My Oscar Setup

Sorry it still looks a messy only got the tank yesterday evening was pulling a all nighter getting everything setup and prepared, but I will be posting images of my progress as I go long. I moved my single Oscar fish to a small 30liter tank while I was moving the old tanks gravel over to the new one and transferring the gravel plants and filtration system and water. And so far so good.
Here is the specifications of the tank:

Tank Size: 250liters.

Filtration: Resun SP 2500 submersable pump (1400L/H)

Heating: 300WATT Eheim Jager.

Lighting: One single 30WATT Extra Day-Hi-Glow Light.

And some pictures:

Just finished filling all 250 liters added the gravel and plants from my old tank. Waiting for the heater to get the water to 27 degrees.


Bought a Digital Thermometer, to see how accurate they are compared to the old old ones. The water was bloody cold especially since I was storing some of it in the garage for 3 weeks.


At least tiles clean nicely, but still a mess.....


My old tank that I will be cleaning up and selling.


Cleaned out the old tank and packed up all the old gear.


Plays Mcuyver tune in the background.


Macrus's holding cell till the tank is ready he is not very happy about it....


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The hard work will pay off, some pics of the new tank with the lights on when you can

 

Thank, yeah as soon as everything is settled.

 

Does not look as big as the 100liter in this picture but its about X 1.5 bigger.


My first attempt at Aquascaping, and my Oscar photo bombing it.


I still need to sort out the plugs make it nice and neat.
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Just one question quickly
How did you manage to cycle your tank in 1 day?

 

I cheated a bit I took all the gravel, plants and the water and transplanted it into the new tank with the old filter and its media and started it up with a couple of airstones. Then I drove to my dad's house he has a massive koi pond out back with about 20 fish in it some water lilies and other cold water plants. So I took X2 70 liter canisters those with the taps on the bottom, took my one resun pump along and used to fill them.

Bought them back tested them for nitrates and ph, had to increase the ph a bit it was sitting at 6 but everything else was fine. Well except that the water was freezing...when I dumped it in the tank the temp dropped to around 10. Let the tank sit overnight running all 3 my pumps with filters on them to get water clear, tested again everything looked fine and put the Oscar back in after the tank he was in was the same temp as the new one.

And he was a trooper after about 30 minutes of sulking he got up and started feeding and chasing the Chinese algae eater around again. Might not have been the correct way of doing it but it seemed to have worked, cause I seriously had no space for all the tanks.

 

larch ... two things 1) you know you need to remove the plants from the container .. be sure to wash the roots so that no fibre gets into you tank 2) you might find that that your substrate is a breeding ground for anaerobic bacteria ... I'd go with half the depth in substrate .. makes it easier to do the vacuum thing ... BTW the oscar should kill those plants in no time - you can think about planting them in some terracotta pots - might stop him from digging it up.

Java fern on the wood should work with that bad boy ..

Later Ferdie

 

Thanks I removed the plants from the pot and washed them thoroughly as you instructed and planted them in the gravel, the Oscar hasn't touched any of them since I got them with the fish a couple of months back. Touch wood so far.

 

I also requested that he build sliding glass panels so that the water does not condensate on the lid. No more water marks hooray!
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I fear your plants might not get enough light...

 

"sliding glass panels" - nice ... I have never had a tank with sliding panels and lights (only sliding panels for the out-side tanks) ... is the idea not to have the lights under the sliding panel - or is that just true in marine tanks?

 

Well, I saw the marine tanks that has those and I thought why not use it for a tropical tank? And it doesn't really obscure the lighting in anyway, at it keeps the condensation off the lid and the light so no runny water you lift the lid and no mess.

I will take a picture with the lights on, its currently running in a single 30WATT tube, it also gets a crap load of normal sunlight not direct though. Will see what the plants and the Oscar does, no use in spending loads of cash on the system and he goes and destroys every single plant.

 

Hi Larch,

Nice set up... just a few tips I can see from the pics:

* F-Fish is 100% right about taking the plants out the pots. Glad you followed suit.
* Your substrate looks a little too deep. Take about half of it out... and then slope it from the front backwards. I.e have the back thicker than the front. THis will give the illussion of the tank being deeper.
* In your first picture, the internal pump looked like it was going to blast the fish, plants and substrate right through the glass. How many l/p/h is it doing? The output might be a bit high.

* Putting the glass panels on the top does stop the condensation, however is totally kills the effective light. The few plants you have will more than likely be ok, you haven't gone heave planted, so I wouldn't stress now. You cant go heavy planted either with an oscar. (Which is one reason I don't like them!).

 

Yeah it looks thick due to it being very coarse gravel, I think if I take out more its going to be too thin. I will try doing the sloping later just need to give the Oscar some time to get used to his surroundings, then I will try it doubt it will last he likes moving the gravel around.

Yeah it kind of looks massive in the picture but thats the two attached canister that contains the filter media, biological and chemical. The actual pump head is the small part on top. It does about 1200lph but it has a splitter head so I split the output 50/50 one head pointing to the back glass the other head I pointed at a 45 degree angle to the surface. I also attached a small pipe to the outlet so it pulls air from the pipe outside and mixes it with the water when it pumps it out.

I removed the panels and put the canopy back again to see if I notice any difference in the amount of light but I didn't. I will try at night I have too much natural light in the tank area. Yeah if the plants survive it is a bonus, growing and thriving isn't the issue its the Oscar but so far he is more interested in playing soccer with my snails and trying his best to catch the Chinese algae eater which he fails at horribly.

 

Finished up the cabling as it does not require me to bother the Oscar to much while I do it. Found some old computer spiral cabling which work pretty nicely in keeping all the cables together. Used some double sided tape and cable ties to secure the adapter against the frame.

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You won't notice any difference in the light.

The differnece is the TYPE of light that get's to the plant. Plants only photosynthesis at certain light spectrum. This spectrum of light get's broken down by the glass sliders. That's why people put their lights UNDER the glass sliders, into water proof end caps.

 

If I remember my college science classes correctly normal glass does not breakdown the light spectrum. Transparent objects do not reflect or breakdown light, but transmit it. Only when you start using prisms or specially treated types of glass. Ordinary glass transmits all colors of the spectrum as it has no color of its own. Only thing that happens when light hits glass it refracts in certain direction and slows down depending on the thickness. I know some glass types breakdown UV light but those are specially treated for office buildings.

I was referring in my previous post to the light intensity due to the condensation on the glass sliders.

 

Maybe have a read here ... http://www.rayotek.com/tech-specs/material-comparisons.htm
Later Ferdie

 

Yes I have read it some time ago but what type of glass do aquarium makers use?

 

plate / float glass .. (SODA LIME GLASS)


Re-think ... .6 microns = 600nm so all glass looses something so 1 mm plate glass looses under 10% of your required spectrum ..