New Monster tank setup.

Thanks Guys for the tips. Always appreciated. I have never used this type of "drip" filter or what ever is the correct term for it. So this is new to me. I am used to good old Bio, which I am using in conjunction.

It was a hectic weekend and I spent the entire time setting up, and doing all the stuff, I think I slept a total of 8 hours only this weekend. But its been well worth it and even though it was back breaking work and made me realize how much younger I was the last time a did a big setup like this from scratch (about 20 years ago), I enjoyed it and its paying off.

Any more tips with regards to the drip filter is appreciated.

I will post my update shorty.

 

Joey is great I just recently also discovered him on You Tuba and love his passion for the hobby.

 

For now I am just running stock as I have recently started to add them into my house all over, where it makes sense. Once I have a whole bunch of them running, I will start to look at a custom refit. For the new tank they worked out so well, I opened the aluminum channel the lights re mounted on and modded the wiring and installed 2x Sonoff singles in the channel. It has great water resistance seals so no moisture will get it. One of the nice options on the Sonoff stock is the ability to setup times to turn devices on an off. For the lighting it made good sense. I plan next to run another to monitor water temp remotely and alert me when their are sudden drops or increases in temps.

 

Very nice - yeah I just do not trust the sonoff app on my phone ;-) so all mine are flashed.

Later Ferdie

 

Ok wow, sort of recovered after the marathon monster tank setup. I think I managed to get in about 8 hours total sleep over the weekend so I am still short on my sleeping hours and will have to catchup again this coming weekend.

Anyway It went well and I am finally finished with the setup, just couple of small housekeeping things to take care off the I will do over time in the next couple of days. Like straightening the doors on the cabinet, that all need to be re-aligned now that the tank is full, ti

So here is part 2

Ok so Friday the tank still looked murky,


But it was getting clearer but just taking must longer than I am used to. I did not have a spare biofilter and realized that the canopy drip filter system was just not going to do the job on its own. I am also not used to using one of these filters and so did not know if I had even loaded it correctly since it did not come with any instructions. I took a break on Friday night since since at the time I did not have the extra sand or other bits I needed.

Saturday morning:


Looking better everyday but still not clear and taking to long. So I decided I would need to bring the old Attman biofilter I had lying around back to life. So while I was out getting more sand, I go the pipes and some seals and things to revive the old man, even for just a short time. After a few water spills and leaks I got it going so it could start to circulate the tank water.


Its not the best of filters by any means and its given me its fair share of issues over time, but I just need to get it running for the weekend. Then it was time to wash more sand and add it to the tank. Turns out it was a lot easier than the first bag of sand since it was not as dusty as the first bag.

For the newbie's as mentioned above the easiest way I have found to clean sand or gravel is to get a small 10L bucket and fill it half sand/gravel and then use the hose pipe to wash it out until the water flows clean, its quick and easy this way. If you live in CPT well then I am sure their is probably another way that one of the guys would have comeup with that works for CPT.

The whole time I was busy, my 5 year Pleco, was keeping a careful eye on me from his temporary tank to make sure I did everything correct and up to his standards.


I also added an extra temporary internal filter to help with the water circulation and aeration of the tank. This will probably get removed this week, I will use only the power head to create a current and water flow. I have found over the years that certain species of tropical fish actually thrive very well in a tank with lots of water circulation and a current. I am even considering putting in a current pump like the guys use in the marine tanks, at a later stage.

I was running out of time now and could see my big Oscar and Parrot were no longer comfortable in their old tank, since it only now had now about 50% of the volume of water they were used to because of the leak. So I had to come up with a plan to move them over ASAP.

Sunday morning got up early and had to go to Delta Park to walk the dogs, the tank was still not 100% clear but was getting a lot better.

On the left you can see the additional filter I put in the tank to help oxygenate the water and also create a current. Been such a tall tank, I had to quickly knock together a special tool in order to move sand around and assist with positioning rocks and plants. I used some PVC pipe and a T-Piece joiner and made what is essentially an underwater rake, in the picture above you can see this in the middle of the tank. On the left on the floor is old Attman biofilter jugging away.

