Reef on a 63' Yacht

[tmelhiser]

Hello Folks....

And thanks for tuning in to tonights random question.

We are just about to purchase a little boat to run around on. The question I have is, can you imagine a way to keep a reef tank on a 63' Yacht without it spilling during the pitch and role of the ocean....

Well, now here comes my wifes question, and I have to admit she has a small point... "Why the @*!(#&$^ do you want one when we will be in the middle of the reef every night?!"

So basically, I am looking for all the mechanical reasons this will fail and I why should avoid 75g of additional ocean water sitting needlessly in my salon.

(my contention is that at worst it will prepare us for when we sink... but I don't think this is a winning argument!!

-T

[blindside]

I think you should find a way to do it and then post pics of your success!!

[caferacermike]

Cause once when I was a wee lad I was asked to go out my friends 32' sailboat in Lake Michigan. Being that we were both avid fisherman at the time we stocked up on some additional gear. We normally did not fish with live minnows but it was suggested to us. We put a 10g tank, with about 4 dozen minnows, on the dining table below and went up on deck ready to do some fishing. Well his Dad got us just about out of the piers when bad weather struck. The waves rolling in from the lake were about 5' tall and all we could do was ride through them head on. Sure enough the tank slid off and broke all over the place. The smell of those minnows took months to go away.

I'm sure you'd be better prepared but hey, you never know.

Here is what I'd attempt, some credit would be need to be sent towards the Asian fish keepers I know. They tend to prefer keeping wet/dry filters above the tank and allow the water to drain back into the tank. So maybe have a special acrylic tank made up at Tenecor that was near the same dimensions as a 75g tank but make it about 34" deep (that's about as deep as you can possibly reach with your arm). Then have yourself a corner overflow made up that is the same as a 75g. This way you can keep the water level the same as a 75g tank but have plenty of room for water to move to in case of pitch and yaw. Epoxy all of the rock work in place so it cannot move and keep simple corals that won't be affected much in case of heavy waves. Plus you probably don't want calcium reactors, and dosing eqpt all over the place. I'd then attempt to figure out a way to put a skimmer inside the tank up high enough where it would be out of sight. Have a pump in the overflow box push water up to a small recirculating skimmer and then pass it through a bubble chamber at the other end of the tank so micro bubbles could be removed. Then use internal streams like Tunze or Vortech for flow. Have it built in so that a canopy covers up all the extra space and makes it look like a nice 60-75g tank.

Wouldn't it be cool if you didn't need a wavebox because the water in the tank pitched at the same rate as the boat?

[tropheusmaster]

I have often wondered this myself. if you had a lid on the tank that closed and locked air tight to prevent the spill, however no air in or out not good. so maybe some holes drilled in top. with a small tube. idk the square tank filled to max would stop the crash of water inside the tank but no air holes could be drilled like that. heck i give up

[prof]

Ok, here is the solution

You are on the ocean so you have a constant supply of salt water. If you plumb it like a live well you would not need any fancy filtration. Just pump sea water through the tank. You would still want a mechanical filter to keep ocean trash from getting to the tank but you could do that inline and not have to worry with a sump, skimmer, or anything else. With this design you could almost get away with having a sealed (or nearly sealed) tank.

I would definitley use an acrylic tank. They bend much more before they break

Dave

[manhorsedog]

if you tried something with just a top down view, as in putting the tank in the ground and have the rocks and coral extremely stable (will never mover stable) it just might work.

[tropheusmaster]

guppy has good ideal, also depends on how much the waves will affect the boat