65g FW Journal

[Delphinus]

I have a couple clownloaches who are outgrowing their current tank so I'm in the process of setting up a 65g for them. They are currently in a tank I affectionatly dub "the abomination" due to its ability to grow algae better than any plant I've ever tried.

The plan is to use a sump with bioballs, hide the heater down there, and down the road hide any CO2 equipment down there (since I hope to keep this as a planted tank).

I bought the tank, stand and hood from Impreza who previously used the tank as a reef. It cleaned up pretty nice. First step is to drill a hole in the back for the overflow box.

http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/progression/65g-drilled.jpg

The overflow will have a small box made of smoked glass, there will be a Durso-style overflow but with the standpipe on the exterior of the tank.

Here's the overflow being slapped together:

http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/progression/starting-overflow-box.jpg

The box is just large enough to cover a 1" bulkhead and contain a 1" 90 degree elbow for the Durso intake. I measured this out as 4"x4"x5" (5" high).

I got lazy and just ordered glass pieces from the Glass Guild at 2 pieces of 4x5, and 1 of 5x5. Actually I made a mistake (well, two actually, but more on that later), I ordered 4 pieces of 4x5. I meant to order 3, just in case I elected to put the overflow box in the centre of the tank. In the end I decided to put it right up against the right hand side so one extra panel was not needed. Now I have two extra pieces of 4x5 4mm smoked glass. Even with the extra pieces though, the cost for the overflow box glass was a fairly thrifty $18. :)

The second mistake was to not compensate for the width of the glass. If I were to do this again, I would make it so that the bottom piece reaches out past the side edges. Right now I had to get a little creative to make sure the pieces all line up nice.

Next, was to find a way to mount my Coralife 30" unit in the hood. I have a 24" unit and a 30" unit just lying around as "surplus" (technically the 24" isn't surplus "yet" -- it's in use over my 30g right now -- when the 65g goes online, it will be surplus).

The real killer on these Coralife units is their resell value. So selling the 30" unit and buying a 36" unit instead works out pretty close to the same as just buying the 36" unit. So for now, I'm going to try to make use of the 30" unit.

http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/progression/light_in_hood.jpg

I used 2" corner brackets to slide into the rails of the Coralife. These "just fit" (maybe with a little wiggling) into the rails. Then I used angle brackets to screw into those corner brackets, and then screwed those brackets into the hood.

I used nylon screws with wing nuts to make removing the unit somewhat easy for when it's time to replace lamps. Unfortunately to replace the lamp means to take the whole canopy off the tank, but at least it shouldn't be too bad to do that.

http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/progression/light_attachment_closeup.jpg


That's as far as I got today. Tomorrow I hope to get the overflow box installed on the tank and some of the plumbing started to the sump.

[Dale]

Tagging along!
Interesting to use a sump on a FW - something I've discussed many times before with others.
Hah :mrgreen: I've made the same glass mistake too (forgetting the width). It's one of those "never do that again" things.
Very inventive with the brackets, I'll store that away in my mental filing cabinet (if I can ever find it).

[Delphinus]

Rough fitting of the overflow cup in place. I tried to make the top of the overflow flush with the bottom of the trim of the tank, that way the waterline should be above the trim.

http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/progression/rough_fit_overflow.jpg

I'm sure Michaelangelo didn't have to pretape his work, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess he never siliconed in an overflow into an aquarium..
http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/taping_silicone.jpghttp://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/progression/taping_silicone.jpg


And some black eggcrate, and now just need to let the silicone cure..
http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/progression/finished_overflow.jpg

I went with black eggcrate because I thought, that combined with the smoked glass, would look really keen. In retrospect I might have gone with thicker glass and that might have been less translucent. Oh well.

Also in retrospect, black eggcrate is expensive ($15/sheet) and hard to find. If I ever run out and need more, I'll just use white and use that Krylon Fusion spray paint.

[Delphinus]

Kind of let this fall wayward, but got going on it again this last week.

One holdup was that I wasn't sure how I was going to make the external Durso overflow and be able to get the tank nice and close to the wall behind. Bulkheads are large and I want it to be modular in case I ever need to take it apart.

So I figured out how much threading I needed on the bulkhead and hacksawed off the excess. Sanded out the hacksaw marks with some medium grit sandpaper. Then, because the bulkhead was now so short, there was not enough room to have a threaded 1" close nipple for the 90 degree elbow AND for the "T", so I cut a close nipple down to size, threaded it in just enough that there's enough clearance leftover for the T to thread on fully, and then welded the two with some Weldon-16. For the T, I wrapped teflon around the remaining nipple about 6 or 7 wraps and got the T on. Smeared a little silicone around the edge for good measure. What I'm left with is a external Durso and low-profile enough that I should be able to get the tank to within 4" of the wall in behind.

http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/progression/fw_durso.jpg

The Durso here is 1" with a 1" bulkhead, minus some nominal radius for the close nipples holding everything together on the inside.

