195gallon Freshwater setup

[R1_Ridah]

Great news about the hubby and nice pick up on the back ground. Good to see you didn't settle for a lesser brand for filtration. You'll like the FX5's.. Especially, two.. nice... Can't wait to see pictures of the finished tank.I'm jealous of the footprint of your tank. If I could do anything over again, I would have gotten a wider foot print in the beginning than the standard 180 foot print.. ... all the reason now to upgrade..lol

 

[Mikiblu30]

Here's the star of the 195g He's 12" and beautiful. Got him today from a vendor on MFK. He's agreed to hold him until I complete the tank. Awesome!!

 

[JK47]

That BG looks AWESOME Tomeiko, good choice!!! I agree on the dual FX5's as well, awesome combo. You do know your "star of the show" is my favorite species of catfish right?? The caudal filiments remind me of geos!

Question, what are your tap water perams? Specifically overall hardness and PH? I think Joey and I can help you think of some "other" stock too

 

[Mikiblu30]

That BG looks AWESOME Tomeiko, good choice!!! I agree on the dual FX5's as well, awesome combo. You do know your "star of the show" is my favorite species of catfish right?? The caudal filiments remind me of geos!

Question, what are your tap water perams? Specifically overall hardness and PH? I think Joey and I can help you think of some "other" stock too

Thanks Justin. I fell in love with Tigrinus as soon as I saw one, I new I had to have one.

My PH test at 7.6-8.0 we have very hard water where I live. I have a killer piece of driftwood I made my LFS sell me (it was in their show tank and "not for sale"; I told them if it's in the store it's for sale) the tank with the driftwood test at 7.4-7.6.

BTW the wood will stay in my 50gal. I decided I wanted crystal clear water in the 195g, this wood keeps my water a nice shade of yellowish, brownish hue.

I was thinking about a couple of BGK's as tankmates???, I love their gracefulness...but I'm sure you two will have wonderful suggestions

 

[Mikiblu30]

Great news about the hubby and nice pick up on the back ground. Good to see you didn't settle for a lesser brand for filtration. You'll like the FX5's.. Especially, two.. nice... Can't wait to see pictures of the finished tank.I'm jealous of the footprint of your tank. If I could do anything over again, I would have gotten a wider foot print in the beginning than the standard 180 foot print.. ... all the reason now to upgrade..lol

Thanks...guys. I'm so glad hubby is home..he's doing much better this weekend. He's up and about and regaining his strength.

BTW..I'll be waiting for that upgrade

 

[Mikiblu30]

If it's not one thing it's another!

So my BG arrived today and It is absolutely beautiful!! What's left of it intact!
Yep, UPS totally wrecked my BG . There is a corner broken off that is about 5"x6". And there are cracks running all through it. I'm worried if I try to drill holes in it for the drains and such, that it will totally fall to pieces.

Not to mention there is a portion along the top edge about 3"-4" long that looks like if you blow on it hard enough it will fall off. I don't know what UPS did maybe they figured since it was so light they could just toss it around all over the place. The box looks as though it was at the bottom of every box in the truck!

Well, I have reached out to DBN in regards to returning this BG and getting a new one...waiting on a response...

 

[mike_sema]

^^^^^^
that sucks can you get another one from the vendor or are you going to have to go through ups

 

[Mikiblu30]

^^^^^^
that sucks can you get another one from the vendor or are you going to have to go through ups

Not sure, I've contacted the vendor via email, tried to call but nobody picked up. So now I'm waiting for a response to my email on how I should proceed. I've heard nothing but good reviews about the vendor so I'm not too worried about getting another BG, it's just the waiting that sucks.

 

[joecoulson]

Matt will take care of you, I have no doubt.

 

[the_deeb]

Sounds like this is going to be a great build. Looking forward to seeing how things progress.

I like LED's and I'm likely going to go with them, I love the shimmer effect...I really want to have shadow along with shimmer (in some places) if that makes sense.

This may be obvious, but the best way to achieve this effect with LEDs would be to group them into small clusters with narrow optics, rather than spreading them evenly around the tank. This will be easier to accomplish with a custom LED setup than with the Marineland fixtures. Depending on how you plan to drive them, I think 3-4 groups of Cree XR-Es mounted on ~5"X5" heatsinks (~6 LEDs/heatsink, with 40 degree optics) would work great on that tank .