freshwest Posted December 20, 2005 Report Share Posted December 20, 2005 Big day tomorrow. The long awaited new tank is being delivered . Dimensions 230 x 77 x 77 . Total volume 1363 L This is going to be the new home for my Discus and other Amazon fish. Will posts some pics in the next day or 2 . Its been a long road to here having had to build a family room (viewing side ) and a fish room (tank side) . The building project started in June so the arrival of the tank tomorrow is a big mile stone . Still plenty of work to do , plumbing , filters ,sumps , lighting etc . Should be fun Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rory Posted December 20, 2005 Report Share Posted December 20, 2005 Exciting! good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted December 20, 2005 Report Share Posted December 20, 2005 Wow! Looking forward to the pics of progress. What a Christmas prezzie!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faran Posted December 20, 2005 Report Share Posted December 20, 2005 :drool: I was just stoked about setting up a 500L discus tank.... you've blown that out of the water Congrats and keep us posted! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke* Posted December 20, 2005 Report Share Posted December 20, 2005 Man massive tank, sounds like it will be an impressive display mounted in the wall (assuming that's what you're doing). What kind of substrate are you going to use? Are you going pressurised CO2? What sort of lighting? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antwan Posted December 21, 2005 Report Share Posted December 21, 2005 Wow that sounds cool as. I love amazonian fishies. What kinds are you putting into it? Sounds like a great project and good luck to you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dally Posted December 21, 2005 Report Share Posted December 21, 2005 holy! now thats MTS dedication! :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freshwest Posted December 23, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 23, 2005 What a day! Met Greg (tanks2u) at his place to help him lift the tank into his van. First impressions Hell that’s BIG, second impression 10 minutes later hell that’s HEAVY! The move into the fishroom turned out to be a nerve-racking experience, without the forks on the tractor I don’t think we would've made it. It took a super human effort with 4 men to move the tank 10 meters with the last lift onto the stand being brutal. The body is still recovering... Anyway the tank is now in position and the viewing hole cut in the wall. I'm really pleased with the results so far. I’m still pondering plumbing and lighting options, will up date when things are finalised... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony Posted December 23, 2005 Report Share Posted December 23, 2005 wow thats impressive good work freshwest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monaro1 Posted December 23, 2005 Report Share Posted December 23, 2005 thatn is looking cool 8) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke* Posted December 23, 2005 Report Share Posted December 23, 2005 Niiiiiiice geeza Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted December 23, 2005 Report Share Posted December 23, 2005 Great pics! Looking forward to seeing progress. Some people's Christmas's are better than others :bounce: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony Posted December 23, 2005 Report Share Posted December 23, 2005 caryl could be a good story for the AW with the forklift and all Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billaney Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 Awesome Tank, and awesome placement !!, good luck with set up hope were going to see lost of pictures as it takes place Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freshwest Posted December 29, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 Things are progressing. a little slower than anticipated with Christmas and all. The main project up till now has been designing and building the aquascape . I have decided to build it out of polystyrene. The idea behind using polystyrene is to avoid having gravel 20 cm deep. One key point I have for this project is make it low maintenance .I will post some pics soon which should help explain what I mean. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LYNDYLOO Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 Well all I can say is "I WANT ONE" Good Luck with the next step, can't wait to see some pics. Lynda Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caper Posted December 29, 2005 Report Share Posted December 29, 2005 WOW...that is one huge tank! Geesh, offline for a while...come back...and people are growing tanks :-? Can't wait to see the finished product...and all the steps in between! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim&Dan Posted December 30, 2005 Report Share Posted December 30, 2005 Wow! That's a seriously cool setup and thanks for sharing the experience... great pics Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warren Posted December 30, 2005 Report Share Posted December 30, 2005 Cool, what size glass thickness did you use? I have a tank with fairly similar dimensions set up as an Amazon Discus tank. I'll send you some photo's soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freshwest Posted December 30, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2005 Hi Warren .The glass is 12mm . (fingers X). Looking forward to your pics . In fact it was after looking at some pics of your tank you posted sometime back that inspired me to have a go at a big tank . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warren Posted December 31, 2005 Report Share Posted December 31, 2005 Big tanks are cool!! With 12mm glass, worst case your tank has 163.6% of the strength required. While 220% is the minumum recommended and 380% is used on commercial designs, many home tanks are built to 150% or less. With only 163%, you'll need to make sure you have a very stiff base for the tank to sit on and it will need to be very flat (less than 0.5mm) flatness error. Polystyrene will not take up the stlack as the surface area is very large. While the tank is large, so is the surface area so the effective force on the poly is very small, not enough to deform it so it takes up more than 0.5mm over a large area. All poly does is take up point source loads to stop a bit of grit or a screw-head cracking the tank. It going to look great once setup. Have you got gravel yet? I can tell you where to get the 500kg's you'll need at a fairly reasonable price. If you're going to plant it heavily I'd recommend undergravel heating (about 5% of the total required) and gravel that resembles course sand rether than the standard 6-8mm aquarium stones and definately no undergravel filter. Keep away from potting