I have kept a few temperate saltwater tanks, but none at home. But I have attempted to collect my knowledge gained from my previous tanks to build a nice tank keeping fauna from our west coast in Sweden. The east coast is brackish, we do not speak fondly of that...
This tank will focus on smaller and less active creatures, the tank is a bit small for active fish and the flow requirements goes down with this direction. It will have a sump for keeping the skimmer in and perhaps offer a refugium. The tank will have two viewing sides and stand next to my tropical tank as a room divider. It will have no macro algae so lighting requirements are non-existent. I have a small chiller so to prevent noise and overworking the unit the tank has to be well insulated. The tank is already up an running by now but I will tell the build from the start
I ordered the tank at the same time as my tropical tank. It was a very long wait before the tanks arrived, the insulation I opted to do myself. Was unsure if I could convey what I wanted the tank builder to create.
Here is the tank naked! A production shot from the workshop. It has a overflow box with the popular two down, one up solution. By now I sort of regret this choice. I have another place where the return could go instead, but I can just cap of the return hole and put in the new return if I feel that I should do that one day. The dimensions of the tank is 57 by 70 by 50 cm. Which becomes about 22 by 27 by 20 inches.
One lucky the tanks finally arrived. I put most of my effort on starting the tropical tank first so this waited for a few months until I was ready. I also tested prototyping the insulation on two other tanks so I could hopefully avoid some mistakes working on this. The craftsmanship on the tanks is fabulous, almost made me feel guilty insulating this one... But only almost.
The insulation has two solutions which are different depending on if you want to have a viewing window or not. The non-viewing sides are covered with 20 mm(1") Styrofoam, first I apply black plastic film and then I put some silicone which glues the Styrofoam to the side. I did this on the bottom and two short ends. The viewing sides have double glazing instead, I use aluminium extrusions as spacers and silicone as glue and sealant and then add another glass pane. Doing this is a pain because you always get some dust inside the glass. So now I have a strand of hair on one side which will always be there.... The double glazing is actually more effective as an insulator than the Styrofoam. But it is more fragile, harder to make and a lot more expensive than the styrofoam solution.
I will dress up the edges later with some trim. There is also some silica gel between the panes, my home is very dry though so I hope condensation will not be a problem. But might just as well put some there. The trim will also cover the Styrofoam.
Here are the two tanks back to back. The trim is still missing of course. I have yet to create it... But you get the idea. The temperate tank was ordered slightly thinner than the tropical tank, so that they would match up with the double glazing applied.
Here is the tank just set up. I tried hiding the pumps between the rocks, this worked ok... The idea is great, but they suck up sand and get damaged. Might work with gravel and does work great with bare bottom tanks. I will replace the left one with a Tunze 6020 attached to the overflow box. The light is an Ikea LED reading light, it's a 2w LED with fairly sharp lens, it creates this wonderful pattern on the bottom though. A bit warm perhaps but I am not too bothered. It is a pleasant light, I don't want the tank to look sterile either. The sand is some sort of white Cichlid sand and the rocks are... rocks. As of yet there are very few "rules" about what is good and not good in temperate saltwater tanks when discussing sand and rocks so I use what I fancy Might put some live rock in the sump though, together with some good filter media. The pretty(and very heavy) solid rocks do not offer much in way of surface area for bacteria...
The next post will proceed with the sump installation and complications that it came with.
This tank will focus on smaller and less active creatures, the tank is a bit small for active fish and the flow requirements goes down with this direction. It will have a sump for keeping the skimmer in and perhaps offer a refugium. The tank will have two viewing sides and stand next to my tropical tank as a room divider. It will have no macro algae so lighting requirements are non-existent. I have a small chiller so to prevent noise and overworking the unit the tank has to be well insulated. The tank is already up an running by now but I will tell the build from the start
I ordered the tank at the same time as my tropical tank. It was a very long wait before the tanks arrived, the insulation I opted to do myself. Was unsure if I could convey what I wanted the tank builder to create.
Here is the tank naked! A production shot from the workshop. It has a overflow box with the popular two down, one up solution. By now I sort of regret this choice. I have another place where the return could go instead, but I can just cap of the return hole and put in the new return if I feel that I should do that one day. The dimensions of the tank is 57 by 70 by 50 cm. Which becomes about 22 by 27 by 20 inches.
One lucky the tanks finally arrived. I put most of my effort on starting the tropical tank first so this waited for a few months until I was ready. I also tested prototyping the insulation on two other tanks so I could hopefully avoid some mistakes working on this. The craftsmanship on the tanks is fabulous, almost made me feel guilty insulating this one... But only almost.
The insulation has two solutions which are different depending on if you want to have a viewing window or not. The non-viewing sides are covered with 20 mm(1") Styrofoam, first I apply black plastic film and then I put some silicone which glues the Styrofoam to the side. I did this on the bottom and two short ends. The viewing sides have double glazing instead, I use aluminium extrusions as spacers and silicone as glue and sealant and then add another glass pane. Doing this is a pain because you always get some dust inside the glass. So now I have a strand of hair on one side which will always be there.... The double glazing is actually more effective as an insulator than the Styrofoam. But it is more fragile, harder to make and a lot more expensive than the styrofoam solution.
I will dress up the edges later with some trim. There is also some silica gel between the panes, my home is very dry though so I hope condensation will not be a problem. But might just as well put some there. The trim will also cover the Styrofoam.
Here are the two tanks back to back. The trim is still missing of course. I have yet to create it... But you get the idea. The temperate tank was ordered slightly thinner than the tropical tank, so that they would match up with the double glazing applied.
Here is the tank just set up. I tried hiding the pumps between the rocks, this worked ok... The idea is great, but they suck up sand and get damaged. Might work with gravel and does work great with bare bottom tanks. I will replace the left one with a Tunze 6020 attached to the overflow box. The light is an Ikea LED reading light, it's a 2w LED with fairly sharp lens, it creates this wonderful pattern on the bottom though. A bit warm perhaps but I am not too bothered. It is a pleasant light, I don't want the tank to look sterile either. The sand is some sort of white Cichlid sand and the rocks are... rocks. As of yet there are very few "rules" about what is good and not good in temperate saltwater tanks when discussing sand and rocks so I use what I fancy Might put some live rock in the sump though, together with some good filter media. The pretty(and very heavy) solid rocks do not offer much in way of surface area for bacteria...
The next post will proceed with the sump installation and complications that it came with.