I got a 75gal (297L) tank, 120cm x 45cm x 55cm, from some mates who moved into a house that already had it and they had no intention of setting it up.
I wanted to do an altum tank and had previously thought about converting my 160gal for the altums but then decided against it as I liked my bichirs in there. So I chose to make a biotope tank for the altums in the 75gal.
I wanted good filtration without spending all the money on fancy filters and could not add a sump to this tank as it is not, and can not be drilled. I decided to do a DIY trickle filter from things I already had. I had a 66L plastic bucket/grabage can which I chose to use. I had some PVC left over from other jobs and stuff that is similar to eggcrate but comes in different colors.
This is how it went.
First I had to clear away the old 75gal which I used to hold and gut load my feeders. It was rather an eye sore and not part of my "fishroom vision". The tank is damn heavy, It's made of 8mm glass.
The I bought some L shaped steel that comes with precut holes that works like a giant Mechano set. I built it high enough so that the top shelf was a few centimeters ( enough to allow for the PVC pipe) avove the tank. THis is how that turned out.
Next I took some of the PVC I had left, which was 1/2", and made a frame inside the bucket to support different layers of media.
Following this I made the layer 'divider' with the plastic that is the closest I have found to eggcrate in Taiwan. As these come in rectangular pieces and my bucket is round, I had to zip tie together 3/4 of a circle and 1/4 of a circle to make a nice fit. This was done with an exacto knife and garden shears.
After finishing the divider, I made a second frame, shorter this time, to hold my filter floss off my media using another divider made the same way the first one was.
Next I had to build a frame around the bulkhead outlet to stop any smaller biomedia I used from falling through and into the tank. I again used the eggrate substitute and zip ties and came up with this. It is just big enough to cover the bulkhead on all four sides with a little leeway.
Once I was done with this it was time time to cut the hole in the bottom of the bucket for the bulkhead. I drilled a series of small holes, close together in a circle and hit it out with a hammer. I put the bulkhead in and wound up with this. I used a 1" bulkhead so I never had to worry about water not passing through quickly enough.
To make the water flow back into the tank, I used 1" PVC pipes with the outlet flowing into the hollow of one of my "flooded trees" to minimise the current and maximise the biotope effect. This piping can be seen in the above tank pic near the end. In that picture as well, you can see the fake plants I used to create semi-immersed leaves and branches.
My trees were made from taking long pieces of driftwood that my lfs didn't really want as they were long and too light. I cut all but one in half and glued the flattish ends to ceramic tiles or slate. This gave them a sturdy footing to stop them from falling over.
I drilled small holes at angles into the "trees" and cut the stems of the fake plants to the desired length to form my vegetation and just pushed them in. Some were a little loose so I used small pieces of cut cable ties to wedge in next the stems where they would not be seen. I used this type of fake plant and each is 70cm tall from the shop and made by a company called EVERBUY CO. LTD.
I bought a neutral sand, from my friendliest lfs, that would not affect the pH of my tank. I bought 3 20kg bags of aquasand and only wound up using 1 bag as I did not want thick sand in order to retain as much height as I could for the angels. The guy at the LFS was happy to take back the 2 unused bags. This is the sand.
Once I filled up the tank and switched on the filters for a test run, the bulkhead spewed water like the best European fountain, much to my dismay. I thought it could be the rough cut of the hole and the flexibilty of the bucket that caused this. After a while of messing around with no success, I decided to put my foot on the bulkhead from the inside while holding the bucket handles and pushing down as hard as I could. I did this until I could see the rubber seal just squeezing out the side of the bulkhead and my mate helped me tighten it by hand. That did the trick and it has been holding for over two weeks now without so much as a drop leaked.
Once all leaks were healed and all semed to by running well, I realised my pump I was using, the Aquavia 2000L model, was not strong enough to wet more than 50% of my biomedia. I went out and got a Rio 14HF pump rated at 4000L/H. At the head I was putting it at, I worked out it should be pumping through about 2700L/H. This turned out to be a good choice and I am happy with the pump so far.
As for biomedia, I opted for a Taiwan classic when filling large sumps and trickle filters, large round brushes. These have great surface area, you can fit many in together, the metal doesn't rust and has an added bonus that it keeps itself pretty much as clean as needed to work well, i.e. doen't clog. This is the brush, each measuring about 48cm long by 13-14cm diameter.
I manged to fit 11 in the bucket nicely and filled all remaing gaps with about 400 standard black bioballs. About 300 of these were from an already well established overhead trickle filter on my Scalare angel tank.
For mechanical filtration I use regular white filter floss like this.
I added peat moss to the filter to give the water a nice tannin stained look and to soften the water a bit as well. I used Mr. Aqua Black Peat Granules and put in 500g.
Here is a shot that shows the "trees" and DIY filter. The light has been replaced with a black hanging light but I don't have a picture of that on hand, will get one.
When It came to livestock, there was some tragedy. I had originally ordered 8 wild caught altums and the lfs guy said he would keep them for me for three weeks on the grounds that if something happened to them, he was not liable. Well after a week of him caring for them, I went round to discuss something and he informed me they had all died. I nearly wet myself at the loss of both the fish and money. I have spent a lot of money at his shop in the past and he told me there was no cause of death he could find and that I didn't have to worry about paying for them. It's things like this that will make me spend the few extra dollars at his store as apposed to other cheaper places.
So to make it up to him, I decided to buy 6 more wild caught altums from him for the same price as the original 8. These were quite a bit more expensive than the freshly caught wild altums as he had kept them for about a year acclimatizing them. They were all stable, healthy and living in a pH of between 7.4 and 7.9. This also put me at ease a bit as I knew they were settled and not too finicky anymore.
On top of these angelfish I was planning on buying 20 jumbo cardinals but decided to change it to 20 large wild caught rummynose tetras he had in his store that had also been acclimatized for a while. After introducing these to the tank, only one died before 24H was up and the rest are happily swimming around and showing wonderful red. After some checking, I confirmed that they were common rummynose tetras (Hemigrammus bleheri).
I am still searching for a cory from either the Orinoco River or Rio Negro that does well in warm water, 28-30C. These are proving a bit harder to find and will complete my biotope. But I wanted cories and while I search for the "perfect cory", I was offered Sterbai cories of 3cm for under US$1.60 each, so I got 6. Once I find my "perfect" cory, the Sterbais ( called yellow winged rats in Chinese- all cories are called some kind of rat in Chinese) will be moved to my 145gal scalare/geophagus tank. I am in the throws of renovating this tank but that is another thread.
The altums arrived tonight and the cories and tetras were already in the tank. Their diet will consist of TetraBits Granules for Discus (color), Delik Tanganyika (veg), TetraRubin Granules (as it is a good food), a Taiwanese brand for bottom dwellers called Live Fish Energy Wafers as well as frozen blood worms and frozen brine shrimp. Once a month the frozen food will be thawed in fish vitamins.
So as of now the tank stands at:
75gal
6 WC altum angelfish (Pterophyllum altum)
19 WC common rummynose tetras (Hemigrammus bleheri)
6 sterbai cories (Corydoras sterbai)
and a DIY trickle filter.
Pictures of the completed tank with livestock will be posted as soon as the altums have settled nicely and are eating well.
A teaser of the altums acclimatizing.
Any questions, suggestions, comments (constructive or negative) and requests for other pictures all welcome.
Sorry it was such a long read but I enjoyed the project so much I thought I would share.
I wanted to do an altum tank and had previously thought about converting my 160gal for the altums but then decided against it as I liked my bichirs in there. So I chose to make a biotope tank for the altums in the 75gal.
I wanted good filtration without spending all the money on fancy filters and could not add a sump to this tank as it is not, and can not be drilled. I decided to do a DIY trickle filter from things I already had. I had a 66L plastic bucket/grabage can which I chose to use. I had some PVC left over from other jobs and stuff that is similar to eggcrate but comes in different colors.
This is how it went.
First I had to clear away the old 75gal which I used to hold and gut load my feeders. It was rather an eye sore and not part of my "fishroom vision". The tank is damn heavy, It's made of 8mm glass.
The I bought some L shaped steel that comes with precut holes that works like a giant Mechano set. I built it high enough so that the top shelf was a few centimeters ( enough to allow for the PVC pipe) avove the tank. THis is how that turned out.
Next I took some of the PVC I had left, which was 1/2", and made a frame inside the bucket to support different layers of media.
Following this I made the layer 'divider' with the plastic that is the closest I have found to eggcrate in Taiwan. As these come in rectangular pieces and my bucket is round, I had to zip tie together 3/4 of a circle and 1/4 of a circle to make a nice fit. This was done with an exacto knife and garden shears.
After finishing the divider, I made a second frame, shorter this time, to hold my filter floss off my media using another divider made the same way the first one was.
Next I had to build a frame around the bulkhead outlet to stop any smaller biomedia I used from falling through and into the tank. I again used the eggrate substitute and zip ties and came up with this. It is just big enough to cover the bulkhead on all four sides with a little leeway.
Once I was done with this it was time time to cut the hole in the bottom of the bucket for the bulkhead. I drilled a series of small holes, close together in a circle and hit it out with a hammer. I put the bulkhead in and wound up with this. I used a 1" bulkhead so I never had to worry about water not passing through quickly enough.
To make the water flow back into the tank, I used 1" PVC pipes with the outlet flowing into the hollow of one of my "flooded trees" to minimise the current and maximise the biotope effect. This piping can be seen in the above tank pic near the end. In that picture as well, you can see the fake plants I used to create semi-immersed leaves and branches.
My trees were made from taking long pieces of driftwood that my lfs didn't really want as they were long and too light. I cut all but one in half and glued the flattish ends to ceramic tiles or slate. This gave them a sturdy footing to stop them from falling over.