mix etc as it goes off. If you can find laterite at a reasonable price, use it, - it's like putting a green-thumb into the gravel. As you've got the tank in another room you could put metal halides on it with only a very basic outlay (not the $1000's you need to spend on marine lighting). I'd recommend these as well as plant growth is much better with these than fluro's... At 770mm deep fluro's won't get to the bottom with enough intensity anyway. Mine's only 650mm deep and I had trouble with ground cover plants until I added the MH's. You've got what looks like an overflow in the corner. You'll need to make sure there is very little turbulence in the overflow so the CO2 does not escape... It looks well thought out though, with the sump there will be no need for pumps and heaters in the tank. It's going to look really cool when done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freshwest Posted January 9, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2006 Week 3 Started on a bit of a downer. After reading Warren’s post I decided to move the tank from the stand and take a closer look at the flatness of the base. Not such a big deal with a conventional tank but with this monster a logistical night mare not only did I have to build a tempery stand but it required considerable sweet talking and the promise of beer to convince some friends to help move it again. Checking the base turned out to be a good move as there was variations in flatness of around 1.5 mm in places. The variation was caused when small pieces of wood and steel got trapped between the stand and the base when I was screwing the base down. Anyway problem solved. Thanks for the info Warren. As far as setting up the tank goes I have just about finished the polystyrene aquascapes, just a bit of tidying up to do around the fitting. Finding the right bit of drift wood turned out to be harder than I thought. I spent 4 hours walking up a river in the Coramandels, at times up to my neck. Having a picture in your mine of what you want and finding it in reality turned out to be a challenge. At the end of the day I was happy with the piece I found even though it was not quite what I wanted. This is probably a good time to give an over view of the design I have for this tank. As I have said earlier the tank is being set up for discus with an emphasis on low maintenance and high water quality. I guess the best way to describe what I am planning is a cross between a bare tank and a planted tank. The success of the project well be if it looks natural and the fish are healthy. To achieve this I went for poly coated with gravel. This has minamised the amount of gravel need and in turn fewer places for wastes to accumulate. It looks at this stage I will use around 100kgs of gravel instead of the 500 kgs You can see in the pics of the poly aquascapes areas were i have created the places for planting . These areas will be filled with a mix of gravel sand and laterite . Another feature I am going to try with this tank is a reverse under gravel filter As you can see by the photos the R/UG filter covers a large proportion of the central area of the tank. I hope by doing this it will prevent the build up of waste in the gravel. The R/UG is to be run in a kind of closed loop. I.e. The water will be drawn from an intake at mid level (you can see the hole in the left corner) from there it will pass through a 10 inch pleated filter and returned through the r/ug. The pump Im using for this is an Eheim 1262, which has a flow rate of 3200 l/h. The advantages I see with this system are. 1. The pleated filter should maintain exellant water clarity 2. The 50/60 mm layer of gravel over the under gravel filter should act as a reseasonble bio filter. 3. By defusing the return water over a large area I can achieve a high water turn over rate with out creating high turbulence. 4. Cleaning a pleated filter should make maintenance easier. The overflow (top right hand corner is to be connected to a 150 L sump .The sump will hold a bio filter, heaters, Co2 diffuser, auto fert doser, and possibly a UV light. The sump water will be returned via a 2000l/h submersible pump to two spray bars positioned vertically in the front corners. The 2 pumps combined will give a turn over rate of 4 times an hour. I also intend to install a constant drip system (8.l/hr). This will take care of evaporation and provide a small daily water change. Lighting. Metal halides will be used for the majority of the lighting. The dilemma I have with these is the ones I have are 400 watt, one is not enough, and two a bit to much. Ideally a couple of 250-watt lights would be best. The lights are to be set up with most of the light focused on the planted areas at each end of the tank with the middle area being shady. I also intend to use fluros, not sure of the configuration at this stage. The main purpose of the fluros will be to provide dawn and dusk lighting .I would like to add some moon lighting further down the track. Well that’s about were im up to. Heres to a productive week, every thing going well we should see some water in the tank by the weekend. Thanks for your thoughts and encouragement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warren Posted January 9, 2006 Report Share Posted January 9, 2006 Hi Freshwest, I'd dump the UGF it will be no good with Amazon plants. Most Amazon plants like an iron and mineral rich substrate and deeper than 50-60mm (go for 80-100mm). Amazon plants (Echinodorus species specifically) do not like too much water movement past the roots either. The gravel will not go off if you use undergravel heating and lots of plants. It probably won't go off anyway if the plants are growing quite quickly but undergravel heating is a really good guarantee everything will work out fine. The plants use up most of the waste and undergravel heating provides just enough flow to keep things fresh but not so much that the iron and mineral leach out into the water. Use about 5% of the total heating power under the gravel. With your external sump filter you won't need the UGF anyway and it will have about 20x the effect of the UGF anyway. Progress looks really cool though, it's going to be a fabulous looking tank. 8) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freshwest Posted January 10, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2006 Good points Warren .The plan I have is only to plant in the areas i have cut out of the polystyrene aquascape and areas were there is no R/UG.These areas are around 100mm deep and i will fill these areas with a good plant growing substrate . In a way it will be like planting into pots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warren Posted January 10, 2006 Report Share Posted January 10, 2006 Cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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