For the air valve I used a bushing to threaded 1/2", a close nipple, a 1/2" ball valve, another close nipple, into another 1/2" bushing back up to 1", then into a 1" coupler. On top of the coupler just sits a 1-1/4" cap. It just sits loose and has been drilled out on the top to let air pass. The open part of the coupler inside has a little bit of filter floss to act as an air muffler to keep the thing silent (hopefully). It has not yet been water tested so I don't know how gurgly it sounds yet.

[Delphinus]

The finished plumbing. Enough time had transpired that I looked at all the PVC bits I had amassed and I could not figure out what I had in mind anymore. I know it made sense at one point, but these ideas I get only seem to last so long before evaporating I guess.

6 or 7 trips to the hardware store in the last week, and at least 3 more "um what was I thinking again?" moments, this is what I've come up with.

I went with flex 1" on the drain because I wanted the Durso to drain vertically. The pipe then bends over to where the hole I had to drill in the stand to get to the sump.

The sump return, on the other hand, is rigid 1" PVC so that I can use conduit strapping to secure it to the stand. I want the output on the corner and I don't want it moving around. I'm through with suction cups, I'm hard plumbing this all the way.

Everything is modular so can be taken apart if need be, and reused, without cutting anything.

http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/progression/fw_plumbing.jpg


The 1" pipe goes to an elbow then a bushing to 3/4" threaded, and then Locline with a 3" flared nozzle.

http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/progression/fw_nozzle.jpg

[Delphinus]

Here's a view of the sump in the stand.

The bioball chamber is a glass box that can be removed if need be. In theory this is nice but in practise due to the height of the sump, it would have to be slid out of the stand in order to get it out. So this may be a luxury that doesn't get fully utilized but at least it's there.

Sump return is slated to be a Mag5. Additional flow in the tank will be from a Tunze 7025.

http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/progression/fw_sump.jpg

[Delphinus]

My goals for this tank, despite that it seems perhaps complex, are in fact simple.

First of all, my current FW setup is a disaster, a big mess of algae and no matter what I do, I can't get the algae and cyano at bay. So I've been wanting to start over at square 1 for some time.

Secondly, my clown loaches are getting too big for their current home, which is a 30g.

Also, the current tank is on a steel stand with canister filters, lights timers, powerstrip, etc. all exposed and I now have a very curious toddler. So a tank with an enclosed stand was needed as well.

Last, I'm just absolutely tired of suction cups failing. So the canister filter returns, the heaters, the surface skimmer, the spray bars ... always fall off. And if you fix it, they fall off within a day again. Hopeless. So a new tank that didn't need *anything* suctioned to the glass was desired.

As far as going with a sump ... well .. I don't know if this was needed. Being that I'd never build a reef tank without a sump, I thought I'd give this a try. If I get nothing else out of it, I think I'll at least get a place to hide the heater, be able to use bioballs instead of a canister filter (less electrical things to plug in, just the sump return), and never have to worry about the water level in the main tank dropping due to evaporative losses (it will just lower in the sump, out of sight). And I think these reasons make it worthwhile to try it even on a FW. And if I ever decide to upgrade or downgrade, this tank is now reef-ready. :mrgreen:

This will be a planted setup, with black gravel. I'm also thinking of a black background for the tank. However I haven't decided how that will happen just yet. I don't want to haul it outside in the snow to paint and I don't want to paint inside the house. So I'll probably try something like construction paper or something and see how it looks.

Next up is the water test and look for leaks inthe plumbing. I filled the tank tonight but left the sump empty since I was letting my sump return line dry out as I only put the last piece on tonight.

Already though I can tell I need one place that needs attention, the overflow box is not leakproof. It slowly filled and is now draining into the sump. It's not a huge showstopper by any means but if there's a long power failure the tank will (eventually) drain about 5" instead of the 2" I was hoping. So I plan to find the leak and resilicone that spot. Good thing I made the plumbing modular. (And I guess it goes to show that you really do need to pay attention to the measurements when designing an overflow box. If I had done that right I bet I wouldn't have this problem now.)

[Delphinus]

Been a while since I updated this journal, wow, April now, last update in January. :redface: Whoops!

Got the old tank moved over, the 30g this will replace, and wrestled this new tank in place.