Since I was running out of time and had not been able to start doing the water changes between the 2 tanks daily for the past 3 days, my plan was to do a "water transfusion" between the 2 tanks. Now you might think this is easy, yes very easy with small tanks of 100 liters or less. Not so easy with monster 500 liter tanks, almost 10 meters apart from each other.

Getting water from the new tank to the old tank was the easy part since gravity was on my side. I simply siphoned the water from the new tank to the old. The problem was getting the water back up again to the new tank from the old tank, since in this case gravity was not on my side and I underestimated the the power of the pond sump pump I had purchased for this so I had to come up with another plan. Using 2 older pump heads I had lying around, I attached one onto the end of the house that was siphoning from the old tank up into a bucket (The same 10L I used to wash the sand) and then another pump head in the same bucket to pump up back into the new tank.

So this way I was able to do a water transfusion between the 2 tanks and control the flow as well. After about 3 hours the water was finally transfused between the 2 tanks and this meant that the water in both tanks was now almost 100% the same. This meant I would be able to simply catch the fish in the net and move them straight into the the new tank. Whilst the water transfusion was going on, I took the time to put in the land scaping in the new tank.Finnaly at 1am on Sunday morning I was now ready to move the big Oscar and Parrot over to their new home.

As you can see the water was still cloudy, but the fish were happy.
A few hours later Monday morning when I woke up and this is what the tank looked like.

Already a big improvement, as you can now see through the tank to the lounge area, which was part of the whole original plan to be able to see the tank from 2 different rooms in the house.

When I got last night after work, I built the water polisher as per "Joey" and WOW.

And this morning when I woke up this was the result!!


And so Now its time to quickly transfuse the small temp tank and then move the rest of the community over. Clean-up, clean the glass, sit back with a glass of my favorite whisky and marvel at the biggest tank I have ever setup.!!

 

Good job. Looking great!

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So I enjoy the peaty whiskys like Laphroag and Lagvulein but they generally expensive so reserved for special ocasions like this. But in general for every day drinking beleive it or not the Baletines I like, as well as Monkey Shoulder.

 

Looks awesome!! also need to upgrade my tank in future for my oscar! haha

 

Looks awesome @David Kusner !!

Well done

 

And So finally the whole family is back together again.

 

Stunning!

And.. well... Oscar's being Oscars... nice picture!!

 

very nice

 

looking good
makes me miss keeping oscars

 

And they fought all night till they both tired each other out. The smaller one the younger of the 2 was back to his normal self this morning and was eating, a little battered and bruised. The old man was sulking and was mot interested at all. He completely ignored me this morning and would mot eat. I am goint to try and get some feeder fish or some tetras this weekend, see if it cheers him up. He also lost a couple of scales.

I added a little bit of coarse salt to the water, its a trick I learned a few years ago. It helps them regain the protective coating they need ( the slimy feel they have if you have ever touched one ) and prevents them from getting skin fungus etc to a degree. I will also keep the water close to 30 to prevent any nasties from infecting them.

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Wow, nice pic. I had bred oscars in the past. They bred quite easy for me. Oscars are just amazing fish and woukd love to breed them again. A lot of LFS bought from me. I had about 4 pairs.
Oscars are also quite hardy fish.
My little nephew had pour by accident baby milk in the tank and the pair survived aswell as the fry.
You can't go wrong with oscars.
For treats, I fed mine earthworms, they loved it. I fed it to them once a week.
Kind regards,
Michael

 

Lovely fish David
And +1 for Monkey Shoulder

 

I absolutely love Oscars
Apart from when I was growing up and my Dad kept a whole variety of fish, my first tank when I got married was Oscars which I had for most of my fish keeping life but you need nerves of steel when they go t each other all the time!!!
And they masters at sulking...
However, the last 5 years, after my old pair passed on from old age and we got the first stingrays into the country,its proven to be impossible to keep them with the rays due to their territorial ways and the rays not defending themselves so... at the moment I dont have any but I do miss them

Salt is also my first line of action for many things especially due to the stingrays sensitivity to most common medicines

I dont use feeders though.. Im very scared of what they can carry which can be total disaster for my rays
If I really need something to bring out a sick or sulking fish, I use earthworms from my garden that I know are safe or crickets and super worms which I order from Jozi Bugs and always keep at home as treats.
Even my severums and Uarus go cazy for them