[linuxguru]

Hello everyone!

Well this is the deal, now that I have started going back to school, I recently found out that my Psychology professor has a 2000 gallon tank smack dab in the middle of her house. After speaking with her for abt an hour or so after class one day, she popped the question and asked if I would be interested in maintaining her tank (pay of course) and get her on the right track.

She had this tank custom built for her about 3 years ago, it is a very deep tank, 2” thick acrylic walls, I will get back to everyone on the exact dimensions Friday evening. It has abt an 8-10 inch sand bed of pure crushed coral(the bigger stuff). She has about nine rather large fish ( Tomato Clown, Green Wolf Eel, 2 Scat fish (Which I thought were brackish water fish), Picasso Trigger, Lunare Wrasse, Hawkfish, Niger Trigger and a Yellow tang. By what I observed, none of the fish seemed bothered or bullied. The tank was custom built with two (fake, coral/live rock tower structures) on each side of the tank, that act as overflows which drain the water to a sump in her basement.

She has NO idea whatsoever what it actually takes to maintain a tank of that size successfully; she just enjoys looking at the fish. Herself personally, has NEVER checked for ammonia, nitrates, pH, phosphate etc…..she has always hired youngsters from Petco from time to time to change her saltwater and that’s really about it!

For the size of the tank (2000 gal.), she has not one piece of actual real live rock at all! Never runs carbon, phosphate remover etc… she does have it rigged where it runs into a couple sumps thought, first sump runs through some kind of “Sand Filter” it is actually filled with minute sand and the other sump goes through a “ReefConcepts” protein skimmer.

To make this short, I decided to take the job permanently and get her going correctly. I have maintained many tanks personally with much success of which my 200 gallon is the biggest I have ever had the chance to play with. This tank is 10x the size of my 200 and although I believe I think I know what to do, I need EVERYONE’S personal advice on how and where I should get started I definitely will not claim to know everything, so please everyone and anyone give me some opinions. I want to make her happy and at the same time would love the knowledge and experience of maintaining a tank of this size. I will test ALL the water parameters on Friday before doing any water changes, adding media etc… and post them here in the evening. Below are some pictures to give some more insight….I will have more pictures of the tank Friday evening….ok everyone, let me have it!

[WillieM96]

That setup is INSANE!!! Good luck with it!

[Ninong]

Good luck!

You may be biting off more than you can chew if it is your hope to change this setup to one that is more like what most hobbyists would want in their homes.

As it stands right now, it looks more like the marine tank displays you find in commercial establishments such as restaurants and shopping malls and even some expensive private homes. That approach calls for a wide variety of saltwater fish selected for their appearance rather than anything else and artificial decorations. This sort of a tank may run high nitrates (e.g., 200+ ppm). Most fish can survive high nitrate levels for years. We know this from some public aquaria records.

If you hope to convert this into a fish-only with live rock tank, you have a huge task ahead of you. You would have to remove all of the fish to temporary quarters while you removed all of the artificial decoration and all of the crushed coral substrate. That would be a huge undertaking.

Have fun!



P.S. -- I assume there is a closed canopy over the top of the tank and the humidity is being vented out of the house, right? What sort of lighting is she using right now?

[zens]

looks like there's live rock in the sumps. i see no real reason to change anything. setup looks pretty solid.

you could suck all the crushed coral out and put some aragamax sand in.

[zhenya]

I probably would not change many things either. The one thing that jumps at me, looking through photographs, is that it looks like the skimmer is doing absolutely nothing. That would be the first thing that I would address, just check out the pump that drives it and all the plumbing.
I agree with Ninong that there may be some higher levels of NO3 present in set up like this, but it could be corrected with some hard work and few additional pieces in the set up. Maybe adding large size refugium would help to reduce some of the NO3, and I would check what source water is being used for whater changes and if it was set up with tap water or not.

Good luck!

[linuxguru]

Sorry everyone, I was half way to her house when I realized I left my camera behind (30 min drive one way), but I promise to have more tomorrow as I will be going back. I had her order a refractometer, all salifert test kits, an electronic pH monitor and they haven’t came in yet, but as soon as they do, I will post all water parameters.
I did check the skimmer, cleaned out the collection cup, adjusted the water level, but it seems weak to me? Now on to the fluidized sand filter, she says she definitely wants to keep that because it “Looks Pretty”, weird…..anyway, the sand in the filter is extremely fine, and I was wondering if I could use purigen, or hyper-sorb by seachem as an alternate media? Thanks for all the suggestions everyone, keep’em coming. I will definitely keep everyone informed and post more pictures……

[linuxguru]

Hello again everyone, well I went over to her house again today and took my TDS meter. She uses some type of RO/DI unit I just could not find the brand. I also took more pictures. Before I tested her filtered water, I calibrated my unit and tested it in some distilled water the readings were 000-001, fluctuating but hanging on to the 000 most of the time. My meter is working, I then tested my RO/DI unit at home and the readings were 008, maybe time for some cartridge changes. Well I made it to her house and tested the water straight from her RO/DI after letting it run for an hour or so and came up with readings of “206”, definitely time for cartridge changes, but I’m not sure the unit performs correctly so we talked about different RO/DI units for a while.
She told me she wants to definitely add live rock, but is unsure what kind of tank she would want it to be down the road, ex..aggressive, reef type, community etc…so anyway I didn’t think it was extremely important at the moment so we moved on. So my main concerns now are her RO/DI problems, and ordering live rock….also, any suggestions on the sand filter, can I use any other type of media hypersorb etc….here are some more pics…I am also concerned with filtration, there is none whatsoever in the tank except what the little spraybars on the top of the tank to returning the water. Any good wave makers anyone could suggest?


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