My Masterpiece! (Come in & see my pics!)

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O

Oreo

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 7, 2008
223
1
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Baltimore
This has been a long time coming. One of the first things my fiancé Carri & I did when we first met was to set up an aquarium she had. She fed the newts & I maintained the filter. Ever since then it's been a constant engineering project for me. Learning all about aquarium filtration & how to provide the best home to our critters. Very fun hobby that Carri & I have come to enjoy together.

Once we found that we had a bad habit of over-stocking the 20gal tank she had, I knew we had to upgrade. So I bought a 110gal. Built my own styrofoam / concrete background, and put together a custom designed filtration system that in my not so humble opinion kicks the ass of everything on the commercial market.

Finally got it all pieced together & fish moved in a couple weeks ago. The plants are real but please excuse the fact that they look like crap. I had a couple accidents with them & am still a complete newb at aquaculture. They'll get better & look awesome when I get that part figured out. Anyway... here's some pics for your enjoyment!

Front View: Actual water capacity is somewhere around 70-80gal as far as I can tell. Water level is kept low intentionally to provide some dry land for critters that need it.
p1061520.jpg


Front View 2
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Right Side View:
p1061531.jpg


Top View: The cave goes all the way through as seen in the above picture.
p1061528.jpg


Filter Effluent: Cascades silently over the rock surface. Provides good gas exchange without the use of a bubbler.
p1061526.jpg


Filtration System: This is plumbed to the basement with 1" PVC. Water is mechanically filtered by two heavy duty whole house filter units run in parallel with custom sponge filter cartridges that can be washed & reused. Then another unit for biomedia. Then water is sent through an Eheim pump, and split to go through a Hydor ETH 300w heater and a TurboTwist 6x. Carbon filtered tap water is added at the turn of a valve & can be temperature controlled. The aquarium can be drained for water changes by the turn of a valve as well- but that's just out of frame on the left. This system runs at about 6gpm & can turn the tank over about five times an hour.
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Sponge Filter Cartridges:
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That's all folks. Built it all by my self. I'm damn proud too. Hope you like! :)
 
wow nice setup, but arent the 2 fish next to the goldfish in the first pic brackish?
 
Ha! Good eye. But no, THOSE fish are fresh water. ;)

Unfortunately when Carri & I started out we learned the hard way about being careful & researching stock compatibility before buying. We're more careful now but there are still a few fish that have stuck it out & seem to be doing quite well. Amost all of our stock right now are left-over misfits that we've come to love. There's a patriot crab that hides in the cave who's somehow managed to avoid being eaten through several molts. The gold fish was a feeder for a couple african frogs. Goldie outlived the frogs & has grown into the biggest goldfish I've ever seen. The scats are constantly pestering each other but at least they have a lot more room in this tank. There's a columbian shark catfish, a black ghost knife and a coryadora in there also. Oh yea, and a red bellied minnow who also evaded the frogs.
 
Oreo;2626780; said:
Ha! Good eye. But no, THOSE fish are fresh water. ;)

Unfortunately when Carri & I started out we learned the hard way about being careful & researching stock compatibility before buying. We're more careful now but there are still a few fish that have stuck it out & seem to be doing quite well. Amost all of our stock right now are left-over misfits that we've come to love. There's a patriot crab that hides in the cave who's somehow managed to avoid being eaten through several molts. The gold fish was a feeder for a couple african frogs. Goldie outlived the frogs & has grown into the biggest goldfish I've ever seen. The scats are constantly pestering each other but at least they have a lot more room in this tank. There's a columbian shark catfish, a black ghost knife and a coryadora in there also. Oh yea, and a red bellied minnow who also evaded the frogs.
Click to expand...
i tell ya man, it looks great! so what are those fish called then? how big do they get?
 
They are Scats, or Scattophagusaf;lkasdfka something or other. They are supposed to be brackish fish, as well as the columbian shark I believe. But we've had them for a couple years now & they're doing fine. As I understand it, it may be more of an issue for them when they get older but I'll deal with that when the time comes. At my LFS, there's a scat as big as a dinner plate so apparently they get quite large.
 
Cool tank! Scats and Columbian shark are brackish fish!
 
Nice tank and the setup, The background that you built is really nice and im sure the plants will be great as they grow, and dam that is a big goldfish!
 
You build the background? If you did you have to do a DIY thread on it if you got pics from the in progress that's sweet.
 
those scats look fantastic...I would add a few archers and just make it brackish already!
 
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