Right, the planning and scheming is over and I'm actually starting to make progress with this, so time to start a thread! Here's a little background on the project;
The tank is going to be all glass, made on site, and at the moment the dimensions will be 260x105x65cm (~1750 litres), although I am still waiting to find out the cost of glass from the tank maker so it may yet change depending on what he comes back with. It will be set up in our spare downstairs bedroom on a steel stand and will be filtered by a large sump located in the garage behind it. Initially it will be housing my black aro, various plecs (L14, L128, L190, L81 etc), a group of six Geophagus altifrons. I will be adding more fish to it, perhaps a school of discus or some other SA cichlids like Uaru, but not until mid way thru next year as we're heading overseas for a month to visit family and friends in Europe and I want the tank as lightly stocked as possible while we're away.
Here's my basic plan for the sump. Its going to be 180cm long and will have ~75L of submerged media (ceramic noodles and pond matrix), mechanical filtration will be four large filter socks, and I might add some pothos in the compartment after the bio media. I'm somewhat restricted as the top of the tank will only be 110cm high as I want the stand low to make access easy and so its at a better height for viewing while seated.
If it turns out that this isn't enough biological filtration I'll add a tall biotower to utilise the 30L of bioballs I have sitting round unused...
Here's how I figured out how big to make the tank, google sketch up is for amateurs, 1:1 modelling using beer crates, garden stakes and sheets is where its at!!
Although I'm going to set it up with the gap on the left rather than the right, will work better having the overflow on the left for the sump in the garage.
I've lifted the poxy laminate flooring so I can sit the stand on the concrete and make sure it is dead level and evenly supported. The stand will be steel framed but I will enclose it with timber and put down some short lengths of flooring to the left of the tank where I've left enough space to squeeze down to access the overflow (room is 2.95M wide, tank is only 2.6M) I decided as cool as full width would look having access to the overflow is fairly important.
And tonight I took some pieces of wood (TeaTree) I'd cut and left to dry and put them in the old unused swimming pool at my parents place to get them waterlogged and sinking. There's already one big piece that has sunk tied to the bamboo pole (so they're easy to retrieve and so they don't pierce the pool liner when they sink), once they're sunk I'll give them a clean with the water blaster and chuck them in the tank and let them soak for a couple of water changes before adding any fish in case they leach out any nasties from the scummy green pool water. I'm going to go hunting for a couple more bits on my inlaws farm tomorrow, there was a big stump I couldn't get last time that looks like it has great potential, this time I'll take the chainsaw and pick!
Tied up ready for soaking (dogs are always a great help with anything involving sticks)
In the pool, now we wait...
And thats where I'm up to. Waiting on a price for the tank and stand, as soon as they get back to me its all go. I can't afford to muck around with this one like I did with the 1400L build, and subsequently I won't be doing a 3d background again, I need it going ASAP so I can get the fish out of their overstocked 400L tank!
The tank is going to be all glass, made on site, and at the moment the dimensions will be 260x105x65cm (~1750 litres), although I am still waiting to find out the cost of glass from the tank maker so it may yet change depending on what he comes back with. It will be set up in our spare downstairs bedroom on a steel stand and will be filtered by a large sump located in the garage behind it. Initially it will be housing my black aro, various plecs (L14, L128, L190, L81 etc), a group of six Geophagus altifrons. I will be adding more fish to it, perhaps a school of discus or some other SA cichlids like Uaru, but not until mid way thru next year as we're heading overseas for a month to visit family and friends in Europe and I want the tank as lightly stocked as possible while we're away.
Here's my basic plan for the sump. Its going to be 180cm long and will have ~75L of submerged media (ceramic noodles and pond matrix), mechanical filtration will be four large filter socks, and I might add some pothos in the compartment after the bio media. I'm somewhat restricted as the top of the tank will only be 110cm high as I want the stand low to make access easy and so its at a better height for viewing while seated.
If it turns out that this isn't enough biological filtration I'll add a tall biotower to utilise the 30L of bioballs I have sitting round unused...
Here's how I figured out how big to make the tank, google sketch up is for amateurs, 1:1 modelling using beer crates, garden stakes and sheets is where its at!!
Although I'm going to set it up with the gap on the left rather than the right, will work better having the overflow on the left for the sump in the garage.
I've lifted the poxy laminate flooring so I can sit the stand on the concrete and make sure it is dead level and evenly supported. The stand will be steel framed but I will enclose it with timber and put down some short lengths of flooring to the left of the tank where I've left enough space to squeeze down to access the overflow (room is 2.95M wide, tank is only 2.6M) I decided as cool as full width would look having access to the overflow is fairly important.
And tonight I took some pieces of wood (TeaTree) I'd cut and left to dry and put them in the old unused swimming pool at my parents place to get them waterlogged and sinking. There's already one big piece that has sunk tied to the bamboo pole (so they're easy to retrieve and so they don't pierce the pool liner when they sink), once they're sunk I'll give them a clean with the water blaster and chuck them in the tank and let them soak for a couple of water changes before adding any fish in case they leach out any nasties from the scummy green pool water. I'm going to go hunting for a couple more bits on my inlaws farm tomorrow, there was a big stump I couldn't get last time that looks like it has great potential, this time I'll take the chainsaw and pick!
Tied up ready for soaking (dogs are always a great help with anything involving sticks)
In the pool, now we wait...
And thats where I'm up to. Waiting on a price for the tank and stand, as soon as they get back to me its all go. I can't afford to muck around with this one like I did with the 1400L build, and subsequently I won't be doing a 3d background again, I need it going ASAP so I can get the fish out of their overstocked 400L tank!
