Wolf6
Member
Hi all,
I've had the same tank for the past 8 years now, and the same contents ever since we moved house 3 years ago. The passion (and budget to be honest) was gone for a while so I just maintained it with bare minimum of effort(water changes 50% weekly, weekly ferts -used to be daily but cba) but thats about it, so its an overgrown mess with my carpet being overgrown by bits of moss (the dark spots are mostly various types of moss), and increasing algae issues (GSA and a bit of BGA below the grit). Here is a pic of the current state:
But now we've fully settled in the new house, the list of chores still to be done is getting smaller and smaller, and the garden is about done (never fully done but gardeners will understand . And with the WFH situation, I'm getting renewed interest in this hobby as well, so now I'm looking at buying a bigger tank to fit the space against the wall better then the current 70x50x45 tank there is now, and start anew. This one will be torn down and part of the contents may move to my smaller scapers tank, that I will probably also be dusting off. Now I've been looking around and made a selection, and I'd like some input and advice on my choices, possible alternatives and so forth. My plan is to start buying this stuff over the coming months, and hopefully be ready to scape around december/januari. I'm looking at ordering one of these:
A red sea reefer 425, dimensions 120(l)x57(w)x55(h) or the reefer 350 (120x50x53). I will be using it for freshwater, but I just love the look of the tank and cabinet. The build in sump and hidden plumbing made it my first choice for a tank, as I can hide all tech in the sump. No cables/tubes visible means my other half can also live with the bigger tank Anyone here have experience with using a tank like this? I found one old journal, https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/reefer-350-planted.38956/ - but that hasnt been updated in ages. My main worry is dead spots, as you cant use a spraybar on these (at least not easily). The only other tank with build in plumping was the eheim incpiria, but that costs even more, and comes with lights I'm not sure about, not to mention a closed tank. If there are other options (with integrated plumbing), I'd like to hear them!
So for filtration, I'd be making use of the sump using various filter materials (havent looked into the specifics yet), but I'd like to use one of the chambers in the sump to make a sort of small refugium with fast growing plants like hornwort, elodea densa and mosses, together with some shrimp. This would get light at night, in the hopes I could leave CO2 on day and night, using a PH controller for the CO2. What are your views/opinions on this, would this work or cause more problems down the line? I'd be dosing EI, manually at first but eventually I want to automate that too.
The return pump would be a jecod pump doing max 5000l/ hour, that can be reduced incrementally. I wonder if I would be best off adding a powerhead for some extra flow and to avoid dead spots, but here is where I'm really hoping other people have this or a similar tank, what do you have/recommend?
Heater would be an aqua medic heater stuffed into the sump, with temperature controller.
CO2 would either be an inline diffusor in the return, or a regular difussor next to the return pump, so most of the CO2 would get sucked into it. As mentioned, I'm considering a PH controller for this, or is a simple timer better? I'm looking for ease of maintenance here, and I wont be going for the most difficult plants either (afaik).
Lights were the toughest to decide on. I love the ripple effect that kessils have, but in the end I love plants even more, so I think a twinstar 1200SA with controller would be the best choice. I'd start with 5hours of photo, with 1 hour ramp up and 1 hour ramp down, and slowly build it up to 6.5-7 hours with the 2 hours for ramp up/down. For late night viewing, I'd install a type of spotlight so I can still have my rippling effect (open for suggestions here!) The alternative would be 2x AI prime HD's, which come with a moonlight mode, or would I need 3? Budget is also a factor, this whole rig is going to cost me dearly, on the one hand I dont want to buy something I will regret later, but I dont want to spend more then neccesary.
I've not fully decided on stock and plants yet, I'm thinking about something with river rocks, grit and sand, together with a few pieces of driftwood. Aquasoil or a similar soil where large pockets of plants would be. One side of the tank planted with blyxa, hairgras and valisneria as main planting in a sort of island fashion, and a large lotus growing to the surface on the other end of the tank. I'll probably want another red plant in there to offset this with, and some other smaller plants, but I havent decided yet. Fissidens is also a must Stockwise I havent decided yet either, just that I'd like some dwarf cichlids (1 male, 2 female) in there, together with a large group (30 ish) of undecided fish, and a group of otto's(5) and cory's(12). Maybe, just maybe, I'd add some angels too, and if I dont, I'd get pearl gourami's instead. But so much more time to think about all that, first I'd like to make my mind up on the tech and tank, and start ordering I'm hoping you guys can give some tips/advice/experiences.
Some pics I'll probably use for inspiration:
Cheers!
