tank size question

[Irishfist25]

in my pursuit of a large system in which i want to house multiple eels, i've come across a 4x4x3 (300 gallon).  This size is intriguing to me. i originally wanted a longer tank to give the eels enough space to get away if needed and to give the larger fish longer length to swim, but would the depth of 4ft make up for the lack of length?  i've heard some Tangs and other fish need longer tanks, but im not sure what those fish are.  Thoughts?

[YHSublime]

I think you are going to want 6’, at the end of the day though, it’s all a glass box, I don’t know if an extra 24” makes a difference?

[sethsolomon]

Will you have that tank in the middle of a room?   Any tank that is 4ft wide you will need access to both sides of the tank otherwise you will never be able to reach anything past about 36" in the tank.  That being said, a 4' x4' tank would be an awesome eel tank.  But you would not be able to have as many tangs as a 6' 300g

[Irishfist25]

Just now, sethsolomon said:

Will you have that tank in the middle of a room?   Any tank that is 4ft wide you will need access to both sides of the tank otherwise you will never be able to reach anything past about 36" in the tank.  That being said, a 4' x4' tank would be an awesome eel tank.  But you would not be able to have as many tangs as a 6' 300g

I won’t be able to access from the back, but will be able to from the other 3 sides. I’m not looking to have a lot of tangs, probably only 1 or 2 and I would stay away from hippo

[sethsolomon]

The back middle is probably going to be a pain to get to but other than that I would be a really cool tank.  You could use some 4" PVC in the rock stack to make caves for the eels.

[davelin315]

I think that overall footprint is what makes the difference, not necessarily straight line distance with fish that reach a moderate size.  Eels would be great in a tank like that as there is relatively nothing that they do in a straight line as long as you are talking more conventional eels and not something like a green moray or other 5’+ species.   ost of the other ones would probably appear to be pretty small in your system like a skeletor, snowflake, any of the dwarf moray varieties, or even the larger zebra morays.

 

In terms of the tang comment above, it really depends on the type of tang in my opinion.  Zebrasoma would love a tank like that while the larger Acanthurus species might not like it as much if they are the 1’+ varieties.  Paracanthurus like the regal would probably be okay as would most of the Ctenochaetus genus but majority if not all Naso species would be out.  It’s all about the footprint and turning radius for fish and with 16 sq ft of footprint plus another 3’ vertical you are in good shape.

 

Gallons, while often a poor measure of what fish can go in a tank without considering footprint is actually a good measure for determining how many fish can go into a system so for something like an eel which tends to create more of a mess it is a great measure.

[Irishfist25]

Thank you very much for the detailed response. I’m picking the tank up on Friday. I have to drive to upstate NY to get it, but whatever, it’s worth it right haha

[treesprite]

So are you getting the 4x4?

[Irishfist25]

Yeah, driving to New York Friday to pick it up