80g hex question

G

gregm

AC Members
May 14, 2007
247
0
0
Albuquerque, NM
Hi guys. I recently came upon a 80gallon hex aquarium for $130 on Craigslist. It was previously used for salt water.

If I pick it up I was planning on using it for salt water also to avoid having to drastically clean it up to use it as a FW tank.

My question is. I'd like to run some live rock and corals in it (probably around the back side (the tank would be against a wall). And then stock it with fish.

What would be suitable for an 80g hex tank? This odd shaped aquarium is new for me. My other two aquariums are fresh water and rectangular.
 
What are the dimensions of the tank?

The tricky thing is that with the tall tanks you would probably have to use metal halide lamps in order for the light to penetrate that deep...PCs don't have the power to do that.

You could probably do some low light specimens like mushrooms and zoanthids near the bottom and the more photosynthetic stuff near the top.
 
don't know much, but i've heard that hexes don't do so well in sw. they don't have enough surface area, and that makes a big diff, supposedly. i hope that that's not true, and i only mention it hoping that someone else w/more experience will chime in.
 
hexagon tanks are not as easy as rectangle tanks, that is true. Its harder to create a good current in hex tanks and its harder to have a good amount of light to reach the bottom of the tank as well. If you use a metal halide, you should be OK, just remember to offset it with actinics as well. As kenyan said, things like Zoos and shrooms at the bottom, and sps and lps towards the top and you should be ok. Aside from that, hexagons tanks are ok in SW.

For fish, it does limit you a bit... as hex tanks tend to be a lot taller than wide, and no fish swims in an up and down motion besides a jelly fish, so that limits your fish stocking options quite a bit. You can keep plenty of smaller colorful fish, but nothing big really... a yellow tang would not do good in a hexagon tank, nor would other fish like it that need a lot of lateral swimming room.

A member on this site (Germanman) has a very nice hexagon reef, he can probably tell you a bit more of the ups and downs of keeping one, but either way his tank looks fabulous.

Hope this help,
Jay
 
well. thankfully it sold yesterday right before i called the guy. thanks for the help guys :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom