Craigslist 340 Gallon-Planted Tank with Basement Sump

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Here's the tank when filled. The manzita sunk in just a couple days. There's some small crinum in the middle and crispus and crypt wendtii on each side. I'm trying to take pictures every week of so to see the plant growth. The lights are 6x96 watt, 6700k I got from AH Supply. Kim is very helpful and I would highly recommend them.

340.jpg

340.jpg
 
Here's a close up of the lights. I'm a big fan of AH supply. My neighbor has a great planted discuss 220 and has used them for a long time. Kim is very easy to work with and his prices are good. It also shows the arrangement of the returns and Durso in the overflow. I mounted the ballasts on top of 8 foot 1x4s and built a small ledge on the canopy to hold them on each side. The lights can be pulled up or pushed back depending on what sort of access to the tank you need. After a few weeks the 1x4s bowed a little. My neighbor recommended I put a 1x2 strip accross the top and this remedied the problem.

TOP LIGHTS.jpg

TOP LIGHTS.jpg
 
subscribed!! thanks for the great write up and pics!!

dave
 
I'll throw up pictures of the the sump. I spent a ton of time over the holidays figuring out the electric to the sump and completing the drain/fill setup.
sump far.jpg

sump far.jpg
 
It's a standard 75 gallon tank. I tried to make it as simple as possible and stole several ideas from some guys on the board. I used egg crate to make to partitions. The two 1" drains flow into 7", 200 micron socks on the left. From there, the water hits a large, fine filter pad followed by 2 more foam pads and a phosphate pad affixed to the egg crate. The middle section has (2) 5 gallon buckets of floating bioballs. I know they would probably work better with a wet/dry but they came with the tank and I didn't feel like doing anything complicated. The center compartment has 8 liters of Seachem Matrix in filter bags. The area on the far right housed the Mag 18 and the intake for the Eheim 2026 you see on the lower shelf. The return of the Eheim is plumbed into the biggest foam/sponge filter I could find back to the left side of the sump. I used the glass top for the right side of the 75 but couldn't fit the left side on because of all the pvc. I do have to top it off about once a week. Anyone have any ideas on how to cover the left side?
 
Here's a close up of the sump. I figure I have about 10 feet of head loss including the 45s and 90s and the Mag 18 is still really pushing some water.

sump close.jpg

sump close.jpg
 
MonsterFishKeepers.com