First, I laid down the substrate cable heater..
http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/progression/cable_heater.jpg

Then, several bucket brigades later, I got the substrate and water in. I couldn't get more Eco-Complete so I went with at least 4 bags of Volcanit subrate at the bottom and the two bags of Eco-Complete on top. This gave me about 3" depth of substrate.
http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/progression/water.jpg

So, here's where a problems showed up. Nothing too bad, but enough that it slowed my progress for a bit.

1) The Mag5 I was using as a sump return was way too loud. It practically howled and since this is a tank in the TV room, near bedrooms, I wasn't able to run the pump at night. So I needed a new pump.

2) I could not tune the overflow right. It always burped no matter where I had the air valve set at. I decided the problem must be that with the 1" overflow pipe, combined with the lateral distances the water had to travel (into the overflow, and then down, and then at least 6" horizontally back, to get into the sump) that the overflow simply didn't have the flow carrying capacity I needed for the sump return volume I was hoping for.

So I decided to step it up to a 1.5" overflow - leaving the bulkhead and 90-degree elbow in the overflow as 1".

http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/progression/new_overflow.jpg

This worked out so well that I thought I would try a Sedra 7000 as my sump return. I decided on Sedra because I have one on my ASM and it seemed quiet enough to give it a try.

Unfortunately the 7000 was way too much pump. 30 seconds on and my tank was overflowing. So again, still couldn't run a pump for a few weeks while I send the Sedra 7000 back and ordered a 5000 instead.

The Sedra 5000 is a better fit (smaller pump housing) and is the perfect flow for this tank. It's not as silent as I wished for but it is tolerable. Finally, I could get the tank cycling. Hooray!

[Delphinus]

Fast forward to April, and here is the tank now..

Couple pieces of Mopani driftwood, some plants, and some clean up crew.

Full tank shot..
http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/tankshots/fw_fts.jpg

Left side..
http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/tankshots/fw_ls.jpg

Right side..
http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/tankshots/fw_rs.jpg

Current stocking list.. Plants:
Lagarosiphon major ("Oxygen weed") (note - may also be Elodea crispa)
Hygrophila difformis ("water wisteria")
Bacopa monneri ("water hissop" or "moneywort")
Echinodorus muricatus ("compact sword")
Lilaeopsis brasiliensis ("Brazillian micro sword")
Vallisneria spiralis (possibly var. tortissima - "corkscrew val")
Crytocoryne wendtii
Anubias nana
Vesicularia dubyana (Java moss)

Fish:
2 Otocinclus sp. cats - Otocats
1 Sturisoma nigrirostrum - Farlowella cat
3 Crossocheilus siamensis - Siamese algae eaters

Various hitchhiking snails, some look like ramshorns ..

Also bought some Malaysian Trumpet Snails to help with substrate turnover.

Need some more ground cover and then I'm hoping in the next couple weeks I'll be able to move over my clown loaches, butterfly loach and bristlenose plec from my 30g.

[Delphinus]

I appear to have some FW hydroids in there. Not sure what to make of this..
http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/misc/fw_hydroid_1.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/misc/fw_hydroid_2.jpg

[Fish]

Tony that is a beautiful tank. Really nice work on the aquascaping and placement of your plants.

... I still feel so intimidated at the thought of planted tanks...

- Chad

[Delphinus]

Thanks Chad! I'm trying to have some fun with this tank. Hopefully once the plants settle in, the layering will show a little more (I'm trying to keep the taller plants in the back, low-lying ones more in the front). The first few plants I moved in are showing signs of new growth so that's got me excited.

I need to find something that eats hair algae though, you can't see it in the pics but the microsword (the grass like plant in front) has hair algae growing in between. It's really delicate stuff so manual removal seems to mean "manually removing the plant as well."

Plus, getting some fish that like to come out during the DAY might be nice. It looks like a fish-less tank setup in the pictures :lol: .. but you should see them all come out after the lights turn off. Flurry of activity at night.. :)

[Delphinus]

Full tank shot, May 8:
http://members.shaw.ca/hobiesailor/aquaria/FW/tankshots/65gFW_FTS_20070508.jpg

Moved over my UFO (aka Hillstream loach, butterfly loach) and 2 clown loaches over on Sunday. Last fish to be moved over from the soon-to-be-taken-down 30g is my bristlenose plec, pending her caudal fin healing up (treating the old tank with Melafix .. my whole upstairs now smells like Eucalyptus or Tea Tree or whatever that stuff is made of..). She is a bit large though so I haven't quite decided whether I should be selling her to a new home once she's all healed up.

The other additions were 5 Ameca splendens to help keep hair algae in check. (Thanks to TheGr8Blade for those! :) )