proposed peacock tank--LONG but lotsa ???

[catdoc]

I asked my LFS to order me a peacock a couple months ago and it's finally arrived (actually 2 of them, but I'm only getting one). I was planning to use a 29 gallon, but now I think I'll use my 38H Eclipse(same length/width, but greater depth) to give him more room for a DSB. Tank dimensions are 30" long x 12" wide x 28" deep, glass is 7mm thick. I'm planning on a HOB filter (emperor), 5 to 6 inch sandbed, titanium heater, and some LR out of my 90 gallon reef to get the cycle going. For now, I think I'll just keep the Eclipse lighting since there won't be any corals in there and I hear they prefer dimmer lighting anyway.

What kind of sand should I use? Obviously I'll need some coral rubble/shells, would a coarse sand be better than something like southdown? I'm planning on putting a piece of acrylic on the bottom to reinforce it, how thick should that be? Should I silicone the acrylic to the bottom or just lay it under the sand?

BIG question: 2 years ago, this tank was used to grow-out FW angelfish fry and I treated the tank with a medication containing malachite green and acriflavine. As far as I can tell, neither of these contains copper, but I'm not sure. The tank has been completely drained/moved/refilled twice since then, along with regular water changes. Would the possibility of residue from these two compounds put my mantis at risk?

The mantis I saw looks like it's probably a good 4" long but I couldn't see all of it because it (I think a female, an olive color rather than bright green) was only half out of its burrow. The second mantis just arrived at the store yesterday and wasn't out in the open yet.

How long to let my tank cycle if I'm using well-cured LR from my other tank? It'll be new sand. If I use silicone to attach the acrylic, how long for it to cure before filling and how long after filling before it's safe?

I'm trying not to ask the same ol' questions, read through page after page of results on my "peacock" search. TIA!!!

[zero_one]

Its recomended to use > 8mm glass or acrylic for the tank, I'm not saying it will ever happen but its been shown it is without a doubt possible for larger mantis shrimp to break glass up to that thickness. Acrylic is much more expensive, but is repairable (its trivial to sand/buff out scratches even under water and its also very difficult to break, and its refraction index is very close to water so very little distortion takes place. Overall I will never own a glass tank again after buying a acyrilc tank, the clarity is just so much better that, that alone is worth it. I used a mix of large shells (10 pounds), curshed coral (10 pounds) and very fine "arga-alive" sand (30 pounds) to get a very great looking and large mantis freindly substrate. I don't own a peacock but what I have is about the same size as one and it seems to really like digging around in it and moving large pieces or rock and shell into varoius spots, very intresting to watch. If the rock is really well cycled and no amonia is present in the water the rock is in that no cycling is nessary for one. Just make sure the amonia is at a near 0 level and thats about it, if you have a dsb setup and a good filter and some live rock and no amoina is present after 1 or 2 days of letting it sit I'd say to add your manits. Make sure to watch the amoina level and phosphates and do water changes a nessary. I use ro/di water which helps over all I think.

[catdoc]

So, 7mm is too risky? I have another option, maybe it'd work better. It's a divided acrylic tank that I bought from a small LFS that went out of business, it was one of his display tank that I thought I could use as a sump someday. How thick does the acrylic need to be? It's 48x12x12 inches, has a single baffle in the middle (the baffle runs from top to bottom but has notches cut at the top and bottom edges for water flow), drilled on each end, 1/4" acrylic with blue acrylic back. The downside to that tank is that it's so much shallower.

[zero_one]

acrylic tanks that house smashers can be faily thin, the number "10 times stonger then galss" is thrown around quite a bit, don't know how true that is though. It can flex a incredible amount, so even the largest peacock should not be able to brake 1/4 acrylic I would think. That divided show tank should cool, you could keep two different species even! I want to buy a 80 gallon acrylic tank and divide it into thrids and house 3 differnt types of mantis shrimps.