48" tall reef anyone????/

[oskar reef]

Hello im about to get a 96" Long by 24" wide by 48" TALL Fish tank. wondering if anyone have one with similar height I'm trying to design an aquascape but i can't find any pics on the web for a tank that tall. Is going to be soft and lps reef tank. Thanks in advance

 

[clsanchez77]

Hello im about to get a 96" Long by 24" wide by 48" TALL Fish tank. wondering if anyone have one with similar height I'm trying to design an aquascape but i can't find any pics on the web for a tank that tall. Is going to be soft and lps reef tank. Thanks in advance

Wow. I have a 30" tall tank and it is quite challenging. The main tip I can provide you is to construct a box of the same dimensions of your tank using foam board, but omit the front. The build the aquascape here. Then, epoxy the live rock pieces together into a few large pieces. I ended up create 3 very large rocks from a collection of about twelve smaller rocks. This was much easier to work with in the tank, where the front glass is not removable. This also allows you to verify clearance from the side and back walls.

From a aquascaping standpoint, a PAR meter is even more important with very deep tanks. It just varies too much from top to bottom and this is very important in coral placement.

The biggest challenge I am facing is flow. I thought of everything else in advance. But for flow, I thought for sure two MP40's would be enough, but honestly, they just don't keep the sand bed clean. If I lower them, I blast my corals. If I could do it again, I would have given more thought and planning to my circulation.

Good luck, tall tanks are quite striking as they fill your field of view much better but do have some real maintenance challenges.

 

[Rufus’ goofs]

Will you need a regulator and wetsuit for maintenance? I envision going snorkeling every time I had to "stick my hand in".

It sounds like a lot of dedication and a very fun project.

 

[becks]

I could not imagine anything worse than working on a 4ft tall tank, but it would look good.

 

[Monkeynaut]

It is tough sometimes when there is a rock overhang you want to place coral under. But you can get the coral frags placed with plastic tongs.
Of course my tank is only 33" tall. So you will have an extra foot of your arm in the tank. It will look amazing though.
Like a previous response said. I would try very hard to pin and epoxy the rock work together. That way when you are placing coral later you don't have to worry about the pressure applied to the rock work

 

[Cory]

Hello im about to get a 96" Long by 24" wide by 48" TALL Fish tank. wondering if anyone have one with similar height I'm trying to design an aquascape but i can't find any pics on the web for a tank that tall. Is going to be soft and lps reef tank. Thanks in advance

Get your scuba gear ready lol. Mine is 30" and i can barely reach the bottom lol

 

[oskar reef]

Wow. I have a 30" tall tank and it is quite challenging. The main tip I can provide you is to construct a box of the same dimensions of your tank using foam board, but omit the front. The build the aquascape here. Then, epoxy the live rock pieces together into a few large pieces. I ended up create 3 very large rocks from a collection of about twelve smaller rocks. This was much easier to work with in the tank, where the front glass is not removable. This also allows you to verify clearance from the side and back walls.

From a aquascaping standpoint, a PAR meter is even more important with very deep tanks. It just varies too much from top to bottom and this is very important in coral placement.

The biggest challenge I am facing is flow. I thought of everything else in advance. But for flow, I thought for sure two MP40's would be enough, but honestly, they just don't keep the sand bed clean. If I lower them, I blast my corals. If I could do it again, I would have given more thought and planning to my circulation.

Good luck, tall tanks are quite striking as they fill your field of view much better but do have some real maintenance challenges.

Thanks I appreciate your input.. i know unless I have some powerful lighting is going to be hard to reach the bottom. So I plan on putting most of the corals in top and mushrooms etc on bottom..

 

[oskar reef]

It is tough sometimes when there is a rock overhang you want to place coral under. But you can get the coral frags placed with plastic tongs.
Of course my tank is only 33" tall. So you will have an extra foot of your arm in the tank. It will look amazing though.
Like a previous response said. I would try very hard to pin and epoxy the rock work together. That way when you are placing coral later you don't have to worry about the pressure applied to the rock work

Post a pic of your aquascape thanks

 

[chris k.]

 

[chris k.]

This is a 30 inch tall

 

[Bj’s Reef]

Don't get it. My tank is 30 inches tall, 150 gallons. I have to use a step ladder to do maintenance on it it's hard to reach things on the bottom. I've even had to get one of those grabber sticks for some things. My advice is to get a shorter wider tank. You will be glad you did.

 

[andrewkw]

I can't offer you much advice but I hope you go for it. I've always wanted a tall tank. Maybe not that tall but I think 30" and 36" tanks look so much bigger than actual sizes. 2 of my former LFS had 4x4x4 cube tanks. One was a fish only but with some nice tall rockwork and the other was a semi reef tank.

As long as you put corals on the bottom of the rock you aren't going to want to remove and don't worry about some overtaking others I would think it would be fine. Stuff on the bottom may be difficult to remove but realistically how often are you going to be removing bottom corals? The extra headaches and wet clothes may be worth it to enjoy a unique tank.

 

[chris k.]

I use a small step ladder and a grabber and a plastic pointer if i need to get to the bottom. 30 is max for me i can still just reach the bottom.

 

[landlubber]

48" tall isn't worth the hassle. just dealing with snails that are tipped over would send me into psychotic rage. not to mention a tank with those dimensions is going to have insanely think glass or acrylic with bracing everywhere.

 

[Monkeynaut]

I didn't know products like this existed until today. I wish I had used something like this when doing my aquascape. Since your rockwork will need to go tall. This would help

 

[justingraham]

Check out @locito277 i think his tank is exactly those dimensions

 

[LbulletM]

This is my nightmare.

 

[Monkeynaut]

Never mind the unfinished crown molding or the crab trap I'm working with in the picture.
Like I said it is 33 inches tall, only 19.5 wide and 53 long. It was a custom tank that I got for cheap, the person that ordered it backed out on the seller. You will get to really do some cool things with your aquascape being that it's bigger in every way.

I used super glue and fiberglass rod to pin some of the rocks together. If I could do it over again I would definitely use the concrete stuff from aquaforest that I posted earlier.
Another picture of my aquascape

I also use these grabbers all the time. I would suggest the needle nose type and the claw type. You will find uses for each.

Pay close attention to head restrictions when buying your return pump or pumps. I got one that should have been enough for my tank but it only does 5times the tank volume since it is pumping up that extra foot and has a few bends.

I have the Seneye PAR meter. At the top rock in my aquascape I have the PAR around 300 to 400. At the bottom it is still 100. If I wanted to raise that PAR at the top to 400 to 500 I would be around 100 to 200 at the bottom. I was there in the past but have been struggling with low nutrients lately so I lowered the lights power. What I am getting at is you will be surprised how even the lightning can be even when you get deeper. The reflection on the glass must be what is helping so much.

 

[becks]

When I had a 30" deep tank I did like the way the fish used every inch of height, but doing anything in the tank was chore compared to my reefer 250....20" is the tallest I would ever go now

 

[Monkeynaut]

@oskar reef you definitely have to come back to this thread when you have scaped the tank and post pictures