melypr1985
totally addicted
Welcome to R2R! This will be an exciting build!
1000 gallon shark tank!
- Thread starter LadAShark
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Thanks
DannyB
Active Member
My wife wants a shark really bad. I told her she would have to get me a big reef tank before I get her something big enough for a shark. I can't wait to see this come together. Welcome to R2R!
It's unfortunate that it's so difficult to have a shark IN a reef. Otherwise you could just have one reef shark tank! Though you should be able to keep some corals with a shark as long as they are the sturdier ones and you glue them down where you want them. Good luck keeping any invertebrates other than the ones I listed though
Building it will be fun. Doing it DIY will be fun. Saving money will be fun. The overall project is a logistical nightmare though.
I'm looking for a good, cheap provider of low iron glass, instead of flocking to starphire glass. If it was completely starphire I'm looking at a 4000 dollar cost right off the bat, so I am looking around to minimize that cost. I'm finding it really difficult to find good local providers, so I actually might just import some low iron glass using alibaba.com
I know it's my best bet, but glass is just better in almost every way besides price.
What am I supposed to do with scratches on a tank this big? And what about coralline? I'm bound to get coralline from live rock, how would I remove it from the acrylic? There are just a lot of dilemmas with acrylic that make me worry.
My goodness!
I totally forgot about the cost of live rock! Buying bulk fiji liverock, around 1500 pounds is going to cost me dearly! (Around 2.20 a pound). I'm not gonna give up, but, looks like I will be looking for handouts :/
I might even start up a post on a crowdfunding site for that liverock... Not even the aquarium made me consider that, but the live rock man, the live rock! X.x
Don't get me wrong, I won't be begging for handouts lol! But to say the thought of finding people who would be interested in supporting the addic— hobby hasn't crossed my mind would be lying on my part.
I'm pretty sure I can get all the equipment for under $5000 after doing a huge amount of research, but the live rock alone is gonna be a good $3000-$4000 if I don't try to seed some porous rocks myself.
I'm thinking I might just buy like 100-200 pounds of fancy looking live rock, and work at seeding the remaining rock.
Lol. That weird feeling when building the aquarium can be done cheaper than getting the liverock.
Any suggestions guys?
I totally forgot about the cost of live rock! Buying bulk fiji liverock, around 1500 pounds is going to cost me dearly! (Around 2.20 a pound). I'm not gonna give up, but, looks like I will be looking for handouts :/
I might even start up a post on a crowdfunding site for that liverock... Not even the aquarium made me consider that, but the live rock man, the live rock! X.x
Don't get me wrong, I won't be begging for handouts lol! But to say the thought of finding people who would be interested in supporting the addic— hobby hasn't crossed my mind would be lying on my part.
I'm pretty sure I can get all the equipment for under $5000 after doing a huge amount of research, but the live rock alone is gonna be a good $3000-$4000 if I don't try to seed some porous rocks myself.
I'm thinking I might just buy like 100-200 pounds of fancy looking live rock, and work at seeding the remaining rock.
Lol. That weird feeling when building the aquarium can be done cheaper than getting the liverock.
Any suggestions guys?
icemanalex
Community Member
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Your talking small sharks, I am not familiar with the small versions. What are their adult sizes? Are they specific food eaters? I'm interested , cant wait to see some photos if this gets off the planning stages.
icemanalex
Community Member
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You're not your sorry on the grammer
Well, sounds like a plan. Wonder if there's any good live rock here on the oregon coast?
Would be too warm for any of the critters on it to survive in my tank :/
I am looking into local liverock giveaways and similar stuff to slowly accrue what I need. I think I might just get like 900 lbs of porous dead rock, and then bring in 100 lbs of high quality nice live rock, if worst comes to worst. It's not like I can't afford live rock, just, paying upwards of 3000 dollars for it brings tears to my wallet.
I do, however, plan to get my sand here, because we have some nice black sand beaches
The small sharks are benthic sharks, which means they spend most of their time on the ocean floor. The smaller ones only grow to about 2 feet, and the larger ones (that I will be buying) grow to 3.5 feet.
FL_Reefer
Valuable Member
Welcome to R2R, this is a great community with a wealth of knowledge! I can't wait for this to come together. As I love reef tanks, I have a new found love for sharks (I just don't have a place to put them, maybe my wife will let me drain the pool, lol) also definitely don't be afraid to ask any questions here, the people are great here and will help with anything. Unfortunately I don't know much about sharks but what I do know is that maybe look into building an acrylic tank with rounded ends, you don't want the shark to damage the tips of the noses. Also make sure you look into a good chiller and lastly make sure you have the water storage for large water changes (lots of food for these guys, and messy, lol) O, you may also want to cover the tank too, some can be jumpers and we all don't want that, it's easy to pic up a clown fish, picking up a shark is another story. Maybe you can start with dry rock to save alittle on the cost, that's alot of rock, lol. I will definitely be following along on the one an can't wait to see this come together, best wishes and good luck!