I drilled small holes at angles into the "trees" and cut the stems of the fake plants to the desired length to form my vegetation and just pushed them in. Some were a little loose so I used small pieces of cut cable ties to wedge in next the stems where they would not be seen. I used this type of fake plant and each is 70cm tall from the shop and made by a company called EVERBUY CO. LTD.
I bought a neutral sand, from my friendliest lfs, that would not affect the pH of my tank. I bought 3 20kg bags of aquasand and only wound up using 1 bag as I did not want thick sand in order to retain as much height as I could for the angels. The guy at the LFS was happy to take back the 2 unused bags. This is the sand.
Once I filled up the tank and switched on the filters for a test run, the bulkhead spewed water like the best European fountain, much to my dismay. I thought it could be the rough cut of the hole and the flexibilty of the bucket that caused this. After a while of messing around with no success, I decided to put my foot on the bulkhead from the inside while holding the bucket handles and pushing down as hard as I could. I did this until I could see the rubber seal just squeezing out the side of the bulkhead and my mate helped me tighten it by hand. That did the trick and it has been holding for over two weeks now without so much as a drop leaked.
Once all leaks were healed and all semed to by running well, I realised my pump I was using, the Aquavia 2000L model, was not strong enough to wet more than 50% of my biomedia. I went out and got a Rio 14HF pump rated at 4000L/H. At the head I was putting it at, I worked out it should be pumping through about 2700L/H. This turned out to be a good choice and I am happy with the pump so far.
As for biomedia, I opted for a Taiwan classic when filling large sumps and trickle filters, large round brushes. These have great surface area, you can fit many in together, the metal doesn't rust and has an added bonus that it keeps itself pretty much as clean as needed to work well, i.e. doen't clog. This is the brush, each measuring about 48cm long by 13-14cm diameter.
I manged to fit 11 in the bucket nicely and filled all remaing gaps with about 400 standard black bioballs. About 300 of these were from an already well established overhead trickle filter on my Scalare angel tank.
For mechanical filtration I use regular white filter floss like this.
I added peat moss to the filter to give the water a nice tannin stained look and to soften the water a bit as well. I used Mr. Aqua Black Peat Granules and put in 500g.
Here is a shot that shows the "trees" and DIY filter. The light has been replaced with a black hanging light but I don't have a picture of that on hand, will get one.
When It came to livestock, there was some tragedy. I had originally ordered 8 wild caught altums and the lfs guy said he would keep them for me for three weeks on the grounds that if something happened to them, he was not liable. Well after a week of him caring for them, I went round to discuss something and he informed me they had all died. I nearly wet myself at the loss of both the fish and money. I have spent a lot of money at his shop in the past and he told me there was no cause of death he could find and that I didn't have to worry about paying for them. It's things like this that will make me spend the few extra dollars at his store as apposed to other cheaper places.
So to make it up to him, I decided to buy 6 more wild caught altums from him for the same price as the original 8. These were quite a bit more expensive than the freshly caught wild altums as he had kept them for about a year acclimatizing them. They were all stable, healthy and living in a pH of between 7.4 and 7.9. This also put me at ease a bit as I knew they were settled and not too finicky anymore.
On top of these angelfish I was planning on buying 20 jumbo cardinals but decided to change it to 20 large wild caught rummynose tetras he had in his store that had also been acclimatized for a while. After introducing these to the tank, only one died before 24H was up and the rest are happily swimming around and showing wonderful red. After some checking, I confirmed that they were common rummynose tetras (Hemigrammus bleheri).
I am still searching for a cory from either the Orinoco River or Rio Negro that does well in warm water, 28-30C. These are proving a bit harder to find and will complete my biotope. But I wanted cories and while I search for the "perfect cory", I was offered Sterbai cories of 3cm for under US$1.60 each, so I got 6. Once I find my "perfect" cory, the Sterbais ( called yellow winged rats in Chinese- all cories are called some kind of rat in Chinese) will be moved to my 145gal scalare/geophagus tank. I am in the throws of renovating this tank but that is another thread.
The altums arrived tonight and the cories and tetras were already in the tank. Their diet will consist of TetraBits Granules for Discus (color), Delik Tanganyika (veg), TetraRubin Granules (as it is a good food), a Taiwanese brand for bottom dwellers called Live Fish Energy Wafers as well as frozen blood worms and frozen brine shrimp. Once a month the frozen food will be thawed in fish vitamins.
So as of now the tank stands at:
75gal
6 WC altum angelfish (Pterophyllum altum)
19 WC common rummynose tetras (Hemigrammus bleheri)
6 sterbai cories (Corydoras sterbai)
and a DIY trickle filter.
Pictures of the completed tank with livestock will be posted as soon as the altums have settled nicely and are eating well.
A teaser of the altums acclimatizing.
Any questions, suggestions, comments (constructive or negative) and requests for other pictures all welcome.
Sorry it was such a long read but I enjoyed the project so much I thought I would share.
