Hey guys, upgraded my 3' to my 140Gal 4 foot today, and although it's not finished, I'll be posting this epic long thread with excerpts from another forum with a fair amount of new fish keepers, so excuse the obvious explanations and perhaps useless images of a lot of things. The log is over about a 10 day period.
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It's finally here, my 48x24x28 (140Gal/530L) tank, courtesy of Aquariums R Us in Meadowbrook.
Plan is to develop a reasonably natural South American only (plants and inhabitants) community of slightly and non aggressive Cichlids and community fish. As you know I currently have a 160L 3' aquarium stocked with Souths only, which will be migrated to their lovely new home.
Planned stocking is as follows.
2x Heros efasciatus "Green Severum"
1x Aequidens pulcher "Blue Acara"
1x Hypselecara temporalis "Chocolate Cichlid"
3x Geophagus sp. "Rio Pindare"
2x Cleithracara maronii "Keyhole Cichlid" (Not confirmed)
5-6x Corydoras paleatus "Peppered Cory" (Not confirmed)
1x Ancistrus sp. "Bristlenose Pleco"
Plant species are as follows. Quantity unconfirmed.
Amazon Sword
Pygmy Chain Sword (Broad)
Pygmy Chain Sword (Narrow)
Lighting will be 3x54W T5 10K, 1x54W T5 6500K (4x 54W 10K at the moment)
I will be basing my general aquascaping on this layout. Thanks ADA 2007 winner.
All of my driftwood intertwined on the left side with a relatively similar rock hardscape formation with more nooks for the smaller Cichlids. Lots of open substrate area for the Geophagus to destroy. Will be using mixes of narrow and broad pygmy swords to cover up the rock formations around the back corner as the driftwood might look slightly out of place up there, with two 'bunches' of all of the plants combined in two areas in the front left and mid right sections to keep it green. Who knows though, might mix it up.
Necessary pictures.
Substrate. Left bucket is 15kg of relatively course river sand with random stones, wood chunks etc. Right bucket is fine riversand. Will be mixed with my 20kg of Filter Sand. Still needs to be reasonably cleaned.
Main showpiece of driftwood I picked up from an LFS. Not sure on the measurements but as you can see it's pretty large in comparison to the workhorses. Has all neat little marks that you can't see on the actual wood and should look great under lights.
The tank.
-----
Stand building commenced early today. Progress has been great. The old man is a carpenter, so wood and experience weren't a problem. He took it upon himself to source everything and do what I can only describe as a fantastic job.
Still incomplete but we're getting there, should be done tomorrow.
Final measurements were based of a mates, Holo's 4x2 stand. 700mm high, with a 50mm lip to cover glass bracing, silicon and styrofoam.
Early progress from this morning.
Start of production when I got down there. Stand is in it's side there. Using solid pine pergola for the legs.
Little more completed. Center brace is in and the solid ply background is nailed on. As you can see we haven't used a traditional brace in the center, instead opting to have the brace centered with the vertical support off to the side to allow for a reasonably sized door. Plenty of heavy strong screws were used keep the structure solid.
At this stage I went out for a bit, dropping into an LFS and picking up this bit of driftwood.
Rather large, definitely over 40cm in length. Here's the best bit.
They were all that cheap. On arriving home, I was gone for about 2 and a half hours. Stand is definitely looking a lot more homely. All of these shots were taken at the same time.
Cedar exterior almost complete.
Single door on the left size with false floor. As you can see, we've cut some of the sections of the top and base out to allow for a higher door for 400mm high canisters.
Open side to show bracing.
Interior of door and flooring. Bad photo.
Front. Needs to be stained yet, obviously. Will also have a towel rack on it, which will be ultra handy.
Back. As boring as you would expect.
More updates coming either later today or some time tomorrow.
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Slight update for you all. First coat of stain/varnish on.
-----
Towel rail and where it's going to go (the drill holes directly below the legs on the face). Going to be finished up on the day so that moving the stand is easier as it's going to have to go through the window as well. It's actually from a handle from a revolving door that some people get for their front doors on houses. Turns out it's worth about $120, score.
Doorknob that I picked out this morning to match. First booboo as you can see with the drilled hole above it, that will just have a nice looking bolt installed into it to cover it up and make it look somewhat necessary rather than bogging it. Speaking about bog, I still need to clean up the holes around the top rim section with a blade and do another coat of the varnish. Tomorrow morning.
-----
Little update.
What both myself and the couriers managed to do to the light. I broke the larger section off Won't really be a problem, you might get a little glimpse of it if I hang the light.
Stand basically complete other than the towel rail. Handle and special 'showy' bolt to hide bad drill planning. It's been moved up onto the patio and isn't too far off being as heavy as the tank. Fortunately due to it being an absolute brick, we can just carry it into my room through the door vertically.
