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The Celestial Swamp - A voyage through a flooded forest fringe (Shallow Riparium)

Jakes said:
Ill be interested in a more detailed post of your sump and your hollow cube filter if you have time
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I forgot to take pictures of the filter build but it's pretty simple... I took a 13" x 39" x 2" piece of 10ppi Poret foam and cut them to size to make a 4 sided cube and used the left over scs1000 silicone to glue them together and to a 13" x 13" porcelain tile base... I made another smaller 5 sided cube out of eggcrate and zipties to fit inside creating a space between that and the poret foam for seeded seachem matrix to serve as further filtration... the pump then sits in the middle...

If needed smaller cubes of 20ppi and 30ppi foam could be used in the same manner within the cube... I do not have a high bioload so 10ppi will function just fine as the riparium plants will be the main form of biological filtration in my setup... and in theory I shouldnt have to clean the foam ever!

My sump is very simple... water drains down into the bucket, overflows into the sump and makes its way through the poret foam filter and back to the display tank... the sumps main purpose is a water reservoir to increse the total for the system because there is so much soil and hardscape in the tank... I have plenty of room in there for extra seeded media and equipment and space for breeding boxes etc...

A sump need not be complicated for fresh water, and certainly doesn't need to be made from glass or expensive acrylic... stock tanks like this are perfect for this kind of thing...
 
hitmanx said:
A sump need not be complicated for fresh water, and certainly doesn't need to be made from glass or expensive acrylic... stock tanks like this are perfect for this kind of thing...
Click to expand...

This is an excellent point, which is obvious when you think about it - but we're always so obsessed by a particular product, rather than the simplest/cheapest way to achieve the outcome we want. So, loving the DIY, but can you point out where the return pipe is on your sump?
 
Kezzab said:
This is an excellent point, which is obvious when you think about it - but we're always so obsessed by a particular product, rather than the simplest/cheapest way to achieve the outcome we want. So, loving the DIY, but can you point out where the return pipe is on your sump?
Click to expand...

There currently is no return yet... I'm waiting for the tank to be filled to finalize the placement of the 1inch return... currently the pump is hooked up to a 1/2 vinyl tube that fills the blue bucket in order to maintain flow in the sump... in this way the poret filter is being seeded with the boat load of used matrix thats sitting in the sump...

I have not finalized the riparium planting, but for now its going to be Spathiphyllum 'petite', Syngonium, Cyperus alternifolius 'Gracilis', Monstera deliciosa, ficus pumila, and Lysimachia nummularia 'aurea'...
 
hitmanx said:
My sump is very simple...

A sump need not be complicated for fresh water, and certainly doesn't need to be made from glass or expensive acrylic... stock tanks like this are perfect for this kind of thing...
Click to expand...

Cheers Mate, that is a very simple idea but i like your thinking behind it, especially in Freshwater systems. Some local stores always push their wares and never really tell you that you can actually get by and have great success by keeping it simple!

I'm personally currently running my canister filter with just ever decreasing grades of foam and some ceramic media and the fish look great for it... as long as I remain on-top of the water changes and maintenance 😉



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So without the overflow system functional, and only an AC30 and korelia 425 running, the water level in the tank decreased a little less than a 1/4 inch since yesterday... using some math that equates to about 1.5 gallons lost in 24hrs... thats a little more than I was hoping... The riparium plants arent even part of the system yet and I find they increase evaporation. ..

Looks like a RO unit and a dehumidifier are in my future!
 
Progress and disquieting realizations...

The bean animal system works fantastic!! My return pump is only a temporary unit that is is supposed to pump 500gph but when accounting for the return pipes and head is probably closer to 250... I just dont think the bean animal system was designed for such low flow as I am having trouble tuning the sound in the open channel despite having a gate valve on the full siphon channel... one minute it's DEAD quiet and the next I can hear a trickle... I will most likely be using a eheim compact 3000 which pumps 700+ and I am hoping for 400gph into the display tank...

It took forever to realize that the easiest solution was the best plan... I have been racking my brain for a long time trying to figure out how to safely and easily do a water change while combining tap water and RO water in this system... I have done several 100% water changes using a python but that was just tap water... The Simple Solution I came up with yesterday was to use the sump as the mixing container and the pump as a way to fill up the display tank... I just had to add a tube that came down to a bowl resting on the substrate and voila!

