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Cylindrical Acrylic Aquarium

Joined
Aug 13, 2009
Messages
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I'm currently working my butt off at work to scrape up some extra money so my wife will let me get a custom built cylindrical tank. I want to try and keep squid but I'm still working on how to get it built. I was thinking either 36" tall with a 48" diameter, 36" tall with a 60" diameter, or 24" tall with a 60" diameter. I'm going to have a circular overflow box in the center and two returns plumbed at the very bottom just a few inches from the outside wall and directly across from each other. I'm hoping that it will spiral the water up along the wall and keep the squid in the center. Any ideas or improvements anyone?
 
I will also have a sealed lid built onto the tank to keep them from jumpimg out. I'll try to draw a few sketches sometime in the next few days so you can get a beyter idea of what I'm talking about.
 
Doing some measure conversions, that comes out to about 91.44 cm in height by 152.4 cm in diameter (76.2 cm radius). The total volume of the tank is 1668000 cubic centimeters, which is 1668 liters, which is about 440 gallons.
 
Change of plans, I wont be able to have a height of 36" because a standard door is only about 32". So the new height will have to be 24", making it roughly 290 gallons. I'm pretty bumbed about that, but I cant go hacking a door frame apart. My wife would kill me lol.
 
Definitely too small, and, watch out for those wild geese, they can be quite elusive :wink:

L. brevis is pelagic, no sense going there, S. sepioidea has been kept in captivity under lab conditions, but really needs a lot of space. Some Sepia and Octopus species can deal with confined spaces to some extent, but don't "cage" (tank?) (semi)pelagics.
 
This is a quick scribble of what the tank should look like. The overflow will be a cylinder and have teeth like a regular overflow box and will connect from bottom to top. The hole in the center will be the same diameter as the overflow allow full access. You can see the two jest on the bottom pointed clockwise to creat a spiral current. The top will have four identical lids that will be able to screw into place prevent anything from removing them.
 

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I would have said the 36" was too small to start with! Pelagic squid are extremely difficult to keep. Be prepared for an ENORMOUS food bill! As far as I know no squid has ever been trained to take dead food. They will need live food and a great deal of it, they may very well turn cannibal too!
 
I know, most paelegic squid consume roughly 60% of their weight in prey at least and feed twice a day. I have several ideas with different frozen foods in which I will try to train them to eat frozen, but I also have a few ideas of what live food to feed them to help minimize the cost of food. I was really hoping to have the 36" of height to give the squid some depth as I think like cuttlefish they like to feel the depth of the water above them. I've read that during each stage in their lives they stay a specific depth from the surface to avoid predation from birds. I realize that keeping squid is a longshot. That is why I'm desiging this tank to be able to house cuttlefish and octopus as well as a fall back so the tank is not a total loss if squid do not work. I'm also planning on using a 2,600 gph pump to push the water through the system. Like I said I'm hoping to creat a strong current circulating the outside of the tank while keeping the center relatively moderate or slow. Though my truely difficult hurtle to over come is getting the squid back to my house alive and well.
 
My initial thought was to have it like an island so that I could walk all the way around it and the current would circulate around the overflow like a tredmill. How would you design this differently?
 
If I were going to give squid a real go, I would put the drain in the bottom like a jelly cylinder. Having a big tube in the middle of the swimming space seems to beg for them to smash into it.
 
What if I kept the jets where they are but moved the overflow to the wall. There will be two seems where the material meets. I could put an overflow on each seem.
 

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