Can't Wait For Perfect Timing

[Yoimbrian]

Well, my aquarium hobby has taken quite a few turns. I won’t bore everyone here with the details, but the long story short is I’ve been dreaming of a giant (300-500 gallon) aquarium for well over a decade, but only had my little 20 gallon for the past few years. I’ve always waited for the absolute perfect timing, mostly in a living situation where I wouldn’t need to move the aquarium - ever.


The latest plan was to remodel our basement and do a large in wall aquarium. I had everything planned out, quotes for the aquarium in hand, and I thought it was going to happen. However, the housing market in my city is going insane, and coupled with the high stock market the remodel market is also going insane. This is driving up labor costs like crazy, to quote a plumber uncle recently hired “I’ve more than doubled my rate in the last few years and I’m still booked out weeks in advance with more work than I can handle”. Even if we could afford it, I can’t justify jumping into a crazy market just to get my tank (and home theater….) sooner - so no basement remodel until it cools down.


However, I was sick of waiting. I wanted to get an aquarium right away, HOWEVER I also wanted it in the basement but in a location where I wouldn’t need to move it for a remodel. Our basement has this weird little hallway connecting the utility room to the bomb shelter, that has an accordion door opening to the bedroom down there. Forgive the complicated description, the point is the only place in the basement that would work for an aquarium that would be viewable right now and able to stay during the remodel was this little hallway. Maximum width ~44” (based on not blocking the aisle and not blocking the future wall that will go up right there), maximum length ~48”. So I was initially thinking of a 36” x 48” aquarium, but since that size is not standard I figured I’d end up on a 120 Fatboy if I wanted to save money and go used.


So I jumped on Craigslist, and low and behold there was a beautiful pentagon corner acrylic aquarium. The 3 main faces are 43” (yes, 43”, literally 1” smaller than the maximum possible size, and a very random odd number) and the 2 small edges are 12”, size of 180 gallons. So I jumped on it over New Years weekend, and braved the literal -15 degree weather to go pick it up across town (and owe my brother and father in law big time).

So now to jump in to the fun stuff!!!

Stand:


I was originally assuming I’d end up with a rectangle aquarium, so I was planning a simple wood stand, like so many people on here do. However I started sketching this out for my pentagon shape and I got really worried about the angles. It seemed to be way more complicated to make everything stable and balanced with the odd shape, and my carpentry skills are novice at best, so I was not confident. The skill I do have? Stacking blocks. So I went with a cinder block stand, topped with double thick plywood (1.5” total), topped with 2 types of foam (I couldn’t decide, and I’m a little surprised it didn’t really compress at all…). Total cost was about $70, though both layers of foam are certainly not necessary, so I could have saved $10 there. It’s not pretty, but it seems solid and level. I’ll cover it with a sheet or something at some point…..

 

[Yoimbrian]

Filtration:


I have recently become a big fan of Matten Filters. They are basically just sponge filters, but much larger. There are two primary benefits. The first is they are sized to practically never need cleaning (all the waste gets to a steady state and breaks all the way down), and if cleaning is necessary you can just vacuum the front face of the filter without taking anything apart. The second is they can be put inside the aquarium and the flow can be run with simple air powered jet lifters. This is a HUGE cost savings that I feel most people overlook. If I were to run a sump on this size aquarium I’d need a ~200 watt pump, instead I’ll be using a 25 watt air pump, saving ~$400 per year in electricity.


The standard installation of these filters is either taking up one of the side walls, or one (or both) of the corners. There are a few problems with that:


-Since it is basically square the 2 back sides are both very large relative to the volume, so it would be unnecessary to make an entire wall a filter, and it would be ugly.

-There is only 1 corner I would consider using, and having just a single corner filter didn’t seem like it would be enough surface area

-I am mostly interested in / excited about bottom dwelling fish, so I didn’t want to waste precious real estate on the bottom of the aquarium with filtration.


