I have been working on a 500 gallon plywood tank for my rec room. Problem is I want to have to do as little maintenance on it as possible. I have setup a 200 gallon tank in my garage for testing and have found that the biggest problem I am having is keeping the nitrates under control.

Doing weekly water changes on the final tank is out of the question the amount of work involved is just too much so I am looking at a way to keep the water healthy without all the overhead.

I have worked out ways to clean the tank substrate automatically and the filtration system I built works great but as soon as I introduce live fish (using feeders for now) I see a jump in nitrates and I need to be able to deal with that.

Tank Info

I built a custom filtration system using Plexiglas boxes pumped using an old swimming pool pump system. This gives me a very high flow and I was able to split up the return flow to allow for a system that deposits debris into an area of the tank that is automatically siphoned works great to keep debris down. And the tank floor always looks clean

I will not be using live plants. Again too much maintenance and the O's just kill them all anyway. I am using artificial plants anchored to the floor of the aquarium to prevent them from ripping them up.

I use a sand substrate as it is easy to keep clean and I use trumpet snails to sift the gasses and debris seems to work really well although the O's love the snails so I am constantly replenishing them

I have five electronic heaters situated throughout the tank maintaining a Temp of 81 - 82 F.

I have found that the O's love dusk so instead of using a large hood lighting system I have opted for LED lighting. This allows me to light up different areas of the tank with varying brightness and color.

I have been working on this for a long time and my wife has finally put her foot down. Any ideas enhancements or the like would be gratefully considered.

HOT DAMN! I want pics!!!!! Please

LOL I knew that was coming. Ok I am picking up a Digital camera and i will post pics ASAP

Does that mean you one hunni? lol

Nicki--Sue wrote:

what i do in my tank is use floating live plants like elodea or hornwort. They keep the nitrates managable and my oscars dont bother them too much. I tied them to a piece of fishing line tied to the outside of the tank so they dont float into the filter intake.

I think you will not be able to do without the waterchanges.
But if you drill a hole at One third from the top you can drain 30% of your water pretty easily.
Ad a steady tap to the tank to refill, and wc will be very little hassle.
just opening one valve, waiting and turning on your tap.
I've been researching for a 600Gl but found out it was out of my league...

the best you can do is install a deltec nitrate reactor. you need a alcohol reactor as the sulphur will cause PH problems. the alcohol based unit will still mean you need to watch the ph, but they are not as bad. cost more though.also more to run, as you need to feed them vodka and yes you will still need to change a fair amount of water. there will never be another solution other than less fish.
www.theaquariumsolution.com/nfp616p-nitrate-filter-pump

just like Noddy, and i am sure many others I too have considered large tanks, as i like large fish, but the cost isn't cheap. OFL opened my eyes to the cost of running a large tank. I didn't consider the cost until he mentioned it. easy to over look when you want something so much.

I saw a 300 gallon tank on craigslist a while back for $400 and decided against it because by time I got the stand and everything to run the thing, I probably would have been $1000 into it. Would have been awesome to have a tank that big though.

Welcome to the biggest pain in keeping freshwater fish, you need to do water changes to keep nitrates low!!!!!

There are 2 ways to keep nitrates down

1- Water changes

2- Keep the bioload down, the easiest way is to keep stocking levels low