Early this year, I bought a used 350g: dimensions 80.5"L x 42.5"H x 24"d with 1.25" acrylic on the sides and 1" on the top and bottom. After months of getting the right plumbing, building an overflow, having a stand fabricated, and polishing acrylic it finally happened!
The trickiest part was moving my 375g with a blown seam out of the space and moving the 350g in---all while keeping the livestock and filtration in tact. The actual moving of the tanks and stand took me and 7 friends about 20 minutes. I put in 2 hours of prep work draining the tank and putting the livestock in holding tanks and another 4 hours setting the tank back up.
It is far from finished, which is why I started the thread. All of the decor except the tiles and sand will go back into the 375g once it is repaired. The wet/dry filter will also go back on the 375g and I will build and new one for this tank.
Ok, so here is a pic of the 375g that is currently in the shop: dimensions 60"L x 48"T x 30"D. It was located in my home office. As you can see, it didn't cover the entire wall, which the 350g now does.
The tank has a silver aro, 2 jack dempseys, 1 vieja synspilissm, 5 red severmus, and 1 leporincus.
Filtration is a homemade wet/dry in a 60g sump with about 30g of bio balls paired with several bags of matrix. I also run an FX-5 with sponges, matrix, and carbon. There is a 36watt uv sterilizer circulating through the sump. The sump uses a Rio HF32 pump.
Here is the bottom of the overflow box that I built an the returns I installed. The overflow uses a modified durso style silencer for the two 1.5" bulkheads. I used flex pvc and it works great and was easy to install. The top two bulkheads are the returns for the sump and fx-5, the bottom is the intake for the fx-5. Those are all 1" bulkheads.
Here is a pic of the tank. I like this tank much better in this space because it goes wall to wall. It is also 6" narrower, which gives me more room. As much as I appreciate all of the hard work and engineering that went into the filtration, it's unsightly. So I decided to get creative and build some "skins" to cover up the front. I built them from some pine wood and stained them.
One thing that I hate, but will be corrected is heating. I have 3 jager heaters in the tank itself. In my opinion, a tank is not tricked out and pretty amateur if you can see the heater. Plus, the fish can break them. The 375g has a huge overflow box to hide them in so I didn't build the sump to accommodate heaters.They will be moved into the next sump I build where I will create a space for them.
So I think that is about it for now. I'd love to get any feedback and suggestions for decor. I would like to keep the bottom open but have giant driftwood, pipes, plants etc in the middle and top levels. The JD's, Aro, and Tig will return to the 375g when it is repaired and I will be getting some bala sharks (would like to rescue large ones and create a nice school) and some geo brasiliensis.
More to follow
The trickiest part was moving my 375g with a blown seam out of the space and moving the 350g in---all while keeping the livestock and filtration in tact. The actual moving of the tanks and stand took me and 7 friends about 20 minutes. I put in 2 hours of prep work draining the tank and putting the livestock in holding tanks and another 4 hours setting the tank back up.
It is far from finished, which is why I started the thread. All of the decor except the tiles and sand will go back into the 375g once it is repaired. The wet/dry filter will also go back on the 375g and I will build and new one for this tank.
Ok, so here is a pic of the 375g that is currently in the shop: dimensions 60"L x 48"T x 30"D. It was located in my home office. As you can see, it didn't cover the entire wall, which the 350g now does.
The tank has a silver aro, 2 jack dempseys, 1 vieja synspilissm, 5 red severmus, and 1 leporincus.
Filtration is a homemade wet/dry in a 60g sump with about 30g of bio balls paired with several bags of matrix. I also run an FX-5 with sponges, matrix, and carbon. There is a 36watt uv sterilizer circulating through the sump. The sump uses a Rio HF32 pump.
Here is the bottom of the overflow box that I built an the returns I installed. The overflow uses a modified durso style silencer for the two 1.5" bulkheads. I used flex pvc and it works great and was easy to install. The top two bulkheads are the returns for the sump and fx-5, the bottom is the intake for the fx-5. Those are all 1" bulkheads.
Here is a pic of the tank. I like this tank much better in this space because it goes wall to wall. It is also 6" narrower, which gives me more room. As much as I appreciate all of the hard work and engineering that went into the filtration, it's unsightly. So I decided to get creative and build some "skins" to cover up the front. I built them from some pine wood and stained them.
One thing that I hate, but will be corrected is heating. I have 3 jager heaters in the tank itself. In my opinion, a tank is not tricked out and pretty amateur if you can see the heater. Plus, the fish can break them. The 375g has a huge overflow box to hide them in so I didn't build the sump to accommodate heaters.They will be moved into the next sump I build where I will create a space for them.
So I think that is about it for now. I'd love to get any feedback and suggestions for decor. I would like to keep the bottom open but have giant driftwood, pipes, plants etc in the middle and top levels. The JD's, Aro, and Tig will return to the 375g when it is repaired and I will be getting some bala sharks (would like to rescue large ones and create a nice school) and some geo brasiliensis.
More to follow
