170 Gallon Tall

[travis]

Here are some early pictures of a 170G (48"x24"x34") Glass Cages tank I recently set up for a client. I will post follow up pictures as the tank matures.

Getting the tank to the client's house was half of the battle as the client lives in a remote location in the Colorado Rockies at 9000 feet elevation. Here is the view from the balcony outside of his aquarium room.

I used the full ADA substrate system: Powersand Special L, Tourmaline BC, Clear Super, Bacter 100, Aquasoil Malaya, and Aquasoil Malaya Powder. The substrate is rougly 6-7" deep at the back to provide a base deep enough to hold down the large stem plants that were used.

A Current Outer Orbit Pro Series (2x250w 10000K MH, 2x39w T-5 Giesemann 6000K Midday, 2x39w T-5 Giesemann True Actinic) light was used because it provided a lot of wattage in a package small enough to fit inside the canopy and still allow ample air circulation to move the heat away from the metal halides. The 250 watt halides were chosen to provide good light penentration for the foreground plants, even at almost three feet of water depth. Here you can see Major, the client's bull mastiff, inspecting our light mounting in the canopy.

A shot of the client next to the tank to give a sense of scale.

 

[travis]

Although the tank is large at 170 gallons, it is the smallest tank in the house. It resides in the aquarium display room with a 600 gallon and a 500 gallon reef tank.

600G Reef:

500G Reef:

A shot showing the 170G in relation to the reef tanks:

Working with a tank this tall was an interesting challenge, especially planting the foreground. I'm anxious to see how the plants develop with this much growing room (almost three feet of vertical space). This is a rough shot of the tank immediately after planting. I will post further pictures as the tank progresses.

 

[glenc]

Very nice Travis. I posted a few shots of my planted 125 on a reef site once to show the MH lighting I was using. I got a ton of replys that my planted tank was as nice as any reef tank! Not the intention of the post, but nice to hear especially from reefers. I have a feeling your client will be very pleased once the tank fills in. Nice work.

 

[Tom Barr]

Travis, does this guy plan on doing the scaping himself?

34" is a bear.

Seems he'd been better off building a wood wall along the back, or something other than stem plants for the vertical height. Otherwise this becomes a massive headache over time.

That's a lot of light, I'd certainly have a lot of air moving through that hood.
All my client's have large open top designs or enclosed but with a huge room behind it to cool things off. My personal tanks are just open and have excellent cooling.
But at this altitude and most of the year, I'd imagine the heat is likely a good thing.

I'm not so sure about Riccia stones and HC. Hair grass, E tennellus, The Dwarf hygro, C gecko, might be better. His reef tanks look nice though, looks like the sps are doing well and the fish are a good mix.

Regards,
Tom Barr