So, you couple all of those things together, and I basically ended up making a large in-tank hanging box filter. I assembled it using a sheet of ¼” acrylic, cut it with my hand held jig saw, and glued it together with Weldon 16. I ended up making it 18” tall by 24” wide, dividing it into two compartments (to make each piece of foam a more manageable size). See pictures of my work...not the cleanest gluing job I know…


For picking out the poret foam I really struggled. There is a LOT of math out there for Matten filter design, mostly focused on linear velocity of the water going through the foam and water turnovers per hour. There are also sources out there that divide the filtration area up in to two zones, one higher velocity zone (that you know will need cleaning) focused on mechanical filtration, and a lower velocity zone (that likely will never be cleaned) focused on biological filtration. In the end I decided to make both sides the same, and I used a 2” thick piece of 20ppi foam in front of a 2” thick piece of 30ppi foam. The total water flow rate will be about 650 gallons per hour (~3.5 turnovers per hour), and they will be driven by air jet lifters. I’m not even remotely worried about biological filtration capacity, but the mechanical filtration may be lacking a bit. Depending on how everything goes it’s easy enough for me to switch out the foam on this box (adding a higher density foam sheet in one of the chambers, for example), or add another box on the other wall of the aquarium. If anyone wants to go in to detailed math and theory - feel free to PM me (I’m a Chemical Engineer by training, that kind of calculation is what I love…).


To get extra water movement in the tank (getting detritus off the bottom, making clown loaches happy, etc), I have a 1,700 gph Turbelle Stream powerhead in the corner. I’ll play around with the location and direction of the powerhead, and may end up adding another one, so that’ll be a work in progress.


For water changes I HATE water changes, don’t want to spend hours draining and filling the tank, and don’t want to dump 100 gallons of water all at once in to my septic tank. So I’m setting up a drip system automatic water changer.

 

[Yoimbrian]

Decorations:


I am a big fan of sand bottom aquariums, so I bought 150 pounds of pool filter sand at the local Menards (can’t beat the price!). I’m cleaning it over the course of a week because it is so water intensive and I have an old septic tank I don’t want to over flow, and its WAY too cold to do it outside. About 30 or 40 rinses (between the 2 batches) the water is mostly clear, just a tint of milky. I’ll do a few more washes, but at some point it’ll be good enough for the filters to take out no problem.


I bought two really cool pieces of driftwood off Ebay, and I think they look AWESOME, and also give the fish lots of little caves to hide in and swim through. All in all I’m happy with that purchase (the one sinks since it has slate on the bottom, the other is wedged under the filter box because it still floats - hence the awkward angle...)


I also want to do a lightly planted low tech tank. Basically my goal is to grow flame moss or christmas moss on the one piece of drift wood (the white one, with lots of little branches), and then have 2 potted water sprite / water wisteria plants. I say water sprite because it can grow very tall and bushy out of a pot, and it grows like a weed. If I get ambitious I may try some swords or something on the bottom, but that would be phase two….


For lights I was originally thinking of going with one of the many planted aquarium lights, but again I worry about my odd shape and getting good coverage. I really want a sunrise / sunset function, because it bothers me when lights switch on / off and it startles the fish. So I found a controller called the TC420, which lets you plug a near infinite number of LEDs in to it and program a sunrise / sunset mode in to it. I figure that gives me a lot of flexibility if I want to add or take away lighting (depending on plant growth / algae / etc), and its only $20 (and I’d use standard household flood LEDs that are another $10-$20), so I’d save money as well. Anyone use that? Or something similar that is recommended?


The most important part - the FISH:


This is where it gets complicated, and this is where I need some advice. Let me start at the end - this is what I want 10 years from now when I have a 400 gallon in wall aquarium:


-12 clown loaches

-Fire eel

-2 or 3 polypterus, various species that stay 12-18”

-1-2 plecos, species that are again ~12”

-School of something mid sized and silver shiny (silver dollars, tinfoil barbs, etc)

-2-3 mid sized cichlids / oscars, in the 12-18” range


The problem is I obviously can’t fit all of that in my 180 gallon, and I obviously can’t buy all of those fish at once, and I have no idea when I will upgrade to the larger tank.


