TLH's Tank

About time I showed you all my new set-up isn't it. Collected the tank last Wednesday when there was still ice on the road and path outside our house. It was a bit nerve jingling watching it being carried over that but all went well. Spent the next two days clearing out and moving the one remaining 2' tank from my stand and getting ready to start. Finally got the new tank on the stand late Friday afternoon.

It's 48" x 15" x 18" high and it's a Clearseal. I was going to get one a year ago and it was still the same price now. 8) Just a pity that all the silicon bead isn't the same along the bottom. Still, it holds water. 😀

The stand is homemade out of odds and ends of ply and mdf for the doors then stained with ronseal or something similar to waterproof it.

Mark Green said:

tank looks nice and big

What scape ideas do you have?

looking forward to its developments 😀

Click to expand...

I haven't thought that much about it yet. I have bought some wood off ebay of which the 4 bits I will almost definitely use are in the bath right now having a soak. Those are the 3 bits on the left bag and the 1 in the top left corner of the right bag. Nice branchy bits but I want to give them a good clean before they see the tank. I'll stick 'em in and play around a bit to find a pleasing design after they've had a scrub and a dose of boiling water.



I currently have alot of Java Fern and quite a few Anubias nana along with some green and brown Crypt Wendtii. a1matt swapped a couple of Echinodorus for some of my Wendtii Greens and threw in a bit of Taiwan Moss also.

I only just got the filter running tonight and I still need to top off. Filter is an Eheim 2128, found it on ebay for £63+£6 postage(score 😉 ) because it had a broken lever on the aquastop. Got a new one of those for £4.63 and it's as good as new.

Lights are a D&D deltec Razor unit which came with Aquablue bulbs fitted. I have a Midday and a Aquaflora to experiment with. This is also an ebay steal at £50 delivered. It may not be unused but it still had the plastic tape on the reflectors so it hasn't seen much action. I just have to make some stands for it to fit on the tank ends. Thinking of using some 6mm smoked perspex I have for those.

hijac said:

Hi,

Did you make the stand yourself? if so, damn good DIY job.

Look forward to your painting.

Best Regards,

John

Click to expand...

Yep, all my own work albeit with a little help from the old man and the use of my carpenter mates workshop. Always helps to have decent kit to work with and someone to help. 😉 Here's a slightly better pic of it before we redecorated and with the old tanks still on it. I have some pics of the construction somewhere but I can't find them now.

Anyone else not see the pics? I can see them all but they're in my cache from yesterday.

Here is one of the new bulbs I bought, a Midday and an Aquaflora. Much softer and more pleasing to the eye than the harsh Aquablues that were in the unit before.

How deep is too deep? It's only a couple of inches at the front sloping to 3 inches or so at the back. I could still shift it around a bit. I used all the plain gravel I had in the 2 24"x12" tanks and bunged in 2 bags of Eco and some Laterite I had hanging about.

I have some sand for the old tank which I will now use as a quarantine facility.

I've made some bits for the light to stand on last Friday, ust got around to finishing them today and gluing them together. Haven't actually done alot since I last posted here as we've had my sister, bro in law and the new baby to stay over the weekend.

Made out of some old grey smoked perspex I had lying around. one for either end.



Goes together something like this, these sit on the tank ends then the light can just rest on the top of them. I'm just siliconing it together now.



Does anyone have a clue what sort of wood I got just by looking at it (see earlier pic) as it's taking quite a while to soak and sink. It's quite hard although not like iron and mediumly heavy and is red when I break a bit off.

Wood positioning advice please. Which do you like the look of best?

Positioning isn't final yet and please ignore the rock, the wood doesn't want to sink yet.

This...


or this...

I kinda like the first but like said it does lead your eye out of the tank. I do have more wood but I've only cleaned down these 2 bits so far, not been terribly active on the tank this week. 😳

Hows this anyway...I was thinking about having the righthand one behind the left and another bit of wood I have on the right but I don't now think I want to crowd it that much. If I do add it I think I'll have to cut a piece off it to make it fit anyway as it's rather large. It'll all be so much simpler when this stuff sinks.