Tank through the window is going to be interesting though, always fun carrying a few hundred dollars of heavy easily damaged goods.
-----
Little update on the Chocolate and progress.
Bought some backing today because the painting idea fell through. I had to get twice the length because of the height of my tank, and apparently at a relatively cheap store up here, its $4.95 a foot for Blue/Black thats 24" high.
So $45 for backing, sheesh. Also picked up a new Gravel-vac.
Photo update of my old tank, I've removed a lot of the random rocks I had in it for more open substrate, and took out half of the plants for my brothers 5' planted tank that he's growing up.
Looking a bit bare, fish have one and a half more days in it until they get a huge roomy tank as juvies, should be very entertaining to watch.
Chocolate update, he/she is going great guns. Sleeps vertical but is fairly active and swims around a fair bit, very inquisitive already although skittish when I come near the tank. It's eaten all meals since the last update which is a few different types of pellets, floating and sinking also, so that's a great sign, as he comes up to eat in big feeding melee with my other fish.
His ability to swim is definitely becoming less impeded every day.
Few more photos tomorrow and then the big day on Saturday which although won't be the end of the log, will be a bit of a finale.
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Was a pretty flat out day with a bit of a Wii break in between but other than that it was busy busy busy. Had everything I needed minus a trip to Bunnings for some black electrical tape and a 10m roll of flexible tubing for my canister because it didn't come with enough previously.
My Purigen/Filter package didn't arrive on Friday so the tank is set up with my Eheim 2215 which is a 650lph, so tank turnover is only just over once an hour, will do until Monday.
Photo log of this is pretty average because I didn't really use the Camera much in the dismantling phase, but here we go.
Housing for my fish for the day, these 2 containers.
Had the filter running all day to keep the bacteria and fish alive. Had a bit of driftwood in there with them for the Pleco and to give them a little bit of cover. I can't imagine it was too much fun for any of them but they didn't seem overly distraught.
Stand in where it's currently sitting, with a mate of mine screwing in the towel rail while I supervise with the camera. We managed to get it in the door quite easily by laying it carefully onto a huge blanket and just dragging it in. I have two steps right below the doorway though, so it had to be carried most of the way.
Stand complete, big ups to the old man. I'm very happy with it.
Fortunately, the doorway method was really easy and we decided to do it with the tank as well. This saved putting it through the window which I was really nervous about. Tank in the room, phew!
Half of the backing on before ironing out the bubbles. Got ripped off through the ass for this and it wasn't my first choice to use it, as I would have rather painted it for a more permanent covering.
"Tank Technician" Holo ironing out the bubbles with a plasterboard something-or-other. He's the man with the experience, he got the job
Background on and electrical taped around the edges and in the seam (Maximum height aquarium backing you can buy from an LFS is 24"). Few little iffy bits here and there but it was pretty quality overall.
Tank slid into place. Unfortunately this was temporary as we forgot to plug in the power board before sliding it in, ****! 10 more minutes of almost ****ting my guts out pushing and pulling and it was all fixed up.
Interesting bit starts. Here's my aquascaping in a few shots. We ended up using 52kg of sand, which is a fair bit but because I'm getting Geophagus it should hopefully prove a good choice. In my first post I detailed how I planned to setup the scape of the aquarium. Step 1 above.
Closeup of my driftwood ****fight, I really like it but you can't see much in this shot.
Some more rocks in place to fill up the back section of the tank.
Tank filled up a bit, with aquascaping complete and the two broad leafed pygmy swords in. Pretty bad angle to show what it really looks like but that's coming up shortly.
Slightly better from this angle but the water level still distorts it.
Filter was installed and while tank filled up to about 2/3 the fish were transported back into the room, poor little guys in their container, it's worth it for them for the size increase in the long run though.
Full tank shots of the almost finished product. Ordering my plants and Geophagus on Monday, and the Purigen and 2217 will arrive on Monday also which should clear up any tannins in the water, which their probably will be with the new driftwood additions even though they've been soaked for 1-2 weeks.
Overall I'm really happy with how things went. No fish deaths thankfully and they all seem quite settled into the new tank when the lights are out, though skittish when I flicked them on for the photographs. There's a few rock placements that I want to iron out that seem out of place, and there's a gap behind the bit of wood that I picked up for $11.50 in the center that lets them get who knows where in that formation, which I'd like to block, although as the fish settle in it will probably only be used for sleeping. They can get in and out of it fine though which I'm happy about.
Main rock formations that need a little touch up are the ones on the right hand side, just a slight rearrange to make it look more natural. As time progresses the somewhat out of place rocks on the back of the driftwood will also be removed as they're needed to sink one of the pieces.
Glass also needs a much better clean so that will be done and photographs taken tomorrow after I'm done cleaning up the rest of the mess I've made around the house.
