Jump to content

6x2x2.5' (2 Tier) Journal


Alex

Recommended Posts

G'day 

Decided I needed some more space, as I have only been running two tanks. My 8x3x2.5' (tank journal below in photography forum) and a 4x2.5x1.5' (used as a grow out, currently bone dry). The reason I felt like I needed more space was to be able to separate my male rays from my females (being able to selectively breed males with my girls rather than a free for all not knowing what male has got the job done) when needed and to separate a pair or two of my Peacock Bass out (a couple pairs have formed), and give breeding a raising fry a crack. I am also going away for 7 weeks (overseas) next year and will have a family member feeding my animals (house sitting), and another friend who knows fish will be coming in once a week to do water changes.  So while yes it is more tanks, the way I'm looking at it is the amount of time to WC two systems wont be much different and I wont be getting anymore fish between now and then, so will have the same amount of fish split up over a greater water volume so should give a bit of room for error. 

I brainstormed a couple of ideas, even threw the idea of setting a pond up in my house - much to the dismay of my fiance. What I finally decided on was a pair of 6x2x2.5's. When thinking about what i was about to do, ease of maintenance was pretty high on the list and both tanks linked to a central filtration system. 

I picked up the tank stand today - Dexion Pallet Racking, modified to the correct width, beams are slightly longer to give me a bit of space for plumbing. Got these second hand locally and picked it up this afternoon. racking looks near on brand new. I have a mate who is a painter by trade, coming around early next week to respray the whole lot black, he assures me that they will come up a million bucks and look the goods. Couldn't handle looking at the orange and blue colour it is now! 

Both tanks are being drilled with 2 holes (40mm) and a weir box installed. The filtration is pretty simple, top tank overflows into the tank below which overflows to the filtration system. Which will be made up of a large food grade water container (blue drum) with 100L of K1 filter tumbling, water will first flow through mechanical media and pumped back up to the top tank. Simple and super effective. Return pump will be a Vectra Ecotech Marine M1, could have gone something cheaper but have been using one of my 8 footer and think its the goods.

Will start whacking up photos as things progress.

Cheers,
Alex

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like the sound of this Alex but don't understand how the fiancé had a problem with a pond

it would look awesome with the rays in it but you would really need 2 ponds  and maybe a 3rd

when pairing them off  :lol5: can just imagine the looks you would get :grrr::rules:

waiting for the  :coolpics:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think her main problem was that we plan on having kids in the not too distant future and she wasn't all that keen on having a large body of water inside our home that was fairly low lying to the floor, that could potentially present a drowning hazard. I know there could be safe measures around this but I tended to agree with her in the end, and went with the 6 footers instead (not a bad trade off really!). 

The fun has already started, 'doing everything yourself' rather than just buying everything from the LFS means I have a busy couple of weeks ahead of me going to a million different places to collect all the pieces that I need to put this project together. Picking up the plastic drum for the filter and the K1 media up this evening. Grabbing the airpump to drive the k1 media on Saturday, and paying the outstanding cash on the tanks Sunday + hunting around looking for all my plumbing components. 

On plumbing - has anyone reading this used uniseals before? I have always used traditional bulkheads, and think I will still use bulkheads on the actual tanks. But the uniseals look a good option for the plastic drum to plumb my return pump into? they look like they come into their own when being used on a slightly curved surface like a drum? Uniselas are made from rubber and like anything made from rubber I'm sure they have a tendency to become brittle with time, but as it is an indoor application should get some longevity out of the seal not being exposed to sun/extreme heat.

