink:


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## TheFishGuy

Me too  :


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## Izzydawg

Very nice oscars man, I can't wait to get more. What size of tank are yours in? They look like they are doing great in there.


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## TheFishGuy

800 gallon


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## Izzydawg

SWEET


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## Bad-Daddio

what's happening with this project? any progress?


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## BigFish54

I know you were gonna have to add onto your house and that deffinetley takes awhile, but are you still planning on doing this massive tank? Just curious, I am sure everyone here would like some kind of an update, even if you decided you had to size down the tank.


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## balachel

wow 5000 gallons thats going to be one amazing tank. cant wait to see finshed


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## Chad_Asmus

I DEal with a company that sells me my waterproofing material for my showers and swimming pools. They Have a full lifetime warranty on anything residential. My e-mail is [email protected]. I could probably get you the stuff a a discount or for Free if you allow them to take pictures for their records. They like to do that for the selling aspect.


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## dooo_36

Izzydawg said:


> I priced out the acrylic sheets today. I need two sheets 4'x8'x1" and I was quoted $825.00 each before tax. That was a lot better than I was thinking. :wink: The plans are still evolving, we decided to have two 2 4'x8' sheets for the viewing windows. The price per sheet varied quite wildly beyond 8'.


wow has pricing gone up on plastic... i got my acrylic sheet for under 500 including shipping. it came in from dallas to me here in san antonio. mine isn;t 1" though i wonder if thats the difference but mine is a bigger sheet. mine was 120" x 60" x 3/4" (i had them cut it down to 100" thinking i was going to use a center brace but decided not to). and with a tank that big i would think you really want as much viewing area as possible. keep shopping someones bound to have the larger sheets.


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## BenHugs

Hi Izzydawg what part of BC are you from???
Just a suggestion on your jungle theme..... you could try aquaponics (growing plants in fishwater) I'm going to be using a phillodendron (a viney type plant I got at walmart) They like the water and suck up nitrates. Some people also use mangroves and seem very happy with them. 
I'm interested to see how this little project turns out opcorn:


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## czar_wilson

so i'm assuming nothing ever came from this?? :-?


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## zade

I was curious myself, 5000 gallons would be quite the amazing feet. It's also astonishing to see this thread take off so many years ago. A lot has happened in this time however.... let's hope for the best.


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## BrendanMc

Ok you've had almost four years. Where's the swimming po...I mean tank?


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## zquattrucci

at least give use an update on that B.A.T


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## Baggly

where's the ghost smilie? Cuz this thread is dead. 4 years lol


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