If this is going in a garage, and you are going to spend the cost of the materials to go 60deep and 60 tall. Then why not give the tank some length. Your collection of fish and those you want to add include some big constantly moving tangs.
Assuming this isn't going to be just a box of water, you are going to have some pile of aquascaping in the middle of the tank.
I think building a tank this size for tangs in particular and not providing swimming length is flawed. An Achilles can cross 8' of water in the blink of an eye. Your tank only has room for it to move 8' if it goes diagonally and there are no obstructions blocking it. With these type of fish, which are highly neurotic, not giving them a larger swim length might lead to issues.
Also in a tank of these dimensions when you talk about Naso's, Vlamingi, Unicorn, Dusimerri. And a clown and Sohal, you have a tank where these larger fish won't be able to build up enough speed to escape a psychotic Sohal or Clown tang. One of the beauties of a fish like a blond naso, or a vlamingi and unicorn is watching these fish cruise with the big long streamers. These are fish that are going to aim towards 2' in length + streamers, not giving them room to cruise and stretch out on occassion, when making this kind in investment of time and money seems short sighted.
For tanks in this gallonage there are options - as mentioned above - for the types of equipment. Yes you could spend $650 on an external pump and get equivalent performance of a DC pump. But AC pumps don't have the same Longevity as DC Pumps. Abyzz come with a 10 year warranty - FInd another product in the aquarium hobby that has that kind of faith in their product.
Using a DC pump allows you to place the pump internally in the sump. This alleviate a hole in the sump that has the potential to leak. But more importantly removes the 1000% guaranteed event of a pump seal blowing. Sometimes you catch a seal starting to leak, and sometimes it blows and empties the entire sump onto the floor of the room.
For me personally noise is a huge issue and I'm very sensitive to slight noises. Sitting in a garage with a few big AC pumps humming along and whining would ruin the enjoyment of my aquarium (regardless of dimensions
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For moving the water inside the tank there are several options. Because this is a fish only you need the water moving but not necessarrily chaotically. So perhaps using a bulkhead in each corner and looking at a closed loop pump. Whether AC or DC, would keep you from having to have anything hanging down into the tank and make those 60x60 dimensions look alot better. Using a closed loop with the new inline pump from Panta Rhei, you get a closed loop system that sits flush in the bottom of the tank, pushes a ton of water Something like 12kgph, and then when you want, the pump (being DC) reverses direction and blows all that water in the opposite direction. 2 of these going from corner to corner could provide a great amount of flow. And with fish like the Achilles and the Sohal having a strong current for them will make them alot happier.
When I was running my Surge tank I had a 9 sec flow rate out a 2" pipe with a flow of Approx 22,000 gph. And the Achilles would sit in front of the surge outlet just waiting to fight that current.
As for overflow designs for this tank - Do you picture this tank sitting out in the middle of the room, or up against the wall. Do you want to be able to walk around 4 sides or just 3. I would think 4 side walk around would be cool, and would look at a center tower overflow. Building an overflow large enough for maybe triple 2" drains, double 1.5" or 2" returns and a 2" dry stack. With the dry stack you could bring pump cords up through the bottom of the tank and mount pumps on the overflow and keep the wires out of sight.
Lighting - Depends how bright you want it to be at the bottom foot of the tank.
Skimmer, I believe having one correctly sized skimmer is better than 2 skimmers. Ease of maintenance alone makes up for any 'potential' benefits 2 skimmers may have. However numerous studies have found that 1 skimmer is more effective when skimming than 2 - Things like surface tension, and other cool hydro parameters come into effect which are outside my scope of knowledge. Companies Like MRC, RK2, and the big Bubble Kings could all fit the bill.
Ozone - You will be looking for ozonizers from Ozotech or Clearlife. While most people will recommend a compact little box, take some time to edcuate yourself on a bigger ozonizer. While compact units may claim outputs of 300-500 mg/hr - A) Don't believe any of those values posted on
Amazon B) That's under the most ideal conditions - Which means 0 humidity in the air. The small coronal discharge units are compact and priced right. But they have a pretty short lifespan. Getting a year out of a cheap unit would be an accomplishment. Getting a few years out of an actual aquarium ozonizer would be hopeful and over time the output drops off significantly. Getting a unit with a built in air dryer and dehumidifier thats rated at 1,1.5,2 grams per hour - not running it at 100% will give you 10+ years of use. If you live in a drier climate you might get 15 years out of it.
BioReactors are awesome. People that say no there BS or not needed, don't understand how they function and how efficiently they function. And they never need any maintenace. The only brand I know of that I have used is RK2 and ASM. I have an ASM 48" tall unit that has been running for almost 20 years.
Running UV and Ozone is just double protection. It doesn't do any harm and can help alleviate some maintenace and is parasite preventive. A proper UV for this size system can be as small as 160w given the design of the chamber allows for enough contact time. ASM makes a nice unit that looks like a small torpedo that is cost efficient, space efficient, and is 160w using 4 40w bulbs. I've been running one for 10 years. I know wholesale facilities that have been running the same unit on 6k gallons of water for 20 years. There are other fancier brands and you can easily go up to 400w with the inline Halide DE one on the market. But the risks involved with these is much greater. Risks being maintenance, damage, and fire -- They run a lot hotter than obviously smaller UV's and that 400w is in less that 6" of space. I know of 2 instances when something bad happened to the tank - unexpected and unprepared for that led to the Uv (400w DE Units) to actually start a fire.
For back ground on my experience - I have a 750g tank part of a 1500g system, and my system has been up & running and being upgraded for almost 30 years. I have run collection facilities in foreign countries, designed and built wholesale holding facilities in the US, and worked on personal aquariums in residences up to 3800g.
Dave B
PS - On my own system I run Abyzz Return pumps (2), Bubble King Skimmer, ASM UV, ASM Fluidized Sand Filter, and for intank circulation Panta Rhei ECM 63 and (2) Abyzz Flow Canons.
might want a sunroof for natural light. Sounds like you need large grow lights like Spider Farmer.
