Barry Grossmans big tank

[mojoreef]

Great post Highlands!!!!!! And welcome to Reef Frontiers.


MIke

 

[Barry Grossman]

My Bali Nightmare

so....am I the oly one who would be dumb enough to build a 20,000 litre tank and then ask naivley whether one one or two of the tank models pictured below could be turned into an adequately efficent skimming arangement. For what its worth, I can source acrylic tubing to a diameter of about 10 or 12 inches for the chamber and collection cup. And polypropolene in sheet form to a thickness of about 20mm for what ever application. (maybe to seal the chamber to the tank/vessel mouth). If the tanks are unsuitable, I can get PVC tube to a diameter of 16inchs. Help....

 

[highlands]

Great post Highlands!!!!!! And welcome to Reef Frontiers.

Thanks for the welcome. I'm ___VERY___ interested in Barry's large tank project. Please do keep us all informed in detail, Barry!

I am looking for information about large tank projects. We are going to be building a new house soon and I am designing the core of the house to be a large marine tank. It will be a dodecahedral with each pane being a window into a slice of the house. Our plan is for it to have natural lightning via a central skylight. In our climate, overheating is not the issue. I have run tanks for about 12 years(?) in front of our windows where they're able to absorb heat and be naturally lighted which saves electricity. There will be backup electric high intensity lighting around the ring to get the required hours of lighting per day. The central area of the tank will be a sand area with the reefs along the perimeter in front of each window. Think torus or inside out house.

I am very interested in Barry's progress as what he is doing has a lot of similarities to what I've been planning. Keep up the progress and the report Barry!

If people know of writings about other large tank systems I would love to know of pointers to them.

Cheers,

-Walter
in Vermont

 

[mojoreef]

Barry the barrels are not good, the SS will be eaten by bacteria. I sent you a pm with some info on the sealeant. On the acrlyic, that would work, do you have the tools to construct one. Ie table saw, router table, router and clamps???.


Walter that sounds awesome. A huge project for sure. Natural lighting should be a problem, Look into something called Sona tubes. They are perfect for that kind of application.
Tell ya what start another thread and we can feed you info. I can also get some folks tha thave large tanks to come over and share their experences.


Mike

 

[highlands]

Walter that sounds awesome. A huge project for sure. Natural lighting should be a problem, Look into something called Sona tubes. They are perfect for that kind of application.

I've seen photos of Sonatubes. It's a good concept and what we're planning to do is a skylight which is basically a very large Sonatube. It will have an iris that will let me control the light intensity should it actually be too intense (unlikely in our climate and at our latitude) as well as letting me insulate the tank from the skylight during our cold (-45F) winter nights. For us the latter is the greater concern. The house will be earthsheltered and the skylight will be the major vertical penetration in the center.

start another thread and we can feed you info. I can also get some folks tha thave large tanks to come over and share their experences.

I'll do that. I look forward to feedback from y'all. I am far behind Barry. Things are still in the design stage. I don't want to rush the tank. We may build the house around the space for the tank getting it all prepped this year if things fall in place and then build the tank in the winter and next year.

I have sooo many questions for Barry (and others) and am reading his notes with great interest. Our projects are amazingly similar in many ways. We're both working with reinforced cement, large water volume, I'm incline towards tempered glass (and have many questions on that) and we're both using natural lighting for the tank. I feel grateful that Barry is blazing a trail and that I stumbled on his path!

Barry, can you tell me about your choice of the 30mm tempered glass?
What were your considerations and why did you go with tempered glass?

I had assumed I would go with tempered and have been reading about glass. My one big concern with tempered is catastrophic failure dumping thousands of gallons of water into the house. Being paranoid I'm designing the house to withstand such an event. Is the "partially tempered" glass you are using somehow less prone to the catastrophic failure? I've not come across a good explination of that term although I've seen it before.

I've also read about laminated glass - and failures of that type of glazing per Adey in Dynamic Aquaria. Did you look at other types of glazings and if so what were your reasons for rejecting them?

Glass is something I've worked with a lot. Most of my experience has been with 1/4" and 1/8" plate glass in much smaller tanks. Acrylic is something I've worked with a little and while I'm not as comfortable with it as glass I can make it perform.

The biggest reason I'm inclined against acrylic because I've seen a lot of very scratched up acrylic tanks. Algae embedded in the scratches looks oh-so nice. Not. I've also read that acrylic yellows with age although I've never seen this.

What I would really like is Scotty's transparent aluminum. (Star Trek reference for those who missed the movies. )

Did you silicone your glass in place? How much? Did you gasket it with neoprene or anything else? I'm thinking of doing a gasket around the RC cement edge of the window frames and under the glass to protect it from the guaranteed roughness of even the best concrete and then silicone between and around. One concern is vast amounts of silicone not curing in the middle.

I'll soon be starting on a 0.1% model and then later a 3% size model to work out some ideas. We're in mud season for perhaps the next month or two so no real construction for a while.

On the barrels you're looking at using, I would be incline to look for food grade plastic barrels rather than the metal ones. I try to keep metal away from the salt water as it seems that eventually it fairs poorly. I use plastic barrels in lots of projects and they're great to work with. Easy to cut and drill and they often come with two tapped holes in the top in sizes from 5 to 60 gallons (19 to 227 liters).

On your concrete, what did you use for water proofing? Last summer I did tests with a number of materials which are additives and spray on coatings for concrete but I haven't settled on a choice yet.

Your photos and descriptions are great. Keep them coming!

Cheers,

-Walter
in Vermont

Speaking of gallons and liters, feet and meters, what standard do people prefer for postings on this forum or does it matter?

