Long Tank Planning.

[mUAr_cHEe]

I have kind of set my mind to doing a tank with internal overflow.

The Cons that I managed to find out and pointed out to me outweigh the Pros that I know of.

Cons.
1. Too much gaseous exchange. Loss of Injected CO2.

Pros
1. Bigger water volume to work with
2. Easier maintenance with a sump.
3. Cleaner Display Tank Look.
4. CONSISTENT Water Level in the Display Tank. (This is a big plus for me. I think I have a slight case of OCD. Although ever picture in my home is straighten. Chairs are all pushed in and stools are all stacked neatly/pushed tightly against the wall before I leave home. Just a few examples.)

Right now, I am just running through some plans, calculating some figures and thinking things through.

In a nutshell, I am thinking of doing a rimless divider/wall tank which separates the living room and dining room.
Going for a 'thinner' tank, I am looking at doing a 6 feet long, 1.5 feet wide and 2 feet tall tank. I am also open to the option of having my tank 2 feet wide for more room to work with.

I have now come to a point where I need to seek the wisdom and opinions of the brothers here.

I have gone through yangqian's 'Project L' thread for some reference. My current aqua-scape in my mind is also inspired (nicer word than 'copy') from him but I want to try to come up with my own idea. I have time for this. No rush here.

First of all, I just want to confirm first that flow rate is preferably at least 10 times of display tank volume, right?

Second of all, for the outlet, I actually would like to try to fabricate a Lily-Pipe-Like outlet for my tank and with the power of the pump generated, I think it would be safer for me to work with PVC pipes rather than glass. Imagine the costs of fabricating a custom Lily Pipe to also work with the flow rate of 6,000 to 8,000 litres.

My questions is how height should I put the pipe?

Planning by mUAr_cHEe, on Flickr

Pardon the kindergarten drawing.

I am worried that if it is too high, the water might spill out as this is a rimless design.

If the outlet is lowered, do you reckon that there will be enough water circulation?

I intend to cover up the pipes as much as possible with rocks and moss to try to maintain that natural look.

Looking forward to your comments. I would be sharing more of my planning here as well so that bros who are planning a similar tank as well in future would have a reference.

[thebaldingaquarist]

Not sure if i understand your tank design correctly, but the pros and cons to me.
Cons.
1. Too much gaseous exchange. Loss of Injected CO2.
2. Noise level is higher compared to silent filter set up
3. if the IOS column is exposed, it can be quite ugly.
4. higher humidity in the place used to contain the sump tank. if you are hiding the sump tank in a cabinet, be sure to use higher quality materials to make the cabinet.


Pros
1. Bigger filter volume to work with (potentially)
2. Easier maintenance with a sump.


just to mention, given the length of the tank, you have to factor in the bracing in the centre of the tank. this is something i missed out as well.
if there is no centre bracing, the tank maker may (not sure about your tank maker.. but mine gave me these 2 options).
1. refuse to provide warranty
2. ask you to use thick (very thick) glass..
3. use a "lid" structure made of wood on the top of the tank... but this option he removed later for unknown reasons.

for lily pipe outlet, you might want to respect the original design, in terms of the distance between the water surface and the pipe outlet. check out the youtube videos for a gauge of the distance mentioned. so the higher your water level, the "higher" the outlet will be.

for outlet camouflage, i always recommend friends to get a pipe that suits the tank scape. if its a rock scape, get a stainless steel outlet to match. if wood scape, get a glass one. objective is to make the outlet less outstanding and concentrate the viewer's perspective to the actual scape, instead of covering it up with more things and thereby shifting the viewer's perspective.

additional notes on sump tank, if you are getting your tank maker to do up the sump system for you, be sure to tell them you are doing a planted tank. the sump inflow is lower for planted tank sump tanks, among other small differences.

PS: your drawing is ok. way better than mine. hahaha. my tank maker did not know what i was drawing.

[Urban Aquaria]

Just to share my experience, i recently helped a friend re-do his planted tank which is 5ft/150cm long, it was originally a sump system but we converted it to using canister filters... and instead of just one large canister filter, we decided to go for 3 medium sized canister filters.

The main reason was because we found with just one inflow and outflow doing the circulation job, it end up creating alot of flow at one area but alot of dead-spots in many other areas (due to the length and size of the tank), we can actually see more algae growth and poorer plant growth in those areas.... that meant installing wave makers and powerheads to cover the dead-spots, which looked unsightly.

After we switched to multiple canister filters, we got multiple pairs of glass lily pipes which could be positioned at strategic points to ensure sufficient circulation in all areas of the tank... in just a few days, we could see the algae issues all disappear and the plant condition looking good across the whole tank.

As a side benefit, the overall current in all areas is more gentle too (no need to focus all the crazy high speed flow in one direction from just one outlet), so the fishes and shrimps also don't get blown all over the place.

Maybe that could be something to consider in your setup too... perhaps can still use a sump system, but see if you can make provisions for multiple outflows to improve circulation.