As far as painting the tanks go, I have always just painted the back black, never had any other colour. I'm thinking of painting the base black and the back and sides on a nice blue colour. I have always liked the way the blue looks in pics and on other peoples tanks so thought I'd give it a run. I saw a tank on MFk with a black bottom and blue back and sides and it looked absolutely mint!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

nice trade off seems like win/win for you there :clap

I always think background colour depends on the fish

light colour fish dark background and dark colour fish light background

have to agree with painting the tank bottom and it gives depth perception to the fish

haven't looked at uniseals before but these came up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44mHfMmICcI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUmh38Ud450

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Picked up my new Plastic 216L DG drum this afternoon - the plastic is quite thick and rigid. So I think the uniseal will be the go, can always install a bulkhead later on if I am not happy with the uniseal.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Look up the king of diy on youtube he shows maybe what your describing when he uses hes blue drum for a sump. Also ive used coloured contact on my teir in my garage (used them as dummys for when i go a larger tank) For back and as long as there are no bubbles looks great and if you get over it just peel back and spray some windex on the sticky residue and it come straight off

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah I have seen a lot of the King of DIY on youtube - while I find most of his ideas and info quite good, I don't like the way in which he connects his plumbing to his containers. Basically what he has done is drill an appropriately sized hole, heat the rim of the hole with a heat gun then push the pvc through the heated plastic and then use silicone to seal. Heat is just such a silly thing to use when a bulkhead or uniseal would do the job. What if i apply too much heat to the hole? Then I have just ruined a $135 plastic barrel. Bulk heads and uniseals are also very easy to assemble and disassemble if needed. 

I am also not a fan of using contact for background either. Painting gives much more of a crisp look. Paint is easily removed with a new razor blade.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/27/2016 at 0:12 PM, Alex said:

I think her main problem was that we plan on having kids in the not too distant future and she wasn't all that keen on having a large body of water inside our home that was fairly low lying to the floor, that could potentially present a drowning hazard. I know there could be safe measures around this but I tended to agree with her in the end, and went with the 6 footers instead (not a bad trade off really!). 

The fun has already started, 'doing everything yourself' rather than just buying everything from the LFS means I have a busy couple of weeks ahead of me going to a million different places to collect all the pieces that I need to put this project together. Picking up the plastic drum for the filter and the K1 media up this evening. Grabbing the airpump to drive the k1 media on Saturday, and paying the outstanding cash on the tanks Sunday + hunting around looking for all my plumbing components. 

On plumbing - has anyone reading this used uniseals before? I have always used traditional bulkheads, and think I will still use bulkheads on the actual tanks. But the uniseals look a good option for the plastic drum to plumb my return pump into? they look like they come into their own when being used on a slightly curved surface like a drum? Uniselas are made from rubber and like anything made from rubber I'm sure they have a tendency to become brittle with time, but as it is an indoor application should get some longevity out of the seal not being exposed to sun/extreme heat.

As far as painting the tanks go, I have always just painted the back black, never had any other colour. I'm thinking of painting the base black and the back and sides on a nice blue colour. I have always liked the way the blue looks in pics and on other peoples tanks so thought I'd give it a run. I saw a tank on MFk with a black bottom and blue back and sides and it looked absolutely mint!

Yes I use uniseals quite a bit. A good fit requires pipe edge to be slightly bevelled and/or some shampoo applied to push it through.They are less effective on thin walled containers though. 

Having a filter outside the tank is a potential problem area. Why not add a fluid sand filter in the tanks themselves as redundancy as well as your central filter. These supply oxygenation as well as biological filtration and are the fastest biological recovery. (K1 being more biofilm). 

Add an auto dripper/water changer if you often go away. What automated backup system ( if any) will you be using? 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fish Dance -The plastic on my drum is quite thick and rigid. It is a DG container so it is built tough, so the uniseal should be a good option then. I have heard a bit of soapy water/shampoo works a treat. How are you bevelling the edge of the PVC? Would a bit of coarse sand paper to smooth out the edge of the PVC do the trick?

I am not sure what you mean by the filtration being outside the tank could be a problem? Is that not essentially what all sumps and canister filters are? I have never run a sand filter, as I have never found the need to research them much or implement them. Can you please give me some more information? and what you mean by the term 'biological recovery'? I can only guess this is the time it takes for bacterial colonies to colonise filter media after an event (or when cycling). In terms of oxygenation there will be ~100l/min of air being used to tumble the K media as well as the natural mixing of air with water and air being sucked down pipes and water agitation from being pumped back into the top tank by the return pump (~7,500L/hr). The proposed set up is very similar to how I have my sump on my 8x3 set up. The main difference is the mechanical filtration will be disposable rather than washable and the 'container' is a drum rather than a glass aquarium. Having said that I am always willing to learn and try new things, but at the same time if it aint' broke why fix it?

