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Discus Dan's complete DIY set up.

2 and 4 where also my favorites. I know what you mean about 3 the open space looks wrong.

Its hard to place things properly without the substrate in but I'm thinking something along these lines.

This is the dismay of my current tank, Its been massively neglected over the past few weeks, I've put it in shut down mode and removing the wood from it today has made it look most odd.

Most of the healthy plants will be reused in the new tank.

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Got the light box finished today.

The big tear down is fast approaching!

Wires are hidden inside the ally tube.

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Should no one copy my electrical prowess, I'm a master of the bodge!

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From underneath

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and with the lights on

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and one from the top

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I've got to spill the beans.....I've already made the cabinet for the tank, unfortunately I didnt take any pictures of the building process as I made it at the same time as the rest of the furniture for the room and it just wasn't feasible for me to keep stopping to take pics, sorry :(

However I will be doing some modifications to the cabinet for the lighting and filter tubes etc so will take pictures as I go.

As I have no other tanks to house my fish and plants I'm going to have to break down my current tank, modify the cabinet, set up the lighting, set up the new tank, plant and restock as quickly as possible while my fish are kept in containers.
I'm going to dedicate a weekend to this, just not sure when but i'll keep you all posted.
 
Agree about the 4th picture. The lighting is just awesome. How much did it cost you?
do you have any picture of the cabinet at its present state?
 
Cost wise its cost me about £3 to build the box, luckily I got the wood free from work I just had to buy the ally tube and the bolts.
You should easily be able to pick up all the bits for under £15

The light fittings i got on special offer from B&Q for £8.
and a few quid here and there for wires and plugs etc.

I've not ordered the LED bulbs yet but these will be around the £30 mark I suspect.

Hopefully the LED bulbs wont kick off to much heat but If i feel its a problem I'll just drill some vent holes in the back of the light box.

Here's a quick pic of how the cabinet currently looks.

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If I use co2 in the new scape it will all be concealed inside the cabinet. Oh and I've got to change the handles these are just temporary ones :)
 
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Can anyone give me some advice about setting up a low tech tank?

My current tank is high tech, co2, Ei and glute and I'm thinking I'd like to have a change and try something different on the new tank.

Only thing is i'm not sure on the essentials. I was planning to use a soil substrate which I've heard is a good start but beyond that I'm a bit clueless.

whats peoples thoughts on Lighting and filtration? and is there any over musts for a low tech tank.

I've seen some amazing low tech tanks on here and If i could replicate any thing half as good I'd be happy.

cheers.
 
Hi Dan! A soil substrate is a good idea. I use original pond aqua soil which has a negligible effect on water parameters. I know john inns has been used successfully to. They just need to be capped as usual.

In terms of filtration I know some of the successful low tech setups were working on three times the turn over of the tank each hour. I use 6 times which is working fine for me.

You would need to lower the lighting quite a bit. I'm using two tmc mini 400s over 100 litres. They are hung 40 cm above the tank and set to 35% each.

If you go over to the barr report, Tom has supplied some good info on fert dosing for low tech tanks, but basically you would just need to reduce your dosing, and only add ferts once or every two weeks.

Hope that helps mate, if you check some of big tom or Alastair's journals out, they have specs up for their tank and both have had great results. I've recently set up a low tech tank, and I was also a newbie to low tech. You could check my journal out (there should be a link below) maybe there's a few things in there that could answer your questions.


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Cheers for the help Lee :thumbup:
I'm off to do some more reading.

Going to be ordering some bulbs this week so need to make sure I've decided which way I'm going with the new tank..

No probs! Alastair is defiantly the man to talk to about low tech DIY lighting. I think he had a similar project on the go a little while ago.


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Got my LED bulbs just in time for the big tear down this weekend.

Went for 3x3w in the end. IF its too intense I can remove some bulbs or raise the lights if needs be.

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Went for cool white, you can see the difference to the warm white halogen bulbs.

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All fitted and ready for installation.

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Wish me luck!
 
I'm a big diyer.anyone who atempts a tank build and pulls it off that we'll should be proud. Nice journal I have enjoyed reading and look forward to seeing it all set up.:)
 
Well Its been an eventful weekend and an experience!
Started 8am Saturday morning and didn't stop until 9pm and I still had more to do!

It all started by draining the tank and removing the plants and fish into temporary accommodation.

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home for a little while.

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Next was to tackle the filters, pumps, lights, co2........

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Once that lot had been stripped down and cleaned it was time to take apart the cabinet.

One thing I've learnt is to give your self plenty of scope to get pipes, tubes, plugs, etc through the back of the cabinet so many holes were cut. I didn't do the neatest of jobs but I had limited tools at home and needed to get it done quickly.

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Back fixed back onto the cabinet and the lighting arms fixed in place. You can see the groves in the arms to raise the lights up and down.

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Next I cut two 22mm holes for the filter tubing.

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And then set about fitting the light box.

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And gave it a test run, working ok at the moment.......

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Next I cut the tubing. IF you're struggling with bent tubing and you need it straighter just soak it for a few minutes in boiling water then insert something straight into the tubing and run it under the cold tap for a few minutes and it will stay perfectly straight.

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tubing and lily pipes installed.

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filter installed and in the back ground you can see the knob that holds the lighting arm in place.

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time to take a step back and have a quick bite.

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Next was to install the heater and LED moonlighting.

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The suckers on the LED's are knackered so I had to DIY a holder for them. again not the prettiest thing but you don't see them any way.

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next was to add the soil substrate capped with floragrow, the wood and the stones.

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Then the plants and finally stand back and watch it slowly fill up with water...........

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The tank was nearly full when the first disaster happened. Because I had taken the wood out of the tank it had dried out to much and became buoyant.
It decided it didn't like its current position and floated to the top of the tank ripping out all of the plants along the way. This resulted in a cloudy, muddy mess of a tank.

It was getting late in the day so I decided it would be best to remove the wood and let the tank settle over night,

And thus concluded day one!
 
I hate floaty wood. I've still got stones on the bogwood in the shrimp tank.

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Cheers Tom :) floaty wood is definitely a pain in the backside!

So Sunday began with a quick trip to the beach to borrow a couple of heavy stones, luckily the beach is only down the road.

So with the newly acquired stones cable tided to the wood I re-planted and started to fill the tank again.

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I noticed the LED bulbs where getting a lot hotter than I had anticipated so while the tank was filling i drilled some ventilation holes in the light box.

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I put an extra heater in the tank to get the water up to temperature then added the fish.

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and the side view.

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Also cut holes in the top of the light box for more air flow.

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and finally after a full day and a half the tank was ready.

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And one of the moon lighting LEDs

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I really like the LED lighting the 9w cool white bulbs give a really crisp feel to the tank and the shimmer effect off the water looks amazing, Now for the bad part.

The LED's where just cheap ones off ebay, out of the six only two work properly.
even with all the vent holes 4 of them quickly over heat and turn off. I emailed the seller and hes going to send me some replacements but I dont hold out much hope for them either.

So I'm in need of some new bulbs, I'm thinking 6w would probably be more than enough light and would also cut down on the heat side of things.

Does any one know where to get hold of some decent GU10 bulbs that dont cost the earth?

thanks to every one for all the support over the last few months, this will be an ongoing adventure and I'll update this journal as and when I can with news and updates to the tank.

cheers.
 
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