So here is what I was thinking:


-I would start with the school of clown loaches. Since they are OBSCENELY slow growing, they’ll need a multi-year head start to be safe from becoming a meal for some of the other fish.


-I would also like some sort of top swimmer for this aquarium. I like the idea of silver dollars; I like schooling fish, they look really cool, they are peaceful fish, and they are big enough to be safe in the big aquarium but small enough to be fine in this one. However, I am a little worried about the plants. I know people in well planted aquariums can’t have silver dollars, but I figure water sprite and moss can grow fast enough to survive the grazing of silver dollars. Thoughts???


-I don’t want to scrape algae, I’m trying to go as low maintenance as possible! However, I’ve read so many conflicting posts of plecos and acrylic. Some people say certain species of pleco are pretty safe for acrylic (for example a Rhino pleco was cited in a different forum post as one of the safe species due to teeth orientation), some people say none are safe, some people say any pleco is safe for a few years and that the damage they do isn’t any worse than what a human does with an algae scraper. Any brilliant ideas would be appreciated, for now I am leaning towards just scraping the algae myself, or maybe getting really small algae eaters (otocinclus, etc). There are also CAEs / SAEs, but I’ve seen plenty of mixed thoughts on them as well. Thoughts on that??? My future in-wall aquarium will most certainly be glass because of this very issue, unless of course I find a solution I’m happy with between now and then….


-Once the clowns reach 4-5 inches, I would then add 1 or 2 polypterus, one of the smaller species.


-I have mixed feelings about the fire eel. It is the fish I am most excited for, but I’m not sure about a 43x43” footprint for him. Thoughts on that? I would for sure wait at least a year until the clowns are bigger, but if people think it would be really cramped I could wait until the big tank is closer to reality.


-The big cichlids / oscars would wait until the next tank, for sure.


As far as timing goes, I just started the cycling process now. I seeded it with bacteria from my 20 gallon, and am adding Ammonia to do a fishless cycle. I’m hoping to have clowns in there in 3-4 weeks….which will be a very slow and painful 3-4 weeks to wait through…...


So that’s where I’m at….any input is appreciated

 

[Gourami Swami]

Tank looks awesome! I will be honest, I skimmed your post. But sounds like you have thought everything through pretty well. Your stocking sounds realistic, and you are not rushing into it which is great. About the silver dollars- not gonna be a good idea if you want plants at all. I would save yourself the headache. The plants won't grow faster than the SD's can eat them- when I got my redhooks I had plants in the tank, next morning they were all gone without a trace.
Another point- you say you hate water changes and are doing a drip system. That's awesome, I'm sure it will keep water parameters in check, but you will probably still have to do vacuuming. With large messy fish like Oscars it is unavoidable unless you have barebottom with high flow directed to finter inlets. Otherwise you will get huge piles of crap building up on the bottom.
I will be watching for updates!

 

[Rocksor]

Congo tetras versus the silver dollars. See if they make a good fit for your tank foot print. They can be kept with plants. Having them would definitely nix keeping a fire eel.

If you like the look of a pleco, and not necessarily getting it for the cleaning ability of the walls of the tank, look into the smaller whiptail plecos from the Hemiloricaria genus, which love a sand bottom.

As for the walls, larger snails will work to "clean it" like nerite snails.

 

[Yoimbrian]

Thanks for the input! Yea Congo tetras are probably a better bet if I want to go planted.

I'm also struggling with my light plan. Currently I just have one light, it's a way underpowered yellow tinted shop light, but I kind of like the shadows and shimmering effect. So I may go one big spot light instead of lots of little lights.

 

[Yoimbrian]

O. And note the color difference the two full tank shots. That driftwood works fast!

Seems like a waste of energy to do a water change though, tannins wont hurt a cycling process.

 

[Yoimbrian]

Well. 5 days into cycling, still waiting for those nitrites...

I did get my "tree" started though. Glued a bunch of flame moss to the mangrove driftwood - hopefully it grows out well...

 

[Fishy-Botany]

That tank looks great!

 

[jhook]

That is a great looking tank. Should be awesome once you get all of the stock figured out.