The beginnings of a new tank...

Well I finally persuaded my husband to make a new big tank, and my son is over here at the moment too, luckily they are both trained engineers and very practically minded. We debated the dimensions but finally decided on 160cm x 60cm x 60cm (about 63" x 23.6" x 23.6" odd numbers in inches because we work in metric here), this would have a capacity of approximately 576l or 152 US gallons. As you can see from the photo of the frame we had room for a bigger tank, but this was a compromise taking into account the cost of materials, running costs, safety factor etc. The frame is made of 4cm square steel tubes. The top has also been made and the varnish currently drying, out of 18mm plywood but edged with real pine wood, the front of the cabinet will be stained pine, the back and sides 8mm ply. The glass will be 10mm thick. The first problem after making the frame was that the brick floor in our living room turns out to be far from level. So they built a low cement plinth for it to stand on. In the photo it is covered with old damp towels while the cement goes off. I am going to keep an account of how much we spend (although in some ways I would rather not!). So far the steel cost $41, primer and anti corrosive paint $17, 8mm plywood $21, 1 gallon varnish $40. We already had the 18mm ply, some wood stain and the pine wood.

As I have never had a tank this large before I am sure to be asking questions here about filtration, heating, stocking etc. Will update with progress which is a bit slow as they both have other things to do...

Here is the work so far:

 

 

A quick update on the progress with the tank - the glass was assembled on Christmas Eve (when the attached photo was taken), we waited for a week for the silicon to go off and couple of days ago we filled it to test. Luckily there do not appear to be any leaks... Meanwhile the woodwork is being worked on. It is going to have a wood frame with a brace across the centre top for extra strength and so that we can make the lid in two parts that can be lifted off independently. We had the 10mm glass cut to size with the edges finished, total glass cost was $120 including the silicon and delivery. In the photo the wood frames for the doors have just been put in to test the fit, obviously they will be removed to be finished, stained and varnished.

 

Wow nice!

 

Gorgeous!! Can’t wait to see it when you’re done ☺️ Love it!!!

 

Love anything DIY. Good job and a good size tank.

 

Looking nice, cant wait to see it finished

 

Its coming on...spent most of the last couple days trying to get the aquascape to everyones' satisfaction, this required yet another couple of buckets of sand and more rocks from the river. We eventually filled and drained it a couple of times, it will be drained again and filled with warmer water eventually when I set up the heaters (2 x 300W). All the sand, rocks and wood I have been gradually collecting from the river that borders our land. I have also got 5kg of substrate for plants that I exchanged for 30 baby Cichlasomas the other day, this I will put in specific locations, for example behind the log at the back right hand corner where I will plant with tall quick growing plants to hide the filter inlets and heater. In the photo we just hung a temporary light above it to see what we were doing. Today I bought lights for the tank, not set up yet. They are 2 x 50W LED floodlights, plus two smaller lights in case we need to fill in any dark spots, we will have to see how this works. Proper aquarium lights are hard to get and very expensive here, but this set up should give me over 20 lumens per litre. The tank will be
covered as I don't want to risk any fish jumping out and too much evaporation.

 

I have not updated for a while but we have made considerable progress and started to stock the tank though the cabinet is not quite finished. I forgot to update on costs but haven't spent much more except for the equipment (2 heaters $50, Canister filter $100, 2 Led floodlights $24 each), plants and fish.
The tank cycled very quickly with filter material from my other tank, and I now have 6 angelfish (4 new ones, and 2 bigger ones that I already had), 10 emperor tetras, 12 tetras which I am not sure if they are red phantom or bentosi tetras (I live in Ecuador and they were sold as tetra rojo (red tetra...) and one Colombian zebra pleco (an impulse buy). I would still like to eventually get some dwarf cichlids (depending what is available) and maybe some corydoras. I used some plants from my other tanks and bought some new ones. not using CO2 but I hope they will fairly soon fill out the tank. I put vallisneria in one corner, there are several runners that I thought would grow tall to hide the heater and filter intakes, but they don't seem to be growing taller, might have to rethink that one. Most plants doing OK but there is a lot of space to fill... Had a lot of algae in the first week, but reduced to 6 hours light and it has virtually all gone. We need to make a boom for the floating plants as the flow is too strong for them at the moment. Quite happy with how things are going.