 

Ducksta - Agreed nobody! But i will hold out until I return from my honey moon, then I'll go nuts on the fish. Until then no new purchases. I implemented this on myself almost 12 months ago now, and have managed to stick to it. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Set up the pallet racking just because I couldn't help myself. Will be getting resprayed back this week at some stage. The owner of the store I bought the tanks from has warned me of pallet racking bending and cracking bases of tanks, has anyone had this happen to them or heard of this?

I have running 4x cross supports on each level to spread the load a bit more evenly and running a wood board underneath for the same reason.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/28/2016 at 2:32 PM, Alex said:

Fish Dance -The plastic on my drum is quite thick and rigid. It is a DG container so it is built tough, so the uniseal should be a good option then. I have heard a bit of soapy water/shampoo works a treat. How are you bevelling the edge of the PVC? Would a bit of coarse sand paper to smooth out the edge of the PVC do the trick?

I am not sure what you mean by the filtration being outside the tank could be a problem? Is that not essentially what all sumps and canister filters are? I have never run a sand filter, as I have never found the need to research them much or implement them. Can you please give me some more information? and what you mean by the term 'biological recovery'? I can only guess this is the time it takes for bacterial colonies to colonise filter media after an event (or when cycling). In terms of oxygenation there will be ~100l/min of air being used to tumble the K media as well as the natural mixing of air with water and air being sucked down pipes and water agitation from being pumped back into the top tank by the return pump (~7,500L/hr). The proposed set up is very similar to how I have my sump on my 8x3 set up. The main difference is the mechanical filtration will be disposable rather than washable and the 'container' is a drum rather than a glass aquarium. Having said that I am always willing to learn and try new things, but at the same time if it aint' broke why fix it?

 

 

 

You can cut the pipe at a slight angle (to help push through) or bevel the outer edge with sandpaper/grinding wheel. It just depends on how many you have to do. The King of DIY is well practiced so doing things his way is good for speed and economy, especially when it's a gravity fed system (very low water pressure).

Having the filtration outside the tank is a huge potential source of failure. Any external filter is not much use if your water flow slows or stops or tank overflows. Keep it by all means but maintain a separate internal filtration and/or water movement within the tank itself. Fluid sand filters are excellent for shock loading (when bio loads/ammonia levels increase dramatically) and also recover fastest if there is a severe biological filtration disruption. If done correctly, a sand filter can be very small with no maintenance since they don't filter mechanically. Having another bio filter or big bio filter may look like good back up but not really if it doesn't respond to rapid waste levels in time. Having a filter within the tank itself is much more efficient and economical (and safer) than having to pass the tank water volume through an external filter many times an hour. 

For example, it would be far better to back up an air pump to the tank itself then back up your central filter if you can't do both. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Will be fine mate. Ive seen racking like that hold transmission out of scrappers and haven't bent or buckled and theyd be alot heavier then 2 of your tanks. 

As for it bending and cracking tanks if the base timber is solid and the racking doesnt flex or twist i dont know how it would crack a tank. I mean 2 solid flat surfaces with no movement in my eyes cant cause 1 to break?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 30/10/2016 at 2:16 PM, Alex said:

Set up the pallet racking just because I couldn't help myself. Will be getting resprayed back this week at some stage. The owner of the store I bought the tanks from has warned me of pallet racking bending and cracking bases of tanks, has anyone had this happen to them or heard of this?

I have running 4x cross supports on each level to spread the load a bit more evenly and running a wood board underneath for the same reason.

I had Dexion Pallet racking for my tanks as well. They were rated 1.6ton per level.

I had a 3x2x18 and a 4x2x18 on a level. I could see when the tanks were next to each other that the top of the tanks were closer to each other that at the bottom, so there was definitely some bending. Not much, but still

I used 33mm board and 1cm poly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, benno said:

Can't wait to see how these turn out. Always enjoy tuning into your threads. Bass n rays can't get any better. 

