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Looking for opinion on new ceph tank

SandV

Wonderpus
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Oct 16, 2007
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My husband and I are upgrading our reef system and will be setting up an octo tank again (so excited!!!) Ordered yesterday is a 300 gal, 6 foot deep dimension display to sit in place of our 120 gal. We have 2 100 troughs, one holds our skimmer and other equipment, and the other is used as a frag tank.

So...the plan is that once the new tank is in place and up and going, is to add an octo tank to the side of the display and plumb it into the system.

Where my question comes in is, what size of octo tank? I have a 40 gal breeder (36x18x16) that I was planning on using, but I don't want them to be cramped and stressed. I am probably going to get an O. briareus from Tom. I am not worried about bio load or stability, just the octo's happiness. So my plan B was to get a 65 gal (36x18x24). What do you all think? I just don't want to spend the extra money if I don't have to, but I don't want to compromise them either. Thanks
 
65 gallons will fit an O. briareus, and I love the dimensions btw. I personally favor tanks that happen to be 18" or more in width. Not sure if the 40 gall would work though....
 
The 40 breeder is likely long enough (about the foot print of a 55 right?) but not tall enough (I don't envy you cleaning the 6' deep tank, I have a rough time with my 3' tank). Without recording actual events, I have come to the conclusion that O. briareus will try to escape once a tank is too small (possible true of other species as well). I have raised O. briareus in a 4' x 20" high (with about 3" air space at the top) and think this is a minimum size. Length is fine but another 6" would be better in height. None of my animals have escaped from this tank but at least one briareus showed an interest where we never see this in the deeper tank. I definitely recommend leaving 2" - 3" of air space at the top for any of them but especially for the larger animals.
 
IMO, 65 is too small for a briareus. i think they need to be in a tank that is over 75 gallons. I had one that took up every bit of my 120 gallon tank. and I encounter one in the wild recently that was even larger.
 
Ah, still rough to clean at 27" for my arm length but way better than the 36" in my dining room (that sits 34" off the floor and is a royal PITA to clean, especially being acrylic because I can't use a metal scraper). Where are you putting the tank? At 6' x 3' it needs its own room :biggrin2:
 
It will be 34 inch off the ground (tallest stand we can get through the door in one piece), it will be interestion to clean tho, but it is glass so hopefully that helps, it is going in the living room, but will it up against the wall, the room behind it is the "fish room" that has the sumps, the wall will be cut the size of the tank so maintenance can be done from both sides
 
Would the 65 add height? None of my tanks are "standard" (except the 37 maybe) so, without looking I assumed a 55 was 2' high like my tube tank :oops:

I won't disagree completely with Dave because you never know the ultimate size of an animal and bigger does not hurt but I have successfully raised five O. briareus in 4' long tanks (2 in the shorter tank, both with 35 gallon - about 20 actual - sumps) through full life spans. I definitely would not go smaller though and I would not say any of mine were overly large. After LittleBit, I am wondering if obtaining them quite young might cause a bit of a dwarfing complex that does not appear to effect life span. This might explain why Dave's grew larger in the 120 but mine were fine in the 65's (roughly - they are not standard).
 

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