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My venture into my new 760 ltr planted tank .

Always Broke

Always Broke

Member
Joined
28 Feb 2010
Messages
226
Location
Penryn Cornwall
Hi all.
I am Simon.
I thought I would start an artical about my first real aquarium.
A little history first.
I love fish and Radio controlled aircraft
I have kept fish indoors before in a small way, but that is over 20 years ago in our first house
After moving to our current house we built a koi pond. Not a bad size being 4100 gallons with a bout 700 gallons of that being indoors in the conservatory.All block built and fiberglased out.The outside being 6ft 6" deep and inside just over 2ft. We have been running this for about 8 years. This has worked well we have had a lot of pleasure from it. Times are changing and we have different interests now and also we wanted to alter the house a bit. Also the inside pond dose cause problems with the conservatory and involves lots of cleaning.
A walk in wardrobe was to take a 1/3rd of the conservatory along with a built in cupboard for coats and such like.
This meant that there was no room left to put chairs and such like. The decision was to remove the inside pond and later on in the future to get rid of the outside pond. We both like fish and we both like plants so we thought a planted tank would be the way forward for us.
So the work on rearranging the house has been done over the last 3 months.
So we now have a smaller conservatory with room for the tank and plenty of space to sit and enjoy it.
So here are a few pictures so far.

Emptying the inside part of the pond after the rest of the conservatory had been re-allocated
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There is a bottom drain in this section which feed my bead filter. This had to be re plumbed to the pumps on the other system that runs from the outside bottom drains.
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The hole in the wall is sealed with some 20mm acrylic sheet. I will make a port hole on the inside at a later date to view the fish under water.
DSCF0014Small.jpg
So after a lot of demolition and rebuilding I have a room again complete with a stand for the tank.
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Stand is made from 4x2" CLS with 18mm MDF and Pine to finish it off to match the rest of the room.
doors are on magnetic catches so they can be removed.
One of the intermediate supports is only screwed in place so I can get my sump tank in.

DSCF0033Small.jpg

Inside is lined with 3mm white UPVC sheet . A 11/2" wast pipe is fitted that is plumbed to my outside drain and a water supply. The water supply come's from a cartridge filter so I can add what ever preconditioning cartridges are needed. Power is provided along with a 5 ft tube for maintenance
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The tank will be a 7ftx2ftx2ft ft at approx 760 ltrs with a 60"x15"x15" sump. The tank is drilled and has weirs at both back corners. Return pipe work will be external exiting the right hand end of the stand. The tank stands about 3" from the wall at this end.
The tank is ordered along with the sump and should be delivered in 3 to 4 weeks time.

I will be asking lots and lots of question from now on along with reading as much as possible on the site.
Thats it for now. Off out to get the carpet.

Regards Simon
 
Re: My venture into my new aquariam.

Excellent Journal so far! Indoor pond is v cool! I can see why you user name is Always Broke! :lol: :lol:

Thats going to be a big planted tank! Cant wait to to see this journal develop, keep it updated! :thumbup:
 
Re: My venture into my new aquariam.

That inside pond was an awesome idea. Did the Koi used to come in inside often or did they prefer it outside?
 
Re: My venture into my new aquariam.

NeilW said:
That inside pond was an awesome idea. Did the Koi used to come in inside often or did they prefer it outside?
Click to expand...

I only fed them inside . A 30" fish taking food out of your hand is an awesome thing. Funny thing is that some fish preferred to be fed by the wife and others by me.
Sometimes there would be a queue of them waiting to swim in the hole which is about 15" in diameter.

Simon
 
Re: My venture into my new aquariam.

My first few questions are
Do I paint the back of the tank. Once its there is not going anywhere. If so is black the best way forward.

Secondly I need to think about the substrate. . I have no idea what to use .The one thing for sure is I will need lots of it. I have been reading about using Akadama . Is this a good way for me to go.

I also need to come up with some sort of design. I suppose the best way is some inspiration from other set-ups.
I know nothing about plants at all which means not knowing what to start with.
Fish wise I have no idea what to keep. The wife likes the idea of small shoals of fish where as I like individual specimens.
What is the best way for the lighting. I presume I will need to add Co2 . I can build most of that myself.
Must stop to many questions at the moment .
Simon
 
Re: My venture into my new 760 ltr aquariam.

If you aren't sure about the colour don't go for a painted background as the paint will be a nightmare to remove and you'll be stuck with it if you hate it. If you want to check out the look of different colours, maybe try a roll of paper from an art shop and only go for paint when you like the effect.

You could try static cling vinyl. The diffused backgrounds that some of the guys on here are using look great when they are back-lit. Applying it over such a large area may be tricky though. You can also get this stuff in black from a local sign writers and they mat be willing to apply it too for a small fee. The advantage is that you can remove it later if you tire of it or want to sell the tank
 
Re: My venture into my new 760 ltr aquariam.

How about this for inspiration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfwOlz-rcFs

you got rid of an amazing pond for a...wardrobe!!!!

Oh well we all make mistakes. 😛

I have an 8'x2'x2', but soon looking to upgrade, its not in the best shape as I intended, but currently am growing out plants ready for the new project. I would say use a black background or the clear frosted type(there are some posts on here about it).

I have an older vid if you want to see, and of course you can make your scape alot nicer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr66AH4RmNk
 
Re: My venture into my new 760 ltr aquariam.