Thanks mate. Should be good once it starts taking shape, at the moment just a whole heap of pocket emptying going on. 

 

17 hours ago, Bradc said:

Will be fine mate. Ive seen racking like that hold transmission out of scrappers and haven't bent or buckled and theyd be alot heavier then 2 of your tanks. 

As for it bending and cracking tanks if the base timber is solid and the racking doesnt flex or twist i dont know how it would crack a tank. I mean 2 solid flat surfaces with no movement in my eyes cant cause 1 to break?

Thanks mate, that gives me some added confidence. I have just regular ply wood that came with the tank at the moment. I will probably upgrade these to structural ply, and seal it.

 

3 hours ago, Spiesie said:

I had Dexion Pallet racking for my tanks as well. They were rated 1.6ton per level.

I had a 3x2x18 and a 4x2x18 on a level. I could see when the tanks were next to each other that the top of the tanks were closer to each other that at the bottom, so there was definitely some bending. Not much, but still

I used 33mm board and 1cm poly.

That doesn't fill me with a heap of confidence though. Were your tanks sitting directly over the beams? did you run cross bracing joining both of the beams together?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Probably find that the 2 tanks on that 1 shelf weren't the width of the rails and it was the ply flexing not the stand. Im interested to see how yours turns out im thinking of doing something similar but making my own racking i do a fair bit of welding at work so i have access to a mig and enough know how to make my own. Wanna try a 6ft shell dwellers tank and a tropheus tank.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, Alex said:

That doesn't fill me with a heap of confidence though. Were your tanks sitting directly over the beams? did you run cross bracing joining both of the beams together?

Yes, directly on the beams. I had 2133mm beams and the width was 610mm. So the tanks fit in exactly with very little space on the sides and in between the tanks.

And no I didn't have cross bracing.

I think that because yours is slightly shorter beams, with the cross bracing, yours will have less bend than mine did, if at all.

Also, I only had 1cm poly and all my tanks were fine. I'd suggest 2cm+ poly on yours.

But with all this said, my tanks were only 18in high, not 24.

 

13 hours ago, Bradc said:

Probably find that the 2 tanks on that 1 shelf weren't the width of the rails and it was the ply flexing not the stand. Im interested to see how yours turns out im thinking of doing something similar but making my own racking i do a fair bit of welding at work so i have access to a mig and enough know how to make my own. Wanna try a 6ft shell dwellers tank and a tropheus tank.

Wasn't ply, was mdf. Tanks were directly on the beams/rails.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Been a bit of a slow burn so far. Tanks are still sitting in the shop waiting to be drilled and the weirs installed, hopefully will be ready to pick up next week some time.

A mate of mine that is a painter has come around a couple times this week to get the stand completed (painted). The side supports didn't need any sanding, but the orange cross beams seemed to be coated with something so we had to lightly sand them back to get the paint to stick to them. My mate also put an undercoat on the boards and then sprayed them with a high gloss exterior paint (several layers), so hopefully this should stop any water damage from occurring to the boards. We also painted the cross braces. So the whole lot is now in high gloss black, and I have to say it has gone from looking very ordinary in the blue and orange to absolutely amazing! Has come up a real treat, looks just as good as any stand I have seen. The high gloss black makes it pop! The spray finish is unbelievable. 

The grass copped a bit of a hammering, but its due to get mowed soon, so should be all sweet!

 

CF98BB55-F740-4045-9CC4-BC310975D340_zps

 

 

 

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Yeah the black looks a million bucks. 

I picked up the first tank yesterday. The other had a small amount of damage on the cross bracing and the store is repairing the tank for me before i collect it. 

Tank weighed a lot more then I thought 12mm all round, in the 38C dry Perth heat yesterday, it was slippery work! but got it done. 

Will start painting the first tank this week and hopefully get some water in it before xmas.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tank looks pretty good with the black silicone, and should look a million bucks on the black stand. The plywood I have used (sealed and painted) is 25mm thick and the Poly is 20mm, as well as the corss bracing so hopefully this is enough to remedy any potential slight bending of the beams. 

Excuse the mess in the garage, we recently moved in and it is on the hit list for a clean. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...