:thumbup:
Edit: Heater position is temporary, and lights will be hung within the next few days.
-----
Cheers if you read it all, if there's enough interest I'll post further logs of what work I do.
-----
It's finally here, my 48x24x28 (140Gal/530L) tank, courtesy of Aquariums R Us in Meadowbrook.
Plan is to develop a reasonably natural South American only (plants and inhabitants) community of slightly and non aggressive Cichlids and community fish. As you know I currently have a 160L 3' aquarium stocked with Souths only, which will be migrated to their lovely new home.
Planned stocking is as follows.
2x Heros efasciatus "Green Severum"
1x Aequidens pulcher "Blue Acara"
1x Hypselecara temporalis "Chocolate Cichlid"
3x Geophagus sp. "Rio Pindare"
2x Cleithracara maronii "Keyhole Cichlid" (Not confirmed)
5-6x Corydoras paleatus "Peppered Cory" (Not confirmed)
1x Ancistrus sp. "Bristlenose Pleco"
Plant species are as follows. Quantity unconfirmed.
Amazon Sword
Pygmy Chain Sword (Broad)
Pygmy Chain Sword (Narrow)
Lighting will be 3x54W T5 10K, 1x54W T5 6500K (4x 54W 10K at the moment)
I will be basing my general aquascaping on this layout. Thanks ADA 2007 winner.
All of my driftwood intertwined on the left side with a relatively similar rock hardscape formation with more nooks for the smaller Cichlids. Lots of open substrate area for the Geophagus to destroy. Will be using mixes of narrow and broad pygmy swords to cover up the rock formations around the back corner as the driftwood might look slightly out of place up there, with two 'bunches' of all of the plants combined in two areas in the front left and mid right sections to keep it green. Who knows though, might mix it up.
Necessary pictures.
Substrate. Left bucket is 15kg of relatively course river sand with random stones, wood chunks etc. Right bucket is fine riversand. Will be mixed with my 20kg of Filter Sand. Still needs to be reasonably cleaned.
Main showpiece of driftwood I picked up from an LFS. Not sure on the measurements but as you can see it's pretty large in comparison to the workhorses. Has all neat little marks that you can't see on the actual wood and should look great under lights.
The tank.
-----
Stand building commenced early today. Progress has been great. The old man is a carpenter, so wood and experience weren't a problem. He took it upon himself to source everything and do what I can only describe as a fantastic job.
Still incomplete but we're getting there, should be done tomorrow.
Final measurements were based of a mates, Holo's 4x2 stand. 700mm high, with a 50mm lip to cover glass bracing, silicon and styrofoam.
Early progress from this morning.
Start of production when I got down there. Stand is in it's side there. Using solid pine pergola for the legs.
Little more completed. Center brace is in and the solid ply background is nailed on. As you can see we haven't used a traditional brace in the center, instead opting to have the brace centered with the vertical support off to the side to allow for a reasonably sized door. Plenty of heavy strong screws were used keep the structure solid.
At this stage I went out for a bit, dropping into an LFS and picking up this bit of driftwood.
Rather large, definitely over 40cm in length. Here's the best bit.
They were all that cheap. On arriving home, I was gone for about 2 and a half hours. Stand is definitely looking a lot more homely. All of these shots were taken at the same time.
Cedar exterior almost complete.
Single door on the left size with false floor. As you can see, we've cut some of the sections of the top and base out to allow for a higher door for 400mm high canisters.
Open side to show bracing.
Interior of door and flooring. Bad photo.
Front. Needs to be stained yet, obviously. Will also have a towel rack on it, which will be ultra handy.
Back. As boring as you would expect.
More updates coming either later today or some time tomorrow.
-----
Slight update for you all. First coat of stain/varnish on.
-----
Towel rail and where it's going to go (the drill holes directly below the legs on the face). Going to be finished up on the day so that moving the stand is easier as it's going to have to go through the window as well. It's actually from a handle from a revolving door that some people get for their front doors on houses. Turns out it's worth about $120, score.
Doorknob that I picked out this morning to match. First booboo as you can see with the drilled hole above it, that will just have a nice looking bolt installed into it to cover it up and make it look somewhat necessary rather than bogging it. Speaking about bog, I still need to clean up the holes around the top rim section with a blade and do another coat of the varnish. Tomorrow morning.
-----
Little update.
What both myself and the couriers managed to do to the light. I broke the larger section off
Won't really be a problem, you might get a little glimpse of it if I hang the light.
Stand basically complete other than the towel rail. Handle and special 'showy' bolt to hide bad drill planning. It's been moved up onto the patio and isn't too far off being as heavy as the tank. Fortunately due to it being an absolute brick, we can just carry it into my room through the door vertically.
Tank through the window is going to be interesting though, always fun carrying a few hundred dollars of heavy easily damaged goods.
-----
Little update on the Chocolate and progress.
