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My 850ltr Tank

Katfish

Katfish

Member
Joined
21 Jan 2012
Messages
141
Location
Tunbridge Wells
I thought it was about time to post up some pics of my 850ltr tank its still a work in progress and ironing out the problems one at a time and needing more plants.


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This is the specs of the tank
72x24x30
48x15x15 Sump
Eheim Return Pump 3400ltr
2kg JBL co2 setup controlled by a sera co2 controller and an intank co2 mixer (changing to a atomiser soon).
2 x 3000ltr wave makers
4 x 54w T5 Tropical Tubes (iquatics) home made with reflectors.
ATC-800+ controlling 3 x 200w heaters
Auto top up (work in progress)
Whisper 1000 going to a 4ft bubble wall on a timer for night time to de gas and give fish a break.

Going to be adding a pond filter soon as need to increase filter turn over and this will be filled with floss to polish the water.

Pool sand substrate with fert pills all over the place
Dosing Dry salts

W/C 50% per week
PH 6.8 and co2 is in the green.

Fish
Hoplosternum thoracatum x 4
Lemon Tetra x 8
Head and Tail Tetra x 8
Royal plec x 2 (1 x 10" 1 x 6")
Clown plec x 1
SEA x 5
Bristle Nose Plec x 4
Whiptail Catfish x 4
Coolie Loach x 8
Sunset Gourami x 1
Glowlight Tetra x 8
Zebra Danio x 10
Peppered Cory x 5
Albino Cory x 7
Serpae Tetra x 5
Flame Tetra x 4
Angel fish x 6
Clown Loach x 4
Peacock Gobie x 2
Black Ghost knifefish x 1 (Will be moved on when it gets bigger)
Odessa barbs x 11
Black skirt Tetras x 5
Upside Down Catfish x 5

Hope you like it and any suggestions are very much welcome as this is my 1st planted tank.
 
Lovely big tank. :)
Cant you just fit a auto top valve straight from the mains water supply to the sump, you can use 6mm RO flexible pipe & buy a RO valve for just a few £s?
You could use a needle wheel return pump & have a much better & reliable system that using an in line atomiser!
How about just using filter floss in the overflow or even in the sump, then you wont need a pond filter!
 
I need the extra filter as the turn over at the moment is 3 times as this was an x marine tank so most of the filtration was done by the live rock.

The down pipe is not big enough to increase the flow though the sump.

Tank is miles away from mains water but did think of that.

How would I go about a needle wheel and co2?
 
you can run 6mm flexi as far as you like, mine goes from under the bathroom sink, up the wall into the ceiling space & back down to the tank in he lounge!
Needle wheel pumps can just be a replacement Eheim model or you can even modify your present pump, the gas gets fed straight into the pump inlet = simple as that!
What size is the overflow then?
It just seems to me you should make the most of your sump as they do burn up the c02, so you might as well make full use of it.
If you want more biological filtration the a sealed trickle filter will out perform a pond filter tenfold, very simple to make from a plastic lunch box & a small powerhead recycling the sump water.
 
Sounds like a plant to me as my kitchen is getting ripped out in the next few weeks so I could run the pipe work behind the units.

Call me thick but how do I convert my current pump is there a how to ?

And when you say straight into the pump just put the tube under the inlet of the pump ?
 
Needle wheel pump http://www.charterhouse-aquatics.co.uk/ ... -2701.html You can google "DIY needle wheel pump" but basically you can pierce lots of holes in the impeller with a red hot pin or a tiny drill bit or snip the fins with wire cutters.... Yes the gas goes straight in the pump inlet & get chopped into micro bubble & then returned to the tank as a very fine mist.
 
Thanks for the links for the top up bits :)

As for the pump I would lose lots of the lph due to the head as from my sump to the top of my tank is 2m

How much lph would I lose buy doing a DIY on my own pump ?
 
I dont know but you can buy very powerful NW pumps, you will loose head if you fit a UP atomiser anyway!
What diameter is your overflow pipe, how does it work, do you have a picture?
Have you seen any pictures of Tom Barrs NW driven tank? viewtopic.php?f=35&t=17797&start=160
 
This is an old pic but the up and down pipe are still as is.

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The pipe size are

1.5" down but reduces to 1" near sump as there was skimmer t piece in place which I have blanked off

The up pipe is 1/2"
 
There does seem to be so many formats of overflow design & I cant really see how that one works!

Anyway if you have a 1.5'' pipe running through the bottom of the tank, then you should be able to flow huge amounts of water in to the sump.

If I lived close to you I would love to help you out more as it is so difficult to explain certain things over the net!
 
My down pipe is based on the durso design so no noise at all.

The outlet of the down pipe is under the water level in the sump so no splashing I did this to retain as much co2 in the water.

Which seems to work as a 2kg bottle lasts between 70-80 days on my tank

What I might do is get a Ocean runner 6500 return pump that will double my flow though the sump I do know though my downpipe will not take 6500ltr/ph but with a 6ft head the pump will pust out around 5000ltr if I am lucky as I dont know head V flow rate of the 6500.
 
I have used most popular makes of pump but by far & away my favourite is the household grudfos central heating pump with an aqua turn conversion, the three speed setting are fantastic....
I dont think you can beat a full length spray bar but I am not a fan of in line atomisers for big tanks.
I dont know if there is a NW conversion for the Ocean runner pumps - might well be?
I actually use a high flow reactor of my own design but you cant really beat an NW for overall performance.
The disadvantage of using a NW pump is the billions of micro bubbles but - the consistent no maintains & no adjusting benefits, really match big tanks in my opinion.
However I can show you how to build a high flow reactor if you really dont like the idea of misting the mist with C02.

Hear is my set up with the grunfos pump...

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Nice setup

I have ordered some pipe today to make up the full length spray bar from the sump return.

I have today picked up a nice ehime 2250 bucket filter for a good price which I intend to change the pump on it to a 1262.

The reason for this is I want to get rid of the wave makers in my tank and add another spray bar.

My plan is one along the back and one along the front

What you think?

also do you have a how to for the reactor ?
 
You just want one full length spray bar about 25mm under the surface along the back wall with the holes pointing directly at the front top of the tank. The idea is to get a circular motion within the tank.
The flow will travel along the surface down the front glass, along the bottom amongst the plants & back up the rear wall.
You could certainly use a single NW pump inside the tank connected to a spray bar & inject the gas into the pump - that would be very effective if a little unsightly - it would be better to have a bigger pump in the sump..
I might make a tutorial over the weekend.
 
Today I got my full length spary bar made up

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I ended up making 2 as the 1st one I put to many holes and too big as I put a 4mm hole every inch

The 2nd one which I am now using has a 3mm hole every 3 inches.

I have no clue though if this is right or wrong as I might be putting back pressure on my pump as I have no clue as to how many holes 3mm holes I need etc for a pump that uses 16/22 hose.
 
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