Looks promising, the indoor pond was a cool idea, looking forward to how the port hole will look, would have been nice if you made it a large rectangle wall so you have two tanks the room 😉
 
Re: My venture into my new 760 ltr aquariam.

LondonDragon said:
Looks promising, the indoor pond was a cool idea, looking forward to how the port hole will look, would have been nice if you made it a large rectangle wall so you have two tanks the room 😉
Click to expand...

If I had been building it from scratch again I would have done that. The indoor part did have a 4 ft x18" glass panel in it for viewing. I had to get that specially made at Pilkington glass being 22mm laminated. Saved that when I took it all apart . Perhaps I will find someone that can use it. It cost £500 8 years ago.
 
Re: My venture into my new 760 ltr aquariam.

sanj said:
How about this for inspiration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfwOlz-rcFs

you got rid of an amazing pond for a...wardrobe!!!!

Oh well we all make mistakes. 😛

Yes but I am still married and now have accumulated a vast amount of brownie points and a 7ft tank and still have a koi pond :thumbup:

Thanks for the links . Just so much to think about. You must get a lot of pleasure from watching that tank.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr66AH4RmNk
Click to expand...

Simon
 
Re: My venture into my new 760 ltr aquariam.

I love the idea with indoor/outside pond great stuff :clap:

looks like now you will have a bit more work with this huge tank than with a pond 😛

good luck with it and look forward to see some updates :thumbup:
 
Re: My venture into my new 760 ltr aquariam.

Been thinking of my filter.
This is built in a 60"x15"x15" tank under the main tank. Its fed via 2 weirs in the main tank.
This is my first idea. All suggestions and help needed
The first section approx 18" long will be a quarantine tank. Thought this may be a good idea. I have nowhere else to put one and everything I got for my koi pond was quarantined so I presume this would be the same.
This can be filled from the main tank by opening the valve . It has a pump to empty it to waste.The internal filter would normally live in the pump chamber until needed. This section would also have its own heater and water top up valve.
The water from the main tank enters the pre filter stage. This consists of 5 foam blocks 100 mm square and 250 mm long. These are easy to clean.The tops of these would be open so if they block unexpectedly then water will rise in this section and flow down the centre of the pies thus still retaining water flow. I would alarm this section to inform me this has happened. There will be water level alarms fitted in the pump chamber as well for both high and low. Water has to pass through these into the fist bio chamber and then onto the second bio chamber . Medea for these could be Siporax and its copy's as I have loads of it.Anything else could be used if its any better. Water then flows into the pump chamber. In here would be my home made CO2 reactor.The power head is to re circulate the gas collected at the top. I have some 100 mm diameter clear Acrylic tube I could make this from being clear I could see how effective it is . The pump returns water to the tank.Also the heaters could go in this section perhaps I also have a couple of fluid bed filters that could run in this section for added bio filtration.The auto water top up float valve would also live in here. The filter chambers would have lids fitted, perhaps from thick acrylic onto rubber seals to retain the CO2 in the system. There would be very little disturbance to the water surface in this filter as it will be a totally wet one,as most are wet and dry. A bit of experimenting with water levels to take into account of a pump faliure would be needed, so as to not send loads of water down the overflow.

If you can understand the drawing. I am not a PC type person and used paint for the first time to draw it.

Templateforfilter2-1.jpg

These are just my first ideas. All comments please. I have build lots of successfully koi filters but never tried to build an aquarium one.

Simon
 
Re: My venture into my new 760 ltr aquariam.

Awesome size tank!, hope your cabinets built like a rhino and structurally sound to take such a weight!. Layout wise, well actually everything wise, check out Takashi Amano's Angel Tank for inspiration!.

 
Re: My venture into my new 760 ltr aquariam.

sanj said:
Sounds good, I know this might sound silly, but just to confirm your quarantine is seperate from the normal running of the rest of the system?
Click to expand...

Yes it is seperate.

Simon
 
Re: My venture into my new 760 ltr aquariam.

been doing looking into CO2 bottles locally.
Local company can supply a full 6.3kg bottle at £55 +vat. They charge £9.70 for a refill and the are only a few miles away.
Also it fits under the tank .

I see there are plenty of people doing regs on Ebay with solenoid's . Has anyone used these or what do you recommend.

Simon
 
Re: My venture into my new 760 ltr aquariam.

That's a brilliant price for CO2... When I had a reef tank I had to go to an aquatic supplier for refils... I think they were about £25 then...

Sounds a brilliant project... Best of luck with it...
 
Re: My venture into my new 760 ltr aquariam.

Found the Regulator to go with the bottle.
UK supplied at £29.60 +£6.95 postage .

co2-regulator.jpg

Just need to sort a needle valve now.

Simon
 
Re: My venture into my new 760 ltr aquariam.

I got the first part of my system yesterday.
The 6.3kg Co2 bottle . This came from a local supplier .Cost was £65 . Refilling it will be £10 inclusive so that all seams good. They had a few different format bottles of the same capacity but this was the shortest. I had to cut a hole in my false bottom to fit it but that acts as a support for it.

DSCF0042Medium.jpg

I have also ordered the regulator along with my pre filter sponges and some pipework.
At least that's a start.

Now I need some help with the substrate. I am going to need a fair amount. How much would yo think I need.

Simon
 
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