in floor tank

[sasquatch]

Congrats on a great idea, a thought for you. Imagine a lighting system that drops from the ceiling and is on during your off hours, you could side light the tank for your actual viewing hours, and Im sure with a custom designed reflector you could actually " bend " the light into the tank from the sides. Good luck with your project.Sas

 

[Jeremy0322]

plus even if it goes into the floor how would you make the correct water movement that it is going to need with out rippling the surface water. If that happens then you will not be able to see a thing.

Air could be injected into the water, and then powerheads for movement, and you could have a completely undisturbed surface I suppose. I still dont think its possible to do this setup as a reef though, too many challenges in my opinion

 

[newreefguy]

That would be extremely sweet.... but I'm with erawling on this one though,as nice as that would be it does seem a bit impractical. That's an extremely large amount of water to change.... every other week. I think whatever you decide , WE WANT PICS.

 

[Amnestia]

Actually to be able to see what's in the tank all you have to really get past is the surface layer. Design the tank so that the viewing top of the glass is submerged just half an inch or so below the waters surface. Similar to those small viewing boxes you see at fish stores and such. Have a metal halide built into this glass viewing top and you're set. You can have the water overflowing the sides of the tank (so the tank itself is one huge overflow) and have a glass tray or such underneath the tank that collects the water. Let me get a drawing going!

So the red things are lights, there might be a glare but if there is you can always situate the lights right against the glass which would prevent glare from the side and if the angles are right you can still get a great mid-area for viewing.

 

[Jeremy0322]

Its still my opinion that this is far more money than its worth. For the cost of something like this you could set up a normal tank that was twice the size for probably around the same cost.

 

[Luukosian]

Don't have any opinion on peta's argument on this video but thought this in floor tank was neat....even though I'm sure it freaked the fish out having loud music and people dancing on the top.


LiveLeak.com - PETA asks club to change aquarium dance floor

 

[Amnestia]

poor fish...

 

[Clownfish518]

I don't see how it will work. TO get a decent view of the tank, the glass would have to touch the surface of the water. That will seriously impede gas exchange. I bet the glass would encrust with algae, and get scratched if people walked on it over time. How do you access to do maintenance?

Sounds cool; I doubt the feasibility

 

[ShootMe]

I saw this done before on reefcentral once. The guy was in Portugal and the tank was outside and was lit by the sun. From what I remember he had it as a full blown sps reef. He set it up so the tank was in the ground but the water was pumped to a support room he had built outside which was where he preformed the water changes and where the equipment was located.

 

[Opsanus tau]

This is do-able, and yes the water would need to be touching the glass.
The tank could be built like an "L", with the horizontal part of the "L" being the tank, and the vertical part, acting as a snorkel/access area/gas exchange.

The top part could be in another room, and would have to be large, but could be viewed as a whole separate "cube" tank in a separate room or something.
You may need to build it like a "U" with two access areas, (one on either side).

Never say never
-Crazy Dave

 

[Future]

Do you REALLY want to walk on top of the tank? You would need some hell-a-thick glass/acrylic in order to do so. Then the chemicals used for cleaning the floor/glass will end up pooling in the seams/crevaces. Then what happens when something drops or falls onto the top of it?
You'll also have to considder "settling". When something is built, over the years it slowly changes form from weight, movements, weather, etc... You could build this pin-point perfect to the millimeter, then find the floor began to settle and is now adding an additional 2000lbs onto the aquarium surface.

Awesome idea, but too many negatives in doing it and the structural integrety just isn't there.

 

[l3fty999]

:bluenod:

we are in the process of building our dream home. my wife as come up with the crazy idea of sinking a 4' wide x 8' long 2' deep tank in the floor. while this is do -able. cannot figure a way to light the tank other than from the sides which i dont think would let enough light for the corals.. any thoughts

Wow man, you've just overcome the biggest obsticle, you WIFE came up with this idea. And you're concerened about something as trivial as lighting.... as I've said before, she said,"It's either me or your fish!" Well, I don't miss her one bit...

 

[l3fty999]

I don't see how it will work. TO get a decent view of the tank, the glass would have to touch the surface of the water. That will seriously impede gas exchange. I bet the glass would encrust with algae, and get scratched if people walked on it over time. How do you access to do maintenance?

Sounds cool; I doubt the feasibility

Well, gee, what in the heck do you think SUMPS are for? Add a sump, I'll leave the engineering up to you.... but, as I said, the hard part is already done, your wife approves... figure out a way to lift the glass for occasional cleaning, or even better, (just for the sake of fantasy) make it big enough for somebody to dive in there and clean it from the inside... wow, I need to put down the lighter and step away from the pipe.... But seriously, if you both can support this, might as well give it a thought....