[Ninong]

[Mikeman]

god bless cable..........



dont u love there aquascaping, that little trench that those cards are going through, also one of the first japanease tanks that is softy

[icemark]

I do love the Japanese tanks... wished I had enough time and money to make mine look that nice.

[Ninong]

Sorry about the size of the pic. Maybe Scott Z. will resize it to fit the screen. I'm afraid I'm not that good with computers.

Anyway, even though we have posted that pic previously I thought I would put it up again so that I could post the store's comments. That is an LFS display tank. I used AltaVista's Babel to translate from Japanese to English but it came out sounding like the owner's manual on my first Olympus camera 30 years ago, so I tried to make sense of it and retranslated it myself.

Tank: 110 ×100 × 55 cm (43.31"L x 39.37"W x 21.65"H) C.P.Farm original design glass tank. Volume = 605 liters or 161 gallons.

Sump: Holds approximately 150 liters (40 gal) of water at normal levels, making the total system volume approximately 750 liters or approximately 200 gallons.

C. P. Farm decided to make their own tank to meet their high standards of design, strength and unique size which they found was unavailable in the market. The tank is all glass but has a stainless steel "framework." (I believe they mean that there is actually a stainless steel frame surrounding the lower side of the tank that is unseen in the picture. I later learned that there is also a stainless steel frame around the top of the tank -- no glass cross bracing or perimeter bracing of any kind.)

The main virtue of their tank design is the degree of freedom it allows for aquascaping compared to the usual long narrow tanks on the market. They wanted more room front-to-back. The overflow is in the right rear corner. The return is also in the right rear corner which allows you to send the water flow on the diagonal which makes for a strong flow throughout the tank.

Also the flow is very strong due to a high turnover rate which causes the flow to surge through the openings of the live rock so that there are no stagnant areas.

In addition, but in the photograph it doesn't show, the stainless steel framework of the aquarium allows for a beautiful thin glass tank. In comparison with other popular tank designs on the market this one provides a sense of relief which we like very much. Especially when considering the aesthetics the picture ratio of length to breadth is the best possible visual balance and the stainless steel framework of the top and bottom (?) is designed to be out of sight. (OK, I admit that I can't figure out this part at all. Is there a steel frame at the top, too? P.S. -- Yes.)

It is important to "polish" the glass surface. Of course you should clean off any coralline algae but the glass surface outside you wipe clean and it looks like it is polished. The large unobstructed opening at the top of the aquarium allows you to clean off the coralline algae extensively, also the fact that the aquascaping is less crowded between the rock group and the glass surface is the secret which permits maintaining a perfectly clean tank.

Illumination: Two 150w 10,000K HQI fixtures, run 10 hrs/day, plus two spotlights (not sure of the type or wattage on these except that at least one of them is 25,000K).

This is generally not enough light for a tank of this size therefore the hard coral must be raised so that it is at a shallow depth. Probably two 250w or four 150w fixtures would be required for most situations with this size tank.

In the case of this tank, the type of coral and its placement means that light intensity is not a problem. The coral which gives out fluorescent color really likes the 25,000K spotlight.

As far as using these blue spotlights is concerned, where the color temperature (Kelvin) is high, as a broad range light source it has rather little intensity. You can't use these for your only light source. For an entire light source you would require something with more daylight spectrum, such as the 6500K etc., which would quicken the growth rate of the coral. However, the growth rate of the coralline algae also becomes quick. (They consider coralline algae on the glass a nuisance that must be dealt with to properly maintain a beautiful aquarium. In another section of their website they admit that one of the drawbacks of this tank is that it is very expensive due to their uncompromising design.)

[Reefland]

I resized the picture for you.

I hope to be able to get that look out my my upcoming tank. I just stopped to get a quote for a new tank; 36x24x20. I'm hoping that the extra depth will allow for some radical scaping!

Scott Z.

[PerryinCA]

Thats a sweet pic! So sweet in fact that our company got permission from CP Farms to use it in our catalog!

-Perry

[coral_king31]

WOW!!!!!! That tank is beautiful! Thanks for posting it again!