Angelo Garcia’s planted “rain tank”
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The soothing pitter-patter of raindrops. The dramatic effects of lightning and thunder. A few adventurous aquarists have been able to successfully recreate storm effects (including simulated raindrops) over their aquariums, both freshwater planted and saltwater reef.
A Rain Forest Comes Alive
This is Angelo Garcia’s lush 55 gallon planted tank. His tank is gorgeous by itself, but adding simulated rain and lightning really puts this aquarium in a league of its own. At the time of the video (September 2014), Angelo was using a gravity system to produce the rain effect, with plans to switch a more practical pump-based system.
Angelo disclosed there’s a touch of special effects in this video; the thunder sound was added in post process.
For further inspiration, we share this remarkable tropical thunderstorm reef we first published back in 2011.
A n I n d o o r T r o p i c a l T h u n d e r s t o r m
- Aquarium: 120″ x 80″ x 24″ (950 gallons) | 200 x 300 x 60 cm (3600 liters)
- Lighting: 12 x 100 watt LED
This is likely one of the most elaborate LFS tank you will ever see. The folks at HPAquaristik (Germany) uploaded a series of short videos of their new main reef display. Suffice it to say, we are in awe of the incredible storm-simulation system for their massive system.
We’re not just talking about random cloud cover simulation using LED lighting (ho-hum nowadays). We’re talking about a full blown storm simulation system with beautifully simulated ambient lights and “lightning strikes”… plus real rainfall! Freshwater is fed into an irrigation system suspended over the tank; Each day, a simulated thunder and rain storm showers the main display with freshwater for a couple of minutes. This is without a doubt the fanciest evaporation top-off system we know.
Unless you’re a serious malcontent, there’s no way these videos do not inspire you. First, a walk-around video of the massive reef system:
Simulated thunderstorm, complete with rainfall!
Above-the-tank view of the simulation in action:
The simulated cloud cover effect:
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