New 350L Tank + Sump

[Caswal]

Hi All,

I started fish keeping back in March/April with a 100L Tall tank, as a good solid start in the hobby. I read the bigger the tank you can get away with the better. And 100L was about as big as I could squeeze in my initial space. And stocking with some cory's, tetra's and a dwarf gourami seemed a good place to start.

I have lined up a new space in the house, and just bought a 300-350L tank for a good price off trademe. (Dimensions 153Lx43Dx53H cm). The tank will be planted.

The new spot is a big tricky to build for (will be explained as I document along the project), but has a couple of advantages, it has a great spot to keep a sump, aiming for 60L-80L. May use the Blueplanet cheap 65L tank from Animates as the basis. It has Access to the kitchen sink through an internal wall that I can cut access through. So I can setup an automatic drain/fill system to the sump for water changes. No more buckets for me! As well as the other sump benefits of hidden filters, heaters, refugium etc.

Of course the first thing that comes to mind is stocking a tank link this. I am after building a community tank (although I may partition the tank if needed), and have become quite attach to my little 'Napolean' Dwarf Gourami. He does needsa couple of females to distract him. But would be great to have a few larger eye catching fish. Using trusty aqadvisor I have built this up as an initial stocking. Thoughts, opinions, options?

 

[David R]

Pick one species of tetra, two at the most, and add larger groups of each. I'd say forget the glowlights as the rainbows already have some orange on them and shoot for 20-25 each of the black neons and lemons.

[Caswal]

Pick one species of tetra, two at the most, and add larger groups of each. I'd say forget the glowlights as the rainbows already have some orange on them and shoot for 20-25 each of the black neons and lemons.

Is there a reason for this beyond aesthetics?

[Adrienne]

All rainbow fish are fast constantly moving fish and noes mani get quite large so when planting give consideration to the fact that you will need to leave a large space in the tank for them to zip up and down in. I think that your dwarf gourami, unless they stay well out of the way, may be frightened and injured. This is just from my previous experience in keeping rainbows in s 450 litre tank

Edited July 11, 2016 by Adrienne

[Fishluva]

i would have only one bristlenose.

[David R]

Is there a reason for this beyond aesthetics?

Nope, but in a tank that size I think three different species will look a bit chaotic. The fish couldn't care less though.

[Caswal]

Nope, but in a tank that size I think three different species will look a bit chaotic. The fish couldn't care less though.

Thanks David, I just want to know the reasoning behind the advice/opinions. Behind the text of the internet it's hard to determine if it is advice or an opinion.

My better half wants more variety of tetras. Going to be quite a while before the tank is ready so plenty if time to bargain with her.

i would have only one bristlenose.

Again, I'll ask the reasoning behind this? Why one bristlenose?

Will post up some pictures of plans soon.

[Fishluva]

If you get a pair, in no time at all there will be fifty.

If you get two males, one will be bullied.

Two females would be nice, I think?

:-)

[Caswal]

All rainbow fish are fast constantly moving fish and noes mani get quite large so when planting give consideration to the fact that you will need to leave a large space in the tank for them to zip up and down in. I think that your dwarf gourami, unless they stay well out of the way, may be frightened and injured. This is just from my previous experience in keeping rainbows in s 450 litre tank

I am probably going to keep a tank, or slightly smaller tank where I have one now. So will always have the option of keeping them in there. My male gourami does try to makes nests, but doesn't help that they get destroyed/damaged each water change with the change in water levels. The advantage of the new tank is water changes will happen with the sump so the display tank never changes water level.

Tank Design Thoughts

So I picked up a cheap 2nd hand, 100Lish tank to use as a sump. Also came with plenty of other little odds and sods (airpump, in tank filter pump, test kits, etc). So was pretty happy with the deal.

I am most likely going to document and build a fluidized sand filter. Out of 100mm clear acrylic tube, end capped with standard 100mm drain fittings/end caps. Very similar in design to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz0WgaRHcJA around 80cm tall. I will probably also set this up as an exposed piece as I like the look of the cloudy/storm sand look.

I have seen that these are both great filtering/converting ammonia to nitrate, but with enough column height also decomposing nitrates as well. But as these are both anaerobic and aerobic processes it is also great at stripping oxygen from your water too. So I probably inject air on the outlet of the filter, and 3D print a gauss like pipe insert to try and break/smash the air bubbles up into small bubbles to increase the surface area as they travel back up the return line to the display tank.

As almost all of my filtration will be happening in the FSF, the sump just needs to handle mechanical filtration/polishing, place for heaters, automatic drip water change and overflow/drain. This gives me plenty of space for a good sized refugium or 2. For whatever i feel like/need. So if I am lucky enough to get some fish to spawn, I have somewhere safe with the same water to move them too.

 

[Caswal]

Finally managed to get some time to progress on my tank. Got it in position with a custom printed backdrop:

All of the overflow plumbing for the sump is done. Just need to finish the return and spraybar. And get myself some black sand for the substrate.

[Caswal]

New Tank is coming along, filled with water, substrate, some plants, some ornaments etc.

 

 

Sump is plumbed up. Needs a few alterations to be works correctly, but getting there:

Sand filter had an issue, my siliconing was not up to snuff, and the bottom started to leak. Causing a little bit of a mess, but all sorted now. Added some blue plastic gem stone things to float around at the top:

 

 

 

Edited August 16, 2016 by Caswal
Tested to see if [img] tags work and they do. So then correctly finished my post.

[Caswal]

Wow another month has passed since the last update. Had a few things happened which put a hold on progressing on the tank. But getting closer!

Added some drift wood, rocks, and some more plants to the tank:

I now have just setup the drip system, the water is fed through a custom charcoal container first. To remove the chlorine (tastes much nicer than our normal water now):

3D printer an elbow to allow me to control the water level in the sump:

Added bio noodles to the bottom of the sand filter instead of gravel. Got a bigger pump and added some more sand:

And finally my Dwarf Gourami waiting for the new tank to be ready:

 

[gligor]

Some of those photos can't be viewed, I imagine they are private links

[Caswal]

5 hours ago, gligor said:

Some of those photos can't be viewed, I imagine they are private links

Hopefully fixed. All came from the same album with the shame sharing settings. Probably the last time I use google photos.