I've had the same tank for the past 8 years now, and the same contents ever since we moved house 3 years ago. The passion (and budget to be honest) was gone for a while so I just maintained it with bare minimum of effort(water changes 50% weekly, weekly ferts -used to be daily but cba) but thats about it, so its an overgrown mess with my carpet being overgrown by bits of moss (the dark spots are mostly various types of moss), and increasing algae issues (GSA and a bit of BGA below the grit). Here is a pic of the current state:
But now we've fully settled in the new house, the list of chores still to be done is getting smaller and smaller, and the garden is about done (never fully done but gardeners will understand . And with the WFH situation, I'm getting renewed interest in this hobby as well, so now I'm looking at buying a bigger tank to fit the space against the wall better then the current 70x50x45 tank there is now, and start anew. This one will be torn down and part of the contents may move to my smaller scapers tank, that I will probably also be dusting off. Now I've been looking around and made a selection, and I'd like some input and advice on my choices, possible alternatives and so forth. My plan is to start buying this stuff over the coming months, and hopefully be ready to scape around december/januari. I'm looking at ordering one of these:
A red sea reefer 425, dimensions 120(l)x57(w)x55(h) or the reefer 350 (120x50x53). I will be using it for freshwater, but I just love the look of the tank and cabinet. The build in sump and hidden plumbing made it my first choice for a tank, as I can hide all tech in the sump. No cables/tubes visible means my other half can also live with the bigger tank Anyone here have experience with using a tank like this? I found one old journal, https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/reefer-350-planted.38956/ - but that hasnt been updated in ages. My main worry is dead spots, as you cant use a spraybar on these (at least not easily). The only other tank with build in plumping was the eheim incpiria, but that costs even more, and comes with lights I'm not sure about, not to mention a closed tank. If there are other options (with integrated plumbing), I'd like to hear them!
So for filtration, I'd be making use of the sump using various filter materials (havent looked into the specifics yet), but I'd like to use one of the chambers in the sump to make a sort of small refugium with fast growing plants like hornwort, elodea densa and mosses, together with some shrimp. This would get light at night, in the hopes I could leave CO2 on day and night, using a PH controller for the CO2. What are your views/opinions on this, would this work or cause more problems down the line? I'd be dosing EI, manually at first but eventually I want to automate that too.
The return pump would be a jecod pump doing max 5000l/ hour, that can be reduced incrementally. I wonder if I would be best off adding a powerhead for some extra flow and to avoid dead spots, but here is where I'm really hoping other people have this or a similar tank, what do you have/recommend?
Heater would be an aqua medic heater stuffed into the sump, with temperature controller.
CO2 would either be an inline diffusor in the return, or a regular difussor next to the return pump, so most of the CO2 would get sucked into it. As mentioned, I'm considering a PH controller for this, or is a simple timer better? I'm looking for ease of maintenance here, and I wont be going for the most difficult plants either (afaik).
Lights were the toughest to decide on. I love the ripple effect that kessils have, but in the end I love plants even more, so I think a twinstar 1200SA with controller would be the best choice. I'd start with 5hours of photo, with 1 hour ramp up and 1 hour ramp down, and slowly build it up to 6.5-7 hours with the 2 hours for ramp up/down. For late night viewing, I'd install a type of spotlight so I can still have my rippling effect (open for suggestions here!) The alternative would be 2x AI prime HD's, which come with a moonlight mode, or would I need 3? Budget is also a factor, this whole rig is going to cost me dearly, on the one hand I dont want to buy something I will regret later, but I dont want to spend more then neccesary.
I've not fully decided on stock and plants yet, I'm thinking about something with river rocks, grit and sand, together with a few pieces of driftwood. Aquasoil or a similar soil where large pockets of plants would be. One side of the tank planted with blyxa, hairgras and valisneria as main planting in a sort of island fashion, and a large lotus growing to the surface on the other end of the tank. I'll probably want another red plant in there to offset this with, and some other smaller plants, but I havent decided yet. Fissidens is also a must Stockwise I havent decided yet either, just that I'd like some dwarf cichlids (1 male, 2 female) in there, together with a large group (30 ish) of undecided fish, and a group of otto's(5) and cory's(12). Maybe, just maybe, I'd add some angels too, and if I dont, I'd get pearl gourami's instead. But so much more time to think about all that, first I'd like to make my mind up on the tech and tank, and start ordering I'm hoping you guys can give some tips/advice/experiences.
Some pics I'll probably use for inspiration:
Cheers!