j.s Posted May 26, 2004 Share Posted May 26, 2004 Hey all, just after your thoughts about the most cost efficient way of filtering a 20 tank fish room. Would this recommendation change for a 50-60 tank fish room? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canerod Posted May 26, 2004 Share Posted May 26, 2004 hey j.s I'm currently in the process of setting up a fish room as well with about 18 - 24 tanks and I was looking at either multiple tanks filtered thru 1 sump or air driven filters using a large capacity pump. I've just bought 21 tanks that are all plumbed ready for the sump system and the added advantage to that is that you can heat multiple tanks with a couple of heaters in the sump. If the tanks hadn't been drilled i would have used Anitas side drop air driven system (its design is available on this forum somewhere)and heated the room with an oil heater. The advantage to Anitas system is that all the tanks are isolated from each other for disease control. hth Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j.s Posted May 27, 2004 Author Share Posted May 27, 2004 Canerod - Thanks for the reply mate, So by linking up all the tanks and running them through a sump you are using a water pump to power the filtration correct? Whereas with anitas filter you are using large air pump to pump aris into all the filters. Does anyone know which of these will ultimately use more electricity? Or are they much the same? Also, you mentioned heating all of your tanks with a heater in the sump. What a good idea! Do you think you would use less electricity doing this over heating the whole room with an oil heater (assuming the room is well insulated)? Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mbuna Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 i would have to say a large air pump running sponge/dropside/icecream type filters would be the most cost effective way. we all know how much a dozen or so power filters cost and as for heating, use a house hold heater to heat the whole room instead of lots of submersible aquarium types. hth cheers Harry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trofius Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 i think the filtering costs need to take second place to what you actually want to do. A water pump to move a fair bit of water will cost more than an airpump.. But that said using a large sump to filter many tanks , really in effect creates one big tank, so the water will remain more stable, and trabnsfering fish from one tank to the other is a no brainer, in regards to is the water the same etc... However as pointed out it means that all the fish will be affected by each other and if there is any disease the entire system will need to be treated. Although each tank should be able to be isolated, from the sump system. Also water changes become very easy once they are all plumbed up together. Using bublber, corner filters, or side drops is a good way to go in the begining so you can get things going, and then sump them up later as you go, and the fish start making money to pay for the power bill of a water pump.. Also individual filters will isolate any nasties in the one tank. But i have been tild that a big system rarely ever gets any problems due to it stability.. Heating: I am using a reverse cycle aircon to maintain a room temp, heaters can stuff up and cook fish, and in a lot of tanks will cost lots to run, also the aircon can be used to cool the room in summer!!! Hope this helps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j.s Posted May 28, 2004 Author Share Posted May 28, 2004 Cheers for the great replies! I definately like the idea of a running all of the tanks through a sump so unless it is a LOT more expensive then i think i will go for that option - does anyone know approximately how much more expensive the water pump will be to run compared to an air pump? double the cost? less than double? more? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 It really depends on the pumps that you buy to use. roughly your air pump would be about 60-80 Watts and the water pump anything upto about 500w. Personally I would run the water pump for recirculation and filtering. I would also run an air pump with a stone or two in each tank just for a piece of mind. Adam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YeW Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 Hi Guys - I am currently running a small fishroom... I use corner filters or ice cream bucket style filters in most tanks. The fish seem happy with this and are breeding. The biggest advantage is cost! Each tank cost me less than $10 for the filter + filter material. I run 9 tanks currently off one air pump. HTH - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaZ Posted May 29, 2004 Share Posted May 29, 2004 I currently have 6 tanks running off one airpump. 3 are 3x18x18's and 3 are 4x18x18's. The tanks have sidedrops which cost me an extra $20 per tank to have the glass installed while the tanks were being made. The airpump cost me $90 from memory, and the airstones and pipes (for the sidedrop uplifts) cost me around $15 So all up it owes me less than $250, is very easy to maintain and very cheap to run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j.s Posted May 29, 2004 Author Share Posted May 29, 2004 Thanks for the replies guys, I read somewhere that you should aim to have a filtration rate of 3-5 times your total water capacity per hour. If I were to set up a 40 X 200L tank fishroom I would have a total of 8000L. Say I take a middle ground and go for a filtration rate of 4 times my total capacity per hour - i'd need a water pump that worked at a rate of 32000L per hour. I searched on google and found that a water pump beefy enough to pump out at this rate is about 2400 watts. So im thinkin....having one of these running 24/7 would be quite costly i'd imagine. Does anyone have any idea how much it would cost to run something like this? Also, how many watts do you think an air pump strong enough to handle 40 tanks would be? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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