My New tank Story

Hey All,

I am in the process of setting up my new tank. I got the stand and filter today. The tank is on order however, I can't pick it up until i hit some personal goals.Massive motivation for me haha.

Anyway, I thought I would do a thread so you can all see how it is progressing.

So here is the stand





The tank is going to be 5ft long, 2 ft tall and 20 inches deep, 485ltrs The stand is 90cms tall, 15cm taller than a standard stand. going to make the tank look huge

This is the filter





It is a jebo trickle filter.

more details to come

Wow ! That stand is beautiful ! Can't wait to see it all set up and running !

bit of work on the stand tonight. Not much but getting it all ready.

One of the things I hate about my current cabinet is the mess of wires and the terrible setup i have with the power board. it just sits on the ground and is probably very unsafe

So, I decided to go all out on this one. I was planning to have wired in plug points and saftey switches and everything. However, three things stood in my way the first was, unsurprisingly, my bank ballance The second was the fact that the saftey switches etc must be wired in by a professional which goes back to point 1 The final thing was I was too lazy to drive to the shop that is licenced to sell the saftey switches.

So, i went with option B.





So, there are two, 4 outlet powerboards there. Each outlet has its own switch. They are held in place with cable ties for now as i may want to move them once i figure a few other things out. I also installed a light in the cabinet so that i can see what i am doing when i am rooting around in there. They are all surge protected and have a saftey trip at 30amps, not that i am worried about such things.

Next is drilling some more holes through the back for plumbing etc and then waiting for me to get my butt into gear so i can hit my goals and get the tank. All i can say it is going to be an epic day when the tank gets delivered, both in terms of it will be awesome and it is going to be one busy day!

Beautiful stand!
Love the internal lighting..

Hey Doug

Can we have an update please

yea i would love to see this tank when its complete, great job so far it looks really nice

update requested

The tank is now up at the shop in the workshop. The glass for the overflow arrived on Thursday so we will be putting that in this week. We will drill the tank at the same time for the overflow and the return line. I don't want any pipes hanging over the top.

I am trying to decide what colour to paint the back of the tank. either blue or black. I'm thinking black as it will really make the albino oscars pop and bring out the green of the plants.

The stand is now totally ready. Holes have all been drilled and pipes have been fitted. I do need to get some more media for the filter as it only has foam at the moment. Thinking

FOAM
CERAMIC RINGS
______________
K1 MEDIA

______________
BIO Balls

______________
SUMP







I'm also toying around with the lighting. I am either going to use the current twin t5 4ft from the current tank or maybe going for a 5ft LED light... not sure yet.

looking good Doug. Cant wait to see the final product. Hows the job going? still loving working at the LFS? Been a while since iv been in but then again it is nearly an hours drive for me lol

Loving the job!

Yeah, remember you still have all that credit there too

best use it...or i will

Hello everyone, been on mat leave for a while now!

Looks really nice Doug!!! Love the wood color, it's sure to be a beauty!

Thanks for the update doug

What sort of plants are you wanting to keep? Something the oscars cant crush lol.
For lighting, i wouldnt do LED unless your going with cree chips or high power modules. The other leds with low wattage usually have terrible penetration. I would say this light is ideal being 2x as powerful as normal T5 and it saves energy The price is a little expensive though.. http://www.reefdirect.com.au/electronics/lighting-aquarium-reef/t5-ho-lighting/ati-t5-lighting-/sunpower-dimmable/4-tube-80w-sumpower-reef-coral-planted

Right, well it has been a fair old while so and I finally made some more progress with the tank swap.

So as you may know, this new tank is going where my current oscar/display tank is. The old tank is getting turned into a terranium for my girlfriend's new bearded dragon that we are picking up tomorrow. The tank is still up at the shop in the workshop waiting to have the holes drilled. that is happening wednesday morning then bring it home thursday or friday fingers crossed.

Anyway, I thought i would update the progress so far. Today i grabbed some spare tanks and set them up as temp tanks for the fish during the swap. I wanted to do this so that I wasn't in a rush at any point. they can stay in these tanks for ages if need be.

So, first step. remove filters from old tank



and set them up on temp tanks


the next step was to drain the old tank into the temp tanks





Finally have it all drained



and the temp tanks full and running



I have removed all of the sand from the tank and put it aside for the new tank and gave the old 4fter a really good clean up ready to be set up for the dragon.





Next step... finish the tank and get it home!

I have moved the new stand into its new spot. You can really get a sense of how much bigger it is going to be.

Just thought i would pop up a pic of the old tank in its new form



and its new owner, cedric

Well, the big day finally arrived

All the work on the tank was finished and the tank was delivered wed night. There was still a bit of silicon curing on the overflow box so i didnt fill it but i did all the plumbing work at the back and under it ready for the big fill.

So, here she is...my big beauty!



For those who cant be bothered going back to the top of the thread, it is 5ft long, 2ft tall and 20inch wide (480ish ltrs). It looks so much more imposing than its size would suggest though based on the height of the stand which is 90cms, rather than the traditional 75cms. Makes it look twice as big!

Here is a close up of the overflow box. It is more complicated than you think. The front bit of glass has the overflow comb as well as the two inlets in the front. This is separated from the back of the tank by a baffle which through the physics of the design caused a syphon through the front inlets, not just the comb. It is rated for about 4000l/h (limited by the bulkhead fitting through the back).




Here is a really bad pic of the plumbing at the back of the tank. The outlet is 25mm with a tap, the inlet is 19mm, also with a tap. I went all out on making sure there are no leakes cos now its full i am NOT moving it until i have to!!!!!




Next thing was to paint the back of the tank. I have never had a tank with background and always hated it. Always seeing the rubbish on the back of the tank and never being able to clean it. So, i wanted to paint it. At first i was going to use black contact but that turned out to be a MASSIVE pain in the behind so I promptly got angry with the contact and bought some paint. Now, for those interested. You can not just paint glass. It is too sheer and the paint will not stick to it. There is a product called ESP (easy surface prep) and it is amazing! just rub it on and then 90 mins later paint away! So I did that. I used a matt black with two coats. There are still some thin spots where if the tank lights are off and the tank is lit from behind you can see the light coming through, but with the tank lights on it is solid so I am happy with it! I went about 12cms round each corner too, mainly to hide the overflow box



Then it was a painfully slow process of filling it, draining it, filling it, draining it, filling it draining it to give it a good rinse. Also, to test the flow rates through the overflow box and the filter.




Then it was simply fill it with old tank water from all of the other tanks (topped up with some RO and tap water), add the sand back it, add the filter media from the canisters that were running on the holding tanks and fire it up

I let it run like this for about 3hrs just to make sure that everything was running as planned and that the temp was stable etc. I added in a cycled air filter too just for that bit of extra bacteria. Quick water test to see were things were. all good, as you would expect with no fish in there and cycled media. I then added the fish as the holding tanks were now 75% empty checked to see they were all still ok for about an hour and then went to bed.

First thing this morning i did a water test and everything is spot on, no ammonia, no nitrite, 10-20ppm nitrate. pH 6.9. Water is still a bit cloudy from adding the substrate but that will clear in time. Fish are all really happy and swimming around.





Pretty happy with it all

Looks great Doug. The oscars should grow nice n big in there

Just noticed your FS thread Doug. So how about an update on how the tank is setup now?