 

[Scooterman]

I know for a fact stainless will rust even 316L (L for low carbon) working on deep sea projects I've seen this through the years. I agree in using some type of composite would be more forgiving in the long run. Walter, that is just about awesome, I will enjoy staying with your thread, I have questions but will wait to see a start in your ideas.

 

[ldrhawke]

................

Did you silicone your glass in place? How much? Did you gasket it with neoprene or anything else? I'm thinking of doing a gasket around the RC cement edge of the window frames and under the glass to protect it from the guaranteed roughness of even the best concrete and then silicone between and around. One concern is vast amounts of silicone not curing in the middle...................

Cheers,

-Walter
in Vermont

Your concern is a very valid one. I built a 500g plywood/fiberglass/epoxy coated tank a number of years ago. To seal the glass I used a heavy seam of silicone sealant between the glass and the tank surface. Four months later it started to leak around the glass. I could not stop the leak and it progressively got worse. I had to disassemble the tank and removed the glass, only to discover the center of the silicone bead was still wet and gooey and was the cause of the leak.

The wet silicone chemically eventually reacted and softened the epoxy/fiberglass surface under it. The epoxy pulled away from the fiber glass and plywood, allowing the water to flow behind it. Not a very happy discovery.

Installing a 2" by 1/4" neoprene rubber gasket with a thin layer of silicone between it and the surfaces which allowed the silcone to dry rapidly was the fix.

 

[bc_slc]

Wow, this is such a great thread. It is amazing to see the progress Barry. I am sure you look at it and it seems like it will never be finished (reminds me of my own, much smaller tank). But to all of us, just the difference of placing the front glass piece on makes it look pretty advanced. I can't wait to see this full of water.

 

[highlands]

It is amazing to see the progress Barry.

No kidding! Barry's tank is inspiring! I just showed the thread and photos to my wife. She enjoys seeing my tanks and loves having them around but isn't 'in-to-it' like we tank heads are. But seeing Barry's photos made her want to start making clay models of the house and tank we're going to build. Thanks, Barry! Keep those photos and progress reports coming!

 

[Barry Grossman]

.....help I'm being held captive in an big glass box...

John,

I'll post thumbs of the details but basically the glass to glass joins are about10mm wide but moew than covered by a strip of 5mm latex dipped stainess on the inside whicg is bolted to a polsihed strip of stainless on the outside through the gap at every 20 cm. Basically, if you looked at a cross section from the top the stainless is like a large capital "I" with the glass panels coming in from either side. There is a gap of some 3mm between the stainless strips and glass, both inside the tank and out, which is also filled with silocon aquarioum sealant. No.....we didn't didn't use any sort of gasket although I am hopefull that this will not be propblematic for the glass to galls sseal. the galss to cocrete seals at either side of the tank introduce a whiole nother set of issues that I'm still working on.... Using a gasket may well be the solution.

Yes Scooty, I agree about stainless & rust. That is why I've dipped all stainless that will be exposed to water in latex. Lets see how that goes.

Highlands, Clownfish....thanks for the posts and looking forward to more interaction.....

Barry :shock:


stainless strips on the inside and outside of the tank are t

 

[highlands]

Barry (and others), I've been scouring the web over the last few weeks (which is how I found Barry's thread) for articles on construction of large aquariums using concrete. I've not found much. Does anyone have a list of links on this topic?

 

[Scooterman]

I don't have links but most of the large public aquariums use cement, sorta like swimming pools for reefs, so I know the info is out there. They looked coated like Barry's.

 

[highlands]

I've explored many of their web sites trying to find articles about how they built their tanks without success and have written to four of them - awaiting replies. I thought the New England Aquarium in Boston had something about how they created their tanks but I can't find it.

 

[Scooterman]

Concrete is very porous, it has to be some sort of layering system that soaks deep inside, check into swimming pool construction also, grundite is sprayed on but I think the pools are also sprayed, regardless whatever you find please post it.

 

[highlands]

Concrete is very porous, it has to be some sort of layering system that soaks deep inside, check into swimming pool construction also, grundite is sprayed on but I think the pools are also sprayed, regardless whatever you find please post it.

I have a concrete spraying system and last year did tests with various admixes for water proofing the concrete. I haven't explored the spray on potable water supply coatings yet. Top of the list for this year! More research to go though. We're just losing our snow here in the north country so soon I'll be able to start up outside construction work again.

I've been compiling "Big Tank" lists and notes and I'll post them at some point. I've written to several public aquariums seeking information about how they constructed their displays and we'll see what comes of that. Meanwhile, Barry's project is fascinating and I can't wait to see what he posts next. He's holding his audience in suspence like a great mystery writer!

Cheers,

-Walter
in Vermont
planning the inland sea...

 

[mojoreef]

Walter you want to use Lafarge's Agilia brand of self-leveling concrete and then makes sure you ask for the various other admixtures, used to combat saltwater intrusion, shrinkage cracks and other issues. It works out to be about three times the cost of normal concrete but well worth it. The finish on it is spectacular. If you run into problems finding it ask them to check out what lafarges used of the Atlanta Public Aquarium, I am sure they can find that.


Mike

 

[ldrhawke]

Concrete waterproofing additive for aquariums

 

[highlands]

Do you know if the Xypex is invert safe? Someone on a cement construction discussion list mentioned this product to me. I've not heard from the company yet on my querry.

 

[highlands]

Hey Barry, Any news?

 

[NaH2O]

Barry - I'm curious to how things are coming along, too. Hope all is well