6ft tall aquarium... filter/fish options?

[Gundy]

Well I was getting ready to leave town this morning to visit my parents for the weekend, while waiting on the wife to get ready I checked the garage sale classifieds to see if any aquariums were for sale. Sure enough I found a 6 FOOT hex aquarium for sale for 10$. I figured it was a 6 GALLON and a typo in the ads. Well after calling it is a 6 FOOT aquarium that the fella used for a corner showpiece in one of his offices. However he was getting rid of it because it was just sitting in his garage. I bolted over just before leaving town to check it out in person, and decided to pick it up. Its acrlyic custom designed hex design. And it is 6 FEET tall :O. It doesn't have a lid, filter, or any type of light so I need some input on how or what would be powerful enough to push enough water to successfully circulate to filter? Not to mention some sort of fish that would actually take advantage of the depth of this tank.

I figure I can rig some sort of lid up with some light fixtures for some floursecent lights.

The fella said his daughter put goldfish in it and they survived but apparently something happened with the office and he needed to move stuff. I figure at the least if I can't find any use for it, I could fix it/clean it up and sell it on craigslist or a local auction for a decent price.

I was thinking clown loaches, as I have been eyeing them at the LFS however I heard that they get rather big. This tank has a width of about 12 inches and again, is 6 feet tall.

Any tips for gear/fish? Seems like a fun project to build a lid and filter situation.

 

[ezy33]

I would suggest a sump as the surface to air ratio is so small. The sump would add surface area to add oxygen to the water, or it may only hold about the same amount of fish a ten to 20 gallon. If you have strong enough light live plants would help Too. As for a pump with a six foot head I would guess a 900 GPH or more. some one correct me if I'm all wet on this.

 

[Gundy]

How much would one of these sumps cost? I thought about live plants, but I figured there wouldn't be enough light to reach the bottom surface to hit the plants.

I didn't expect many fish to put in the tank, just something different then the couple of tanks we have now ( barbs, neons, guppies, crays ).

 

[ezy33]

How much would one of these sumps cost?

I use old Plexi tanks or you can use a rubbermaid tub. Look them up on line under wet/dry filter they run about $150. It's just a tank where water runs through filter media then into a sump where it's pumped back into the tank.Of course you'll also need a overflow. I found my first system on craigs list for $100. Now I build my own. http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/wetdry.htm

 

[Gundy]

Is that my only option? I don't really want to dump that much money into this tank.

 

[ezy33]

No. just keep the fish to a minium, maybe 4 guppies 2 Gourami and a small cat. With a 6' head, filtering may be challenged.

 

[Gundy]

Yeah I dont need to stock the tank fully. I was thinking of just a couple of different fish. Some sort of catfish, or something that would swim up and down the depth of the tank.

So just a powerhead filter (forgive me, im new to this hobby)? It had an undergravel filter in it at the time, but I dumped that crap in the trash, heard nothing but bad things about it.

Which brings up a new question, how in the world do you gravel vac the bottom :O. Lower my wife by her ankles in the tank? /sarcasm..

 

[Acer]

you can mod an aqua-clear by attaching a hose to the intake tube, a simple stainless steel clamp & some food grade hose should do the trick, i would also make sure there is some kind of strainer to make sure no curious fish from getting sucked up... by doing this you can reduce the amount of food that would build up on the bottom. also for such a long tank i would make sure to have a couple of apple snails as clean up for any un eaten food that the filter might not suck up...

 

[Gundy]

Forgot I had this thread. I've actually decided to mod it into a 6 foot long aquarium. Have a custom piece being made to fix on the end, going to seal it and cut a hole along the side where the new top will be. This will provide a nice long tank with a great custom look. Planning on two sponge filters in the opposite ends of the tank which should be enough filtering.

I'm thinking this is going to be a great crayfish tank, maybe a catfish tank or something not sure yet. In the midst of getting a stand build at the moment to while waiting for the custom end piece.

What sort of glue could I use, silicone sealant will hold it enough?

 

[BushFishRox]

because it is acrlyic you will need to get the acrlyic welded other wise it will probably burst.

I dont want to sound rude but instead of running out and buying this you should of planed this out a little more, going by the dimensions this tank is pretty useless which is probalbly why it was sitting in his garage and sold it for $10

 

[hulkamaniac]

because it is acrlyic you will need to get the acrlyic welded other wise it will probably burst.

I dont want to sound rude but instead of running out and buying this you should of planed this out a little more, going by the dimensions this tank is pretty useless which is probalbly why it was sitting in his garage and sold it for $10

For $10 I'd probably have done the exact same thing. Though I have to admit it probably would just sit in my garage to as I wouldn't have the time or money to do anything with it.

 

[Gundy]

I really don't care.. 10$ isn't anything for an aquarium. Waiting and planning would've made me totally miss the deal, which has happened more times then I can count for ads listed locally.

Its great to be able to work on it as a project. Not to mention I have plenty of hookups to get the acrylic setup.

I am NOT dumping 200$ in something where fish won't even swim the depth of the tank. Laying it horizontal will make it a great crayfish community tank which is the idea im going with.

 

[BushFishRox]

if you do research on fish then you will be able to get fish that swim at different levels of the tank to fill it up with a nice community, not all fish swim the entire levels of the tank.

just make sure you get your acrylic piece welded (epoxied/cold welded) in because silicone wont do the job with acrylic...

also you tank is about 115gals so you might want to beef up your planned filtration...

 

[BillD]

That tank is not 115 gallons,or even half of that. That tank could also make a fine hillstream loach tank if you could get the flow, high enough. With acrylic, it would be easy to drill for bulkheads at each end.

 

[tropicfishman]

plan on making a siphon to reach the bottom of the gravel for cleaning lol

 

[Sicklid]

My two cents, if I understand correctly, the tank still won't have enough surface area if filled to the top, even on the long side horizontally... I would fill it halfway, so the surface area will be the largest it could be, if it was mine. Which makes it sound pretty weird looking for an aquarium.. what the heck angle are you going to view a horizontal hex tank from? :?