Amos has lived in three tanks. There is a pictorial account of setting up the second one (a 3' tank) for the second time (after I moved house in June 1998) elsewhere. This page does the same for setting up his current tank - a 5'x2'x2'ish tank, which was set up in August 2001.
The tank and cabinet were purchased from World of Fishes, in East Grinstead. I specified the tank size, the cabinet manufacturer (The Classic Cabinet Company) model and colour, and that I wanted it to work with a sump. WoF chose the tank manufacturer and specified the drilling, weirs arrangement and so on.
World of Fishes delivered the tank and cabinet (one evening - arriving exactly when they said they would) and set it down in the garage.
My plan was to get the cabinet fitted out as I wanted and have all the plumbing checked and operating before I moved it into the house. Being my first foray into sump filtration I wanted to be certain I wasn't creating any syphons capable of dumping 500 litres of water onto my living-room floor.
This grand plan meant that I had to get the tank from the floor onto the stand, and at this point the weight of the empty tank became apparent. With 10mm thick sides, and a 16mm thick base, plus all the various cross-braces and bits, I calculate the tank weighs something like 120kg empty.
Fortunately, I work about 10 minutes drive away from home, and
with the promise of sausage-and-chips from a nearby chippie was able
to bribe half-a-dozen workmates into a bit of manual labour during
their lunch break. Abu, Andy, David, James and Simon assisted with
lifting and shifting at one stage or another, and Sarah did some
running around opening doors and moving obstacles. My thanks to them
all - it took at least four people to lift the tank from the floor,
and six to make any movement comfortable!
There was a fantastic sump filter designed and built by me.
Sadly, despite a pre-installation integrity test, it blew a seam after
installation. Removing it required breaking it up, and it was
replaced by some plastic crates. With retrospect it was cheaper,
easier and more reliable that way, but it doesn't look so flashy.
There's a page about the first sump design.
Water is fed from the tank down to the sump by two runs of solvent-weld pipe. I carved up some bulkhead fittings and elbows to get the minimum gap I could between tank and wall (which turned out to be about 65mm).
One thing I learnt was to make these pipes at least slightly off vertical.
That makes the water flow quieter, presumably because it flows down one wall
rather than free-falling and splashing and glugging at the bottom.
Happy with the plumbing, the tank and cabinet moved into the house. The cabinet went into place and I set up the sump simply circulating within itself. Note that this is the first sump, about which the less said the better.
Since I expect a tank of this size to gobble up CO2, it's being
fed by a industrial size CO2 cylinder I bought from a welding supplies
stockist. Since I don't want my living room looking like an
industrial unit, the cylinder is actually in the adjacent room, with
the supply pipe running through a small hole drilled through the wall.
While we're on the topic of pipes and plumbing - a little rant. I
like Eheim aquarium equipment, it's solid, reliable, quiet, and spares
availability is fantastic (though sometimes slightly slow if you want
something very old or odd). Admittedly it's not the cheapest, but I
personally think it's worth the slight price premium. Eheim pipes,
hose and fitting are a nice green colour that blends into the
background of a planted tank quite well. EXCEPT when they
decide to plaster their name in bright white lettering along the pipe.
They don't need to advertise to me - I mean, here I am merrily telling
everyone they're the best there is - so why must I get 'EHEIM' beaming
at me every time I look in the tank? They didn't used to do it - the
photo shows an old Eheim pipe on the left, devoid of intrusive
markings. I scrape off the paint, but the scratched region is still
visible (middle pipe). Better than the gruesome example on the right,
however.
As in the previous tank, I wanted to use some slate blocks to make a terraced effect, but they aren't big enough to bury sufficiently to hold back the gravel very well. Once again, I made some acrylic retaining walls, which hold back the substrate, and the slate just sits in front of them being cosmetic.
Also in the picture is a right-angled retaining wall to go in front of the lower intake to the double weir. This is needed because my substrate bed is deep enough to block the lower inlet. Since I want the lower inlet working, I need to hold back the substrate.
I quite like building in acrylic, largely because it's relatively easy to work with (it saws with a circular saw, or a jigsaw, it routs quite happily, it sands, you can score-and-snap, you can heat-and-bend), and with an appropriate solvent you can make near full strength chemical welds very quickly. (You could make genuinely full strength with more care, but I generally don't worry about the odd little bubbles in a joint).
However, these retaining walls are really quick-and-dirty. I
didn't even bother getting properly flat edges to the acrylic pieces,
and instead made the joints by solvent welding some 5mm rod I had an
excess of along all the corners.
For the third time, the tank crew came on a lunchtime jaunt to consume chips and labour at tank movement. With the tank in place, furnishing could begin.
First in was a heater cable, followed by 60kg of enriched sand. As in the previous tank, I used Aquaponics 'substore', mixing it with play-pit sand previously tested with acid to check it wasn't likely to muck up my hardness.
The area in front of the slate doesn't have any enriched sand, and
the heater cable doesn't extend into that area. The reason for this
is that it is where Amos will be fed, and he likes digging in the
gravel and mixing in bits of broken cockle shell. I want to be able
to extract the cockle shell without the mess of digging up sand. I
also don't fancy Amos finding the heater cable, thinking it to be a
worm, and biting it in two. Hence the region with just gravel.
The sand was topped by 30kg of fine silver gravel. This also came
from Aquaponics, and I confess that I didn't wash it at all! At this
stage, the performance of the retaining walls is obvious.
The slate blocks were added, and the first of the water into the tank. For this first water, I syphoned it in from buckets, keeping track of just how much went in. Once the level was above the substrate, I changed to a hose-pipe, and could calculate the volume by measuring the internal dimensions and the changes in the water surface level.
The other decor added to the tank was wood. I bought a new
centrepiece (since it needed a bigger bit than anything I already
had), and added half a dozen other bits, mostly propped up in the back
corner where I expect Gerald the plec will take up residence. It will
be handy if he does, since it's right by the lower weir intake, so
should capture the mess that a plec generates so much of!
The water was brought up to about half-full, and I started adding the plants.
Almost all the plants came from Green Line Aquatic Plants. I sought some advice and selected the largest of their tropical collections - a 4482 which is suitable for 60-72" tank. I added to this some giant vallis, since I know it to be a vigorous grower quick to establish, and hopefully able to out-compete algae in the new tank.
I was very impressed by the plants supplied - a good
selection in all respects. There was a range of colour, shape, size
and the condition was excellent. In the whole package, I discarded
only one stalk of something for reasons of its condition (and even
then, if I hadn't had a surplus, it wasn't in too bad a state). These
plants were actually in better condition than when I select the
bunches for myself in a shop. Even the packaging was good - a really
solid cardboard box, clearly labelled to tell everyone it contained
temperature-sensitive plants.
And the size of the collection was more than adequate - A lot was
left floating in my bath after I had run out of space in the tank.
(Please, even if you spot an expensive rarity in there, don't tell me
- I don't want to know that I made space for giant vallis and threw
out something fantastic!).
With the plants in place, the water was topped up, and everything
set running. After 24 hours (though this was a week after the filter
was initially set running and seeded with some mulm from another tank)
the first fish were added - 6 yellow platies and 6 otocinclus, both
species selected for their small size (so they don't uproot plants)
and algae eating abilities.
Tank setup pretty much complete - just a black background to be added.
To comment on anything (please do) email ian.web@astounding.org.uk