Habitat - Indoor :: Indoor 100 gal stock tank question

[RES_Scout]

Hello! I have visited this awesome forum many times but am posting for the first time. We have a 5-year-old female RES named Scout who we've had for four years. She has outgrown her 40 gallon breeder tank, and we and we are looking to upgrade her indoor setup to a roughly 100 gallon stock tank to allow for at least 75 gallons of water. We are investigating the Rubbermaid 100 gallon and Tuff Stuff 110 gallon options. I'm including some questions below and would be very grateful for any and all responses/advice.

1- Has anyone run into issues with either the Rubbermaid or Tuff Stuff stock tanks that we should watch out for?

2- What kind of filter(s) and heater(s) would you recommend for an indoor ~100 gallon stock tank setup?

3- Any reviews of Python "No spill clean and fill" or similar products?

4- Any general advice on how to make water changing and tank cleaning less time consuming? We currently do a combo of buckets and siphons, but that approach isn't going to be doable for us with the increased water volume.

Scout recommends dried crickets and meal worms if you're feeling peckish, and thanks you in advance for your input!

[steve]

I have an older 100 gallon Rubbermaid tank that's not in use. The only real issue I heard of is the drain port leaking but I never had that problem. The rim around the Rubbermaid is also very thick, so you might need to trim to fit any hoses from a canister filter but that should be easy to deal with. Though I did not have a Tuff Stuff, I do like the fact that their tank is wider overall. The Rubbermaids have pretty narrow bottoms.

FX5 or FX6 would be great for a stock tank. A canister normally sits below a tank, so a common thing to do is to raise the stock tank up a little with cinder blocks. You have other options, but that's a cheap and simple way to resolve it. Aqeuon Pro and Eheim heater are both pretty good heaters.

Pythons are useful, especially if you have sand as a substrate. Otherwise it is similar to water bed drain/refill kits with a clear hose and faucet fittings. For most people, I don't think it's worth it. A fast way to drain and fill is to just get some clear tubing, the appropriate adapter for a sink and a submersible pump (I use a marineland maxijet).

I'm not into worms, but will try those crickets

[RES_Scout]

Hi Steve, thank you so much for your quick response and recommendations! I'm looking into the products you mentioned and I'm sure will be back with more questions soon Thanks again

[steve]

Hey, no problem. Stock tanks have a lot of potential, and some users have made frames around them to have little extended basking/dry areas for turtles. Let your imagination go wild!

[RES_Scout]

I've been doing my homework on this and my conclusion is that I still have lots to learn! However, my first order of business before setting up the stock tank is to optimize the drain/fill process. As I understand it based on your suggestions here and elsewhere on the forum, I have two options:

Option A: Use a Python-style commercial or DIY water changer that does both drain and fill via a sink faucet attachment.

I like the look of the Blue Magic waterbed drain/fill kit, but am not sure it will work for us because connecting it to the sink faucet is not really an option. Connecting it to the bathtub is theoretically doable if we install a diverter tub spout, but my wife is not thrilled with that idea. Has anyone successfully done something like this to drain/fill from a bathtub faucet?

Option B: Use a submersible pump such as the Marineland Maxi-Jet connected to hardware store tubing to drain, and fill separately (from a garden hose routed in from the yard in this case).

Very basic question about this approach: How do you connect tubing to the Maxi-Jet pump for tank draining? I've found lots of videos showing how powerhead pumps are used for water circulation, but I'm not clear on how they work to drain a tank. Also wondering what diameter of tubing you would recommend for pump draining ~75 gal, and if it would be possible to connect a standard 5/8" garden hose.

Thanks again!

[Longhorn]

We do have a 125 gal tank with sand substrate and use the Python. It has really made cleaning easier. Using it like a vacuum to clean the sand is one of the big selling points. If I didn't have the substrate, a plain old hose like Steve suggests wiould likely do the trick. We run ours from the kitchen sink.

[steve]

The Python/waterbed drain kit is mostly the same. In my experience, they are slow and you need to have water running for it to drain. Alternatively, you can setup a simple siphon to drain, but that is also slow and you need to drain it somewhere below the water level on the tank. If you do small partial changes, this might be OK for you. If you use a pump (I get clear 1/2 tubing from a hardware store, the ones from Home Depot are too stiff), you can just slip it on to the output nozzle and that's it. You can use the same hose to refill, just on one end you need a threaded fitting for your faucet or spigot. Don't use a garden hose to fill and technically you are not supposed to use garden hoses for drinking either.

[RES_Scout]

It's good to know that the Python works well for substrate cleaning. We have a few largish rocks in Scout's current tank, but not enough to constitute a substrate. I'm going to give Steve's pump and tubing method a try for now as we transition her to a larger habitat. We're already assembling materials and equipment for the stock tank set up also; I'll let you know how it's going. Thank you both for your input!