DRAIN THE POOL, DO IT,
I mean, uh, talk to your wife. Haha
Chiller is something I will invest in, despite not having cold water sharks. The summers here in Portland, Oregon get pretty hot recently, so I will have to deal with that. Though, I think chillers aren't too big of a priority.
As for rounded tanks, you'd be right for some of the free swimming species. Catsharks, carpet sharks, horn sharks, and white tipped reef sharks all routinely navigate through areas in the wild that would make your corners look like a playground.
I will be making sure my aquarium is covered, though benthic sharks don't tend to be jumpers.
Dry rock is what I am looking into, yes, but even that doesn't seem cheap for the sheer amount I need. And it also doesn't really beat $2.20 a pound for fiji live rock. And I can even get it shipped for $0.50 a pound. But that's still enough to make me unhappy haha. I think I'll go around asking for donations from nearby reefers LOL. Let's hope they're willkng to help :/
Anyway, I will be trying out some crowdfunding to ease up on the funds a little bit, as it's definitely going to cost quite a bit for the equipment+live stuff combined. Sharks aren't free lol. I'll put up a link when I get around to actually posting it somewhere.
dbrewsky
Active Member
Exciting! Not to be a debby downer, but what you are undertaking is no simple task. 1000+ gallons of saltwater in a residence comes with its own hurdles. If I were you I would spend some time to make sure you are really ready for this commitment. It will definitely be a huge financial, mental, and physical commitment to maintain this system. Planning will be your best friend if you decide to go through and it would be advantageous to spend a significant time developing a working budget for the build, planning equipment and layout and preparing your home for a tank of this size. It will be tempting to jump right in, but if you take the time now to develop a game plan and ensure that this is feasible for you, you will have success and enjoy your new shark tank!
1000 gallons is a considerable investment. If your looking for monetary donations to get u started, how are u going to maintain a tank that size? Not trying to be a pessimist here but there is a lot to consider. The maintenance alone will not be cheap. I have a 300 g reef tank that I know how much it cost. I couldn't imagine 1000 gallons.
I think I forgot to mention the time frame of this project. I will begin building and gathering of materials in 3 months, I hope to have it built within 6 months, and 1 year will be the fully running and operational stage. I'm not going to take any risks here!
and I am aware of the amount of commitment it will take. And planning and planning is the plan! Right now I've been drawing up designs and plans over and and over and throwing several ones to the garbage.I'm considering donations, not because I need them per se, so much as I'm interested in seeing whether a crowd of people would be interested in my goal. I can afford the thing even if I didn't try doing it cheap, but part of the fun for me is being a miser ;P
There's a reason I didn't just go for a 300 gallon, and that's because I knew I could maintain 1000 gallons without subjecting myself to financial instability. It's just safer and makes life easier if people are helping you know? Gives you more bang for your buck really.
I'm mostly wondering whether there would be people interested enough on those sites in my project that they'd be willing to drop a buck or two. That way, I would have a bit more lenience in what I could purchase. I might not be able to justify spending 1000 dollars on rocks, but if people paid me to do it I would! It's a psychological thing for me :/
Now you've gone and made me feel bad about even considering crowdfunding lol.
Anyway, less about how I'm going to fund the tank, more on how I can get cheaper liverock! Lol.
NeptuneGarden
Active Member
I would definitely do much longer, but not as high.
A 4' deep tank will be a serious headache to maintain. You going to go swimming with the sharks on a weekly basis ?
16' long X 4' wide X 2.5' tall
or
12' long X 6' wide X 2.5' tall ..... personal choice
30" tall tanks are the perfect height in my opinion.
Tall, but not so tall you have go in head first to reach the bottom.
Hmm, that's a possibility indeed...
I might just go with that if I can actually get glass in those dimensions. The room I'm going to put it in will be 25'x16' so it would fit ok.
There will be a good 4'' deep sandbed at the very least, so that's a factor to consider, but making it 12' long 6' wide would in fact make it so that the aquarium could accomodate more living things, while taking up a lot more of the footprint of the room though. That would also be close to 1500 gallons lol. Just want to make my life that much harder eh? Haha.
As for the height, I could always just use some sort of elongated tool to operate at all times, although that would be quite awkward indeed.
Ultimately my biggest issue would be using that much of the room's footprint just for the tank, but I'm sure I could pretty quickly convince myself into doing so haha.
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