Below is the bare layout of my tank!!

Initial composition:



Final layout:





This is my first time working on such large scale,any feedback is really appreciated!!

Robby

Robby,

I see that your aquarium cabinet is matching your chairs...

Your tank one of the corner have a cut out skimmer water to below for filtering ??

Did you purposely ask them to make it in such a way ?

I see that your tank glass is quite thick...

How come cannot see the substrate later in the picture ??

I think you should just try and error first and learn along the way....

Nice center piece of drift wood you got there...



Stan

The cabinet was initially in golden pine color, but out of curiosity (and stupidity) I messed alittle with the finishing.That's when disaster strucks...what was supposed to be perfert finishing became smudged when I applied a darker coat of wood finishing w/o reading the instruction. Finally took me 2+ months and lotsa tools to restored back the perfect finishing.
Wheeew..I swear never ever gonna touch the cabinet again.!!
Coincidently..it matches my dining table set.!!

Yup the corner cut out leads the water to filter below and serves as skimmer.This tank was custom made to my specs.

Sorry about the substrate because I had to add extra water to let the gravel settle in!!I'll replace the pix soon...

You are right,Stan! Even with most perfect planning and preparation....everything can go wrong..it's like a chain reaction!!

ok anyway..I'll post the pix of my progress soon!!!
Please contribute your photos as well...folks!!ok cheers

Robby

You can also post your pics to the

http://photogallery.pets2u.com.my/index.php

Jusr register and use back the same username as here... I think the username database is not linked...

Someone posted a lot of plant pics there....

Wow ...you must be expert in wood finishing by now...



I see in some LFS they uses this type of custom made tank with a cut out corner for filter below... what type of filter material do you use for the below filter ?

Will this method release the CO2 off ??

Any technica or commonl name for this type of filter.. like "Below Aquarium Filter" or "Cut out corner filter" or something like that ???


Stan

hey great tank. my tank is some sort like urs, except it's a 2 1/2 feet(30 inch) tank. Is a custom made tank with cut out corner. I used soft and hard filter media(those green carpet like thing, what u call that anyway?) to filter out debri and a partition with corals, bio ring, gravel n sand. I wonder if bacteria can survive there since the water will mainly consist of co2. by the way, do planted tank actually needs biological media since the plants itself will act as the biological filter.

Yes especially if your tank is under heavy load...!! From my point of view, a mechanical bio filter is better in providing a consistent and
reliable filteration over a natural bio filter.

This type of filteration is categorized as wet dry or trickle filter...wet dry does releases Co2 but is not very significant if the filter system
is setup properly.I'll still need to do some testing on rate of co2 loss with different setup in the future and see how long my 10kg Co2 tank will lasts (first time was 4 days only due to mishandling...had to forked out another RM37 for refill)

Few types of filter media (coarse and fine)are utilized with 300 Bio balls.
This is sort of my pilot project. So everything installed or setup are on trial and error basis..!!

Hey Roadspike, how do you setup your return piping from the filter up to the tank??

By the way, any good suggestion on sustaining water temp below 26Cel..??

Robby

the cut out corner is drilled with two holes(in the same cut out corner). Lemme post some pics in few days time, kinda hard to explain how's my piping setup.

maybe u wanna try those fan(compueter CPU has some of these), the one marine tank usually use it to coool down their tank. I might get one of these if my plants are not doing well.

Bought two 5" DC fans.....Ran at full blast..No good..get down to 28Cel only.Seems like most heats are contributed by the pumps and lighting placed to close to the water surface.
Few days ago, I tried something really interesting on reducing the water temp.Did a diy "chiller" with a small 8"x6" radiator ..hooked up some hoses to a power head,a fan and used a digital therm. to monitor on a 2ft tank.Wow within 15min the temp dropped from 27.8-25.9..great unfortunately made a huge mess when i found out the radiator spitting out oil.... yukk!!
But what great "chiller" that almost cost nothing to build!!!

Hey Roadspike, what other LFS do you often visit for plants?? Anyone been to Ocean World Aq. in Kepong Ind Park, wonder what they got in stock??ok thanks

Robby

There's a lfs near very near my place, that's where i get most of my plants. they has some planted tanks but they are low on stock now.
The lfs is;

Atlantis Safari Sdn Bhd
18 Medan Hujan Rahmat
Overseas Union Garden
Old Klang Road 58200
KL

Hmmm... the DC fan didnt help much? But from what i see from most of the marine tanks, by onli using the DC fans they manage to bring down their temp to 26.0 from i see from the digital therm.

Cant help u on the chiller ,got no experience of using it. I dun even know how it looks like.

Nope, havent been to Kepong for stocks. My tank is 70% planted already, now im just on the lookout for more species to be planted. Have to say im pretty satisfied with what i did =) All the system are up and running, filteration, lighting and DIY co2. All the plants(especially riccia) are producing minute o2 bubble on the leaves surface, which is a positive sign =)

Wow... Atlantis Safari is in OUG , very convenient because I live in Bandar Baru Sri Petaling.Thanks for the info...

Concerning the DC fans, maybe have to try several positions for that optimum result!

How about yours, Roadspike?? Care to describe a little about your tank??
Maybe post some of your tank pix !!ok

Robby