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The system is now 54% RO water and 46% tap... but what I discovered is that even with the sump filled almost to the brim after all the water drains out of the return pipes, I only used 6 buckets of tap and and 7 jugs of RO for a total of 65 gallons in total!! How could this be? The inner dimensions of the tank allow for 66 gallons minus the coast to coast overflow and the sump itself is supposed to be 40 gallons which would bring me 41 gallons unaccounted for... Could my hardscape really take up that much space?

The Hydrocotyle sp."Japan" (Hydrocotyle tripartita) and the Helanthium tenellum are taking over and the crypts are exploding but this week have shown signs of severe melt... bloody blahblahblahblah God dammit!

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Half of the riparium plant have been added with more to come very soon!

Unfortunately filiamnetous diatoms and a little rhizoclonium have plagued the setup and I noticed today that some bga has begun to form smack in the middle of the tank on the substrate...
 
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So I finally installed gutter guard on the coast to coast overflow... all the fish I added to the tank, endlers, otocinclus and a dwarf African frog have taken the water slide down to the sump albeit with no ill effects...

With a 42 inch weir, regular plastic gutter guard didn't have enough rigidity to stay in place so I zip tied it to eggcrate and it works very well at preventing any more unwanted rides but now the bean animal drain system has been negatively affected... the riparium planters are creating a bottle neck of water flow between the siphon and open standpipe sections... the planter is blocking the most of the flow as its very close to the eggcrate which I did not account for when designing the overflow... the water is higher around the open pipe and lower around the siphon... so no matter how much I adjust the siphon flow with the gate valve I always have too much water trickling down the open standpipe creating unwanted noise... the system still works, it's just noisy!

I've almost completed the main riparium section, with only the accent plants on or around the emersed driftwood wood to contend with... here I will add moss, ferns, Ficus pumila, creeping jenny and orchids... frog bit and Salvinia natans will finish off the water margins and hopefully deter the fish from jumping out of the water... I have already had 2 endlers commit suicide thus far...

After the big water change and reducing the light duration to 6 hours and dimming the lights to 75% all algae has subsided... the crypts have stopped melting but a lot of the leaves have weird pin holes...

I'm very close to adding all remaining livestock and taking down all my nano tanks!!

I'll take some pictures later...
 
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Just a couple more marginal plants on the right side and the background planting is done...

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I filled a hair net with long fibre sphagnum peat moss and draped it over the back of the middle stump and then draped the roots of the maiden hair fern over that and then tied it down with cotton thread... we shall see if this method works because the riparium planter did not... anyone have any suggestions for proper transition of maiden hair fern to riparium conditions?

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Here's the first inhabitants, a trio of Tiger Endlers... unfortunately one of the females commuted suicide...

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The gutter guard stops the critters from taking the water slide down to the sump...

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The eggcrate keeps the gutter guard rigid, but also takes up more room in the overflow...

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Just like on my cube riparium I employed the use of HOB breeder boxes to extend the riparium section...

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Small pumps in the overflow fill the boxes and then discharges back but unfortunately it increases the noise of the system... I need to find a way to muffle the flow...

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I just tested the water tonight... ph 7.2, Kh 2, Gh 10

All the fish are going in this weekend! WOOOOO OOOOOOO!

All the nanos will be decommissioned, the random equipment and mess that has accumulated in the making of this tank will be stored away, and I can once again have peace and tranquility...

Once the tank has settled in, I can turn my attention to completing the light fixture housing and skinning the stand...
 
I added 3 Gold ring danios (brachydanio tinwini) and 12 Emerald dwarf rasboras (celestichthys erythromycin) last night and for the most part they are settling in nicely... all 12 emeralds are completely hidden which they are amazing at doing... I had a hard time moving them cause they would hide in the smallest of spaces between equipment etc...

Unfortunately one of the emeralds made it into the overflow and one of the danios made it all the way to the sump... I guess the gutter guard doesn't stop micro fish... here's to hoping it was a one time thing!

Scratch that! I just checked the sump again and there's at least a half dozen of the buggers down in the sump... bloody blahblahblahblah God dammit!
 
All fish are in!!

Wow, was that ever hard catching all these fish from my nano tanks...

4 Otocinclus sp.
1 Dwarf African frog (Hymenochirus boettgeri)
2 Tiger Endlers (Poecilia wingei x)
19 Gold Ring Danios (Brachydanio tinwini)
12 Emerald Dwarf Rasboras (Celestichthys erythromycin)
12 Celestial Pearl Danios (Celestichthys Margaritatus)
17 Glowlight Danios (Celestichthys choprae)
3 Pygmy Corys (Corydoras pygmaeus)

Here's a video of them exploring the open middle section:
 
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