My Salt Water Tank

[JFoster]

Ok, so I've been taking care of the fish tanks at the school I work at during the summer months and part time during the school year. And may be taking them over completely from now on...

This past week I spent several days overhauling both tanks. I've learned a lot about salt and fresh water tanks last week! Of course it doesn't hurt that both tank setups seem to pretty much be on the upper end of the quality chart. The tanks are custom built acrylic (to fit the enclosures) and each hold 150 gallons of water. Each tank has it's own RO (reverse osmosis) water system for water swaps. Each tank sits in a closet (made for them) and appears as a window from the hallway. Both closets are on a 60 kilowatt backup generator in case we loose power (which happens a lot). There are two main hallways in the school separating the upper and lower grades. Each hall has a tank.

Check it out...

Salt water tank from the front.


Salt water tank from the rear.


Salt water filtration tank/system.


Jon.

[brooklynfish]

Wow, nice tank! I think you could add some more fish to the first tank if you want. Do you know the specs?

[JFoster]

There are actually about a dozen fish, snails and one decent sized shrimp in this tank. They are hiding behind the coral in this shot though. They seem to hide when a lot of activity is going on in front of the tank.

What specs do you want?

Jon.

[brooklynfish]

Lighting, what types of coral, protien skimmer, What that big blue tank is, and pumps.
thanks!

[JFoster]

Ahh... Ok. Lighting is done with overhead fluorescent bulbs. There are two 65 watt blue and two 10k 65 watt white lights. The only coral I know the name of so far is the open brain. Which isn't doing so well thus the major work done to the tanks this week. The protein skimmer is a ASM G-1 with a small air pump on it's side. The blue tank is the storage tank for the RO system. This is the smaller of the two (the other is in the fresh water tank closet) and produces about 5 gallons of water per day. The pump is a mag drive model 12 (I think it's a model 12, I'll have to look at my notes in the morning). The heater is a small 300 watt unit in the bottom of the megaflow model 4 sump filtration tank (on the floor). The fish tank measures 5 feet across, 2 feet high and 2 feet deep. I'm not sure about the fish either. There is a clown fish, a crazy looking shrimp, lots of small crabs, some small snails (that scratch the acrylic if you aren't careful during cleaning time) and a bunch of others I can't ID. I'll try to take more pictures of them this week. Oh ya, there is a small pump in the tank to create current too. I can't remember the model though, something 301... I'll look at my notes for that too.

Jon.

[brooklynfish]

Nice! The brain might not do to well with those lights however. What type of school is this?

BTW, I like the train website. That brings back some memories.....

[JFoster]

The brain seemed ok until a week or so ago. The salinity was a bit low so we mixed up a fresh batch of water. I'll check it in the morning and do a swap if it's ok. The school is a small private school, junior kindergarten through 8th grade.

Thanks, model trains are one of my big hobbies...

Jon.

[Peter2]

that's a really cool tank. and the filtration look's rather complacated.

[mistercoffee]

I had to re-read because I thought that was a tank at your house :-)

VERY NICE!