 

Very very very very very very very very very nice!

 

I have not updated for a while but we have made considerable progress and started to stock the tank though the cabinet is not quite finished. I forgot to update on costs but haven't spent much more except for the equipment (2 heaters $50, Canister filter $100, 2 Led floodlights $24 each), plants and fish.
The tank cycled very quickly with filter material from my other tank, and I now have 6 angelfish (4 new ones, and 2 bigger ones that I already had), 10 emperor tetras, 12 tetras which I am not sure if they are red phantom or bentosi tetras (I live in Ecuador and they were sold as tetra rojo (red tetra...) and one Colombian zebra pleco (an impulse buy). I would still like to eventually get some dwarf cichlids (depending what is available) and maybe some corydoras. I used some plants from my other tanks and bought some new ones. not using CO2 but I hope they will fairly soon fill out the tank. I put vallisneria in one corner, there are several runners that I thought would grow tall to hide the heater and filter intakes, but they don't seem to be growing taller, might have to rethink that one. Most plants doing OK but there is a lot of space to fill... Had a lot of algae in the first week, but reduced to 6 hours light and it has virtually all gone. We need to make a boom for the floating plants as the flow is too strong for them at the moment. Quite happy with how things are going. View attachment 768949View attachment 768950View attachment 768951View attachment 768952View attachment 768953View attachment 768954

Looks awesome!

 

Impressive! I want one.

 

Thanks for the comments, it has been an interesting project I have to thank my husband (who took a bit of persuading at first) and son for all the hard work and technical knowhow. My contribution was collecting all the sand, rocks and wood, and mostly the choice of fish and plants. Joint effort on the aquascape.

 

I have not updated for a while but we have made considerable progress and started to stock the tank though the cabinet is not quite finished. I forgot to update on costs but haven't spent much more except for the equipment (2 heaters $50, Canister filter $100, 2 Led floodlights $24 each), plants and fish.
The tank cycled very quickly with filter material from my other tank, and I now have 6 angelfish (4 new ones, and 2 bigger ones that I already had), 10 emperor tetras, 12 tetras which I am not sure if they are red phantom or bentosi tetras (I live in Ecuador and they were sold as tetra rojo (red tetra...) and one Colombian zebra pleco (an impulse buy). I would still like to eventually get some dwarf cichlids (depending what is available) and maybe some corydoras. I used some plants from my other tanks and bought some new ones. not using CO2 but I hope they will fairly soon fill out the tank. I put vallisneria in one corner, there are several runners that I thought would grow tall to hide the heater and filter intakes, but they don't seem to be growing taller, might have to rethink that one. Most plants doing OK but there is a lot of space to fill... Had a lot of algae in the first week, but reduced to 6 hours light and it has virtually all gone. We need to make a boom for the floating plants as the flow is too strong for them at the moment. Quite happy with how things are going. View attachment 768949View attachment 768950View attachment 768951View attachment 768952View attachment 768953View attachment 768954

Love it...

 

Love it...

This tank has been running for over a year now, very happy with it. This photo was taken in November last year. It is more overgrown with plants at the moment. I will try to take an updated photo later.

 

This tank has been running for over a year now, very happy with it. This photo was taken in November last year. It is more overgrown with plants at the moment. I will try to take an updated photo later.

I hope you are entering this one in the photo contest.

 

I hope you are entering this one in the photo contest.

I did!

It is not easy to get a good phot of this tank as it is quite long, with varied light and dark parts, and the angelfish always come to the front begging for food when I try..