Bought some backing today because the painting idea fell through. I had to get twice the length because of the height of my tank, and apparently at a relatively cheap store up here, its $4.95 a foot for Blue/Black thats 24" high.
So $45 for backing, sheesh. Also picked up a new Gravel-vac.
Photo update of my old tank, I've removed a lot of the random rocks I had in it for more open substrate, and took out half of the plants for my brothers 5' planted tank that he's growing up.
Looking a bit bare, fish have one and a half more days in it until they get a huge roomy tank as juvies, should be very entertaining to watch.
Chocolate update, he/she is going great guns. Sleeps vertical but is fairly active and swims around a fair bit, very inquisitive already although skittish when I come near the tank. It's eaten all meals since the last update which is a few different types of pellets, floating and sinking also, so that's a great sign, as he comes up to eat in big feeding melee with my other fish.
His ability to swim is definitely becoming less impeded every day.
Few more photos tomorrow and then the big day on Saturday which although won't be the end of the log, will be a bit of a finale.
-----
Was a pretty flat out day with a bit of a Wii break in between but other than that it was busy busy busy. Had everything I needed minus a trip to Bunnings for some black electrical tape and a 10m roll of flexible tubing for my canister because it didn't come with enough previously.
My Purigen/Filter package didn't arrive on Friday so the tank is set up with my Eheim 2215 which is a 650lph, so tank turnover is only just over once an hour, will do until Monday.
Photo log of this is pretty average because I didn't really use the Camera much in the dismantling phase, but here we go.
Housing for my fish for the day, these 2 containers.
Had the filter running all day to keep the bacteria and fish alive. Had a bit of driftwood in there with them for the Pleco and to give them a little bit of cover. I can't imagine it was too much fun for any of them but they didn't seem overly distraught.
Stand in where it's currently sitting, with a mate of mine screwing in the towel rail while I supervise with the camera. We managed to get it in the door quite easily by laying it carefully onto a huge blanket and just dragging it in. I have two steps right below the doorway though, so it had to be carried most of the way.
Stand complete, big ups to the old man. I'm very happy with it.
Fortunately, the doorway method was really easy and we decided to do it with the tank as well. This saved putting it through the window which I was really nervous about. Tank in the room, phew!
Half of the backing on before ironing out the bubbles. Got ripped off through the ass for this and it wasn't my first choice to use it, as I would have rather painted it for a more permanent covering.
"Tank Technician" Holo ironing out the bubbles with a plasterboard something-or-other. He's the man with the experience, he got the job
Background on and electrical taped around the edges and in the seam (Maximum height aquarium backing you can buy from an LFS is 24"). Few little iffy bits here and there but it was pretty quality overall.
Tank slid into place. Unfortunately this was temporary as we forgot to plug in the power board before sliding it in, ****! 10 more minutes of almost ****ting my guts out pushing and pulling and it was all fixed up.
Interesting bit starts. Here's my aquascaping in a few shots. We ended up using 52kg of sand, which is a fair bit but because I'm getting Geophagus it should hopefully prove a good choice. In my first post I detailed how I planned to setup the scape of the aquarium. Step 1 above.
Closeup of my driftwood ****fight, I really like it but you can't see much in this shot.
Some more rocks in place to fill up the back section of the tank.
Tank filled up a bit, with aquascaping complete and the two broad leafed pygmy swords in. Pretty bad angle to show what it really looks like but that's coming up shortly.
Slightly better from this angle but the water level still distorts it.
Filter was installed and while tank filled up to about 2/3 the fish were transported back into the room, poor little guys in their container, it's worth it for them for the size increase in the long run though.
Full tank shots of the almost finished product. Ordering my plants and Geophagus on Monday, and the Purigen and 2217 will arrive on Monday also which should clear up any tannins in the water, which their probably will be with the new driftwood additions even though they've been soaked for 1-2 weeks.
Overall I'm really happy with how things went. No fish deaths thankfully and they all seem quite settled into the new tank when the lights are out, though skittish when I flicked them on for the photographs. There's a few rock placements that I want to iron out that seem out of place, and there's a gap behind the bit of wood that I picked up for $11.50 in the center that lets them get who knows where in that formation, which I'd like to block, although as the fish settle in it will probably only be used for sleeping. They can get in and out of it fine though which I'm happy about.
Main rock formations that need a little touch up are the ones on the right hand side, just a slight rearrange to make it look more natural. As time progresses the somewhat out of place rocks on the back of the driftwood will also be removed as they're needed to sink one of the pieces.
Glass also needs a much better clean so that will be done and photographs taken tomorrow after I'm done cleaning up the rest of the mess I've made around the house.
:thumbup:
Edit: Heater position is temporary, and lights will be hung within the next few days.
-----
Cheers if you read it all, if there's enough interest I'll post further logs of what work I do.
