An exersise in madness rebuilding a new tank for my Jardini Arowana

i think because of your low tank stocking, you would get away with this easily.

in my opinion, i wouldnt attempt this unless i know i've got really good anaerobic filtration happening, to deal with with nitrates.

you will only achieve this if you have an area of your tank or sump that gets very low or oxygenation, this can also be achieved by having a very deep bed of very compact substrate, where the bottom of the subtrate get very little o2. this anaerobic bacteria would convert the nitrates to harmless nitrogen gas, which you should pick up from time to time as bubbles of air (nitrogen actually) which occassionally rise from the subtrate.

in that case, if you can achieve this, water changes would be few and far in between.

 

And I thought my water changes were a mission! :wondering:

 

You would still need to do water changes. Because the Ammonia and Nitrates don't evaporate with the water. So I'll say you stiil need to do water changes. Maybe less frequent if the Nitrate levels and Ammonia levels stay low. Maybe twice a month or so, instead of weekly.

The top up water gives good clean water but the levels will still creep up. So removing some of your water will drop the levels. That's the only way. Except for chemicals..

 

OK so if i build a(for example ) 20 w X 20 l X 100 h tank filled it with compact sands and have it running a long side the sump with water trickling in from the top then back to the sump I woukld be creating such an area ?

 

Yeah I wonder if you seal the thing if this could work? Surface area also accounts for oxygenation, because there should be some surface movement unless you have the inlet below the water surface. I personally have never tried something like this so I will definitely tag along on this topic.

@mydummyname, what is your take on this method?

 

If we could get @Dirk in on this I would love the profs take on this . I am not trying to elimanate water changes it would be ideal in a perfect world I guess to have a maintenace free self sustaining system . I just want my tank as close to nature as I can get it with as little fickling as possible without plumbing the vaal river thru it on a constant basis .

 

Ok So back home And decided it time to go hi tech The masa guys (friends 800l sps tank included )have been running orca bio cubes for a while now with excellent results So I'm going to run 1000ml and see what results it brings ... We in the freshwater side always seem to keep things basic and old school as to our tanks so I am going to try a different approach .if any one is using this on there systems I would love to have feedback . I while post more pics of the cubes when I'm done

 

Hey Storm,

I heard most pet shop says the orca range is also one of the good products out there.

Please remember to see if you can catch me some Tiger barbs:laugh: would really love to get my numbers up in my tiger barb tank.

Your tank clarity is already unreal sure this stuff will make it even better, what does a litre of the orca stuff cost roughly?

 

Mmmm not cheap hey But it's proudly Sa product and ill support the local guys any time and have seen the results on buddies tank .ive just always separated marine and tropical systems so I think it's time to merge the marine tech with tropical tech a bit more at least in my case and see what we get .
So the orca cubes are in there baggy and soaking for 24 hours then ill add them to the sump .ill place them where the water comes from mechanical filtration part of sump in a waterfall into bio media area .with an air stone underneath just for added oxy.

 

Sure it will work fine for you , I went to their site and this stuff seems to be the best in the world aparantly.

Cool man it looks like that white cheese you put in salads :bigsmile: so how about those Tiger barbs dude:idea:

 

Good luck Dude. Hope it works man.

 

Thanks
I have no doubt that the orca bio cubes are good . If it can allow me to do a water change once a month and weekly tops only I will be very happy . It takes 10 days for it to start working optimally the problem is my levels almost always show 0 even when I'm away for a few days and there has been some over eager feeding .

. I worked out according to the matrix , dynamax and other bio media makers claims I have enough bio material to filter about 5000lph of water without counting the lava rock old no name ceramics and pet stop bath stone stuff about 10kgs .more than enough allready so ill just have leave the tank and measure as time gos

 

Sweeet that is cool you surely do have enough biological media for that huge tank of yours.

Good luck hope it all works out even if you only need to do a water change every 3 weeks it is better then doing it every weekend on that tank.

 

Well I also tried the tie down method for the vallis and um ... It didn't work I'm now left with less than a quarter It seems the Jardini just bites them and pulls them to get them out her way , so what ever plants come out now will got to my sons planted pebble base beta tank outside .

 

Shjo. Ari is making things difficult man. Looks like the only alternative would be a piece of wood covered in moss? As you mentioned you allready tried the ferns. So I am not sure that you will succeed in any other plants in the substrate. Still like the tank as is man. The plants would just be a bonus.

 

hi guys, sorry for only responding now, i havent been on the site in a while, things have gone hectic again my side..

sealing this tank would make a difference as you want as little o2 moving in that area or over the surface of the area, but of course, the water itself carries oxygen anyway, what you want to do is not let any o2 rich water get to the very bottom of the subtrate, that is where the anaerobic filtration will take place, so i would say that your water flow needs to be restricted as well, that is even more importantly than sealing the unit.

i also dont think it needs to be a 20x20x100 sump. i think you could go with a standard 3ft, but make the bed nice and deep like 10cm or 12cm of fine compacted sybstrate, but you should then restrict the flow rate going thru this anaerobic sump, so that the flow rate is nice and slow over the top of it, that way very little or no o2 gets carried to the bottom of the substrate, so some flow over the surface of the bed is ok, but flow over the lower levels of subtrate should be minimal or zero.

if it works, you should occasionally see bubbles pop out of the subtrate of the small sump. this will of course be the nitrogen gas escaping from the substrate.

i experienced this in my first attempt at a planted setup with my small 28L tank, i had read that there should be as little movement as possible so that the natural co2 doesnt escape, so i restricted the flow and surface movement for that purpose.

it was pure luck that i happened to make the subtrate very thick, i think it was 6cm deep or something like that. after a while i would see these air bubble popping out of the sand everytime a fish disturbed it, or even for no reason.. i googled it of course and found out it was the anaerobic bacteria converting nitrates to nitrogen gas.

so my comments are based on this experience. because obviously, the water was quite rich in o2 from the plants, it was just that the o2 rich water couldnt get to the lowest levels of subtrate, and that was where the anaerobic bacteria was thriving..

it was only after reading the prof's @Dirk's comments in @Zoom's thread on filtration and flow rates that that i had an even better understanding of this and the picture really came clear in my head about what was happening..

i hope this helps, or makes some kind of sense.

 

With my deep tano i filled my substrate up to 12-15 cm wonder if this makes n difference?

 

i would say, is the flow rate nice and slow, is the subtrate nice and dense, and do you sometimes see bubbles rising from the subtrate.. if you do, then probably its working..

 

Its filter sand. The tank is 85 deep so at the botom the flow is slow. Sorry for the hijack

 

i dont see why this shouldnt work in theory.. one way to test would be to neglect water changes for 3 weeks and test nitrates, but you have to be willing to take that chance of a long period without water changes..