Upside Down Aquarium
The upside down aquarium is a bit bizzarre, isn't it? I was just playing with the one I made to see if it would even work. The tank it's sitting in is 4 inches by 4 inches by 4 foot long. I had to use a bit of airline tubing to suck the air out of the upside down tank. No way to dunk it and roll it upside down like aakaakaak proposes in this instance.
You have to remember that you need to hold up the upside down tank somehow. That's the long sides on my inverted tank - I wanted them to be as invisible as possible when viewing. The weight is the combined weight of the tank and the water.
The one problem I've had with the upside down tank is that if you let the water level get too low on the tank it's in, it will suck in an air bubble. This usually involves a great amount of splashing of water over the side of the regular tank.
The next upside down aquarium I am going to build will be a 110 gallon with a 49 gallon sitting on top with a 10 gallon sitting on top, inverted. There will be a sump so the tanks will have a constant water level. The photo shows the staging of the tanks.
I have to level the 110 gallon tank as it's sitting on 2 different thicknesses of flooring. I think I need to cut the silicone out of the 110 and re-seal it yet too. I am going to need to make some stainless steel brackets that will hold the 10 gallon tank an inch into the 49 gallon tank. A weir siphon will overflow the water from the upper tank to the lower tank, and then to the sump. I would like to make the water waterfall from the 49 into the 110, but I don't know how to do that without cutting the glass. Maybe building up an extension with plexi around the rim of the 49? A horizon aquarium... hrmm...
The idea is to be part of a 'glass wall' in the basement. It will also be part of an aquaponics setup. The inverted 10 gallon tank will push me over 200 gallons of water total for the AP system. 110+49+10+30 gallon sump, plus 1+ gallon in the canister filter. Not that it really matters, but it is a bragging point. The grow beds will be in the black stand full of junk right now behind the tanks. This system will be a breeding system and fry tank for the outdoor larger aquaponics system that I plan on building this summer.
The other tank that's part of the 'glass wall' is the 75 gallon tank that the inverted tank was sitting on in the photo at my blog that aakaakaak linked too. I've moved, and the 75 now resides in my new basement. The nanotank got broke, so it's out of commission until I replace one of the ends. But it will be set back up on the top of the 75 gallon tank again with the inverted tank in it.
So, I guess I am building a bit of everything here. Terraced tanks, upside down tanks, tanks that feed people...
