Hey guys I'm buying a large new home soon. I was wondering can a reef pond exist in the outdoors with an extendable cover when it rains . I live in the tropics. The idea is to filter out pollutants using carbon, dose with very large amounts calcium, Magnesium and other elements. Lighting is coming from the sun. Lastly rodi will be used to fill up the pond if the water level gets too low. All would be run and monitored by a computer. the pond is meant to be 40m long by 15m wide by 3m deep, or 6340129 US gallons. At that point I would have to get custom wave pumps. The budget is supposed to be $50M USD. with maintenance being $5M USD I'm just checking to see if you guys think this is possible?
I assume you want comments
. So here you go: First - almost anything is possible. If you're asking does it make complete sense? thats a different question.
1. I'm not sure living in the tropics is going to be enough to heat / cool this type of system. It might be 103 degrees in the 'air' - and 60 degrees underground. (during the day). So you are likely going to need some kind of temperature regulation. Its not like you're going to have billions of gallons of water that is not going to change temperature 'that much' like on a real reef.
2. With a 3 meter depth, what are you expecting to 'see' with just the sun?
3. I'm not sure that a fully retractable cover is needed - I guess it depends on the annual rainfall where you are? And how often it rains. I would not want to be outside at 1AM - every time it rains.
4. Are you putting in corals? Or just fish? (Hopefully big fish).
5. How much RODI are you going to 'store'.
6. Where are you going to get the saltwater?
7. I don't understand the need for large amounts of calcium, magnesium and 'other elements'if you do not have corals - where will they be going?
Sorry. Don't want to sound negative. But I am curious - why a 'pond' - with all the inherent maintenance you would not have with a huge indoor aquarium? I have a 40x20 foot swimming pool and the maintenance is huge. A lets say 5000 gallon tank in your house - or even larger - could be done with much less money (I know that is not an issue) - and MUCH less maintenance - again - you asked for opinions
. if you do it - make sure to post it as you do
