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8x3x2.5 Tank Journal


Alex

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Pump has arrived at distributor and should arrive here in Perth on Thursday! :) Sump is done.

Picking them both up on Saturday, and some Japanese matting for the sump, should have everything I need to get her running by early next week. As long as their are no more unforseen glitches along the way.

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Big kick butt tropheus tank imo. Great for a tank with full on movement. Scape it, put some effort in, maybe some plants etc. I've put in plants in your old 5x2 and they have barely been touched. Though you need to start thinking of lighting too.. another issue!!

Then fill in the floor space with some calvus, gold heads, maybe some shellies like ocellates, Multifasciatus etc...some might vanish but its all part of it imo. I've seen the shellies stand up to fish 10 times their size. You do need to choose carefully though as you know.

Might not have that big tankbuster feel you are used to...but you could make one hell of a tang tank.

edit - not sure how you would fill such a deep tank with tangs though....you would probably have to build up some high zones with rocks and maybe some nigripinnis and some leptosoma.

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Yeah, I think a big feature of a tang tank of this size would be the scape. I was thinking of building a structure right to the surface. Could use a pvc skeleton and bore out the middle of some limestone to stack onto the pvc so the pipe work is concealed, but could build a very tall stable structure. Not only that would also allow the structure to be quite thin, rather than a huge mound of rocks. Would 100% need some leptos!

Shellies, I'm not sold on. Big fan of featherfins and Enatiopus. Would be awesome to see them build craters/bowers everywhere. Gobie cichlids would also make a nice addition.

Some of the oddities that pop up are also great Greenwoodochromis, Haplotaxodon, Triglachromis.

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Didn't wait until Saturday.

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Please excuse the mess! Stuff going everywhere while I get this beast off the ground. Sump is in place. Need to redo the plumbing, check for leaks and redo the paint around the bulkheads as i had to scare it off to get a good seal on the bulkheads. Also need to silicone the weir box in place around the bulkheads. But its starting to come along, sump and pump was a big one.

Hopefully have her filled up and back in her final resting place by mid next week, and cycling by the weekend. YEEEHAWWW!!!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Still not much to look at, but the tank is now up and running smoothly. Have cut twin wall polycarbonate lids for the sump and the display, both of the sets of lids are very tight and cut holes in them for inlets/outlets etc. Very nice fitting lids. Experiencing almost 0 evaporation which is great, in the past I have run almost no lids and the evaporation is a real problem for me. Should hopefully have an insulting effect also (keeping the heat in).

All 50L of the K1 media is tumbling in the sump nicely, with only a couple very small dead spots behind the pumps. Ended up using two otto pumps to push the k1 around, may add two airstones to the back corners near the pumps. Tank is into its second week of cycling! Looking at the tank, with the sump running with nothing swimming in it is painful. Doing the old fishless cycle with food (forgot how bad hikari carnivore stinks!), Ammonia is sitting at about 3ppm and starting to get traces of nitrite and nitrate as of today.

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Lol, I've never known twinwall to be insulting, it's always been nice to me ha ha ha,,,,, I know it's insulating.

If the lids are of concern with big buM heavy jumping fish leaping through pushing the weightless lids up.

then select a nice looking square paver brick and paint it black.

Silicone it to the upside of lid but not where lights will be sitting, this will help pin lids down. :)

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  • 4 weeks later...

First fish in!

After a lengthy fishless cycle the first fish have gone in - 10x Cichla monoculus @ 10-12cm and 5x Spotted Silver Dollars - the dollars will be removed soon as the bass are already starting to chase them down, last thing I want is a bass choking on a small circular fish. Pics stink as they are phone pics, will bust the SLR out soon.

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Moved the Silver Dollars out and moved in 3x Pimelodus ornatus, hopefully these guys should clean up the bits of food that the Cichla spit out when I overfeed them.

Rays will be going in late December/Early January.

Still tossing up whether to add 4-6 Saratoga Leichardti to finish the tank off.

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I'm sitting here pretty damn jealous ATM lol.

Couple of quck questions - have you only got the one drainage line running from your overflow box to the sump?

Do you prefer the drain up one end and return up the other?

And lastly how many LPh do you reckon you are putting thru the sump with that flash new pump?

Sorry for all the questions im just really keen to know all about this crazy set up and how it works lol. I'm even keener to see it when the rays are introduced lol

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There is one overflow line to the sump that is active, another one sits above the water level line as a redundancy if the first ones blocks, so the sump can never run dry. You can see this in the overflow of the first pic, it is the elbow facing upwards.

My return from the sump goes into the tank in the middle and shoots in both directions, back towards the overflow and away. You can see the return in the second pic behind the cochlea/thermometer, I may revise this later. But for now it's fine.

Hard to know exactly how many litres the pump is pumping, ~5000L/Hr

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Ah yep I can see the other overflow now, looks like a nice simple set up. What size diameter are the overflow and return?. Thanks for answering my questions mate. Much appreciated.

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Toga will look great in there. Just wondering how they go in numbers. I've heard they don't get on even in very big tanks. For a schooling topwater fishI think archers would look epic as well. But you'd need to source some with good size already.

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Yeah would be interesting to see how they get on. I've had success keeping multiple Silver Arowana together in the past, without much grief. Never tried Togas.

Time will tell. I'll keep an eye out hen they start becoming available in the next weeks and make the call.

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