Zikofski new tank 110L / 24G

I set this tank up a couple of months ago on 30th December, thought I should share what I have been doing and the struggles I have come across

Tank is my Old 110L ADA 60H (45) I love these tanks for its super clean look and clear glass

Lighting is my own custom made lights very high lighting 9x4 3w led’s total of 30 cool white 4 royal purple and 2 red 36 in total (108w)



Originally I started with more blue Led’s But the look was too blue/purple looking so I did some more planning and reduced it down to the 4 plus and 2 red that I had

I also got rid of the black holders and just glued the led’s using thermal glue to the heat sinks and thermal paste was far to messy

Substrate is ADA Amazonia with some additives underneath including ADA powersand

I am not 100% sure on the name of these rocks i used but I will get the name later




Using old ADA pipes I had from my old setup sadly different sizes 16/22mm intake 12/16 outtake

Filter started out as a fluval 406 but that leaked so I’m using a independent filter from local lfs I bought several years ago I believe this is 1200lph flow

Inline heater and co2 diffuser and as I had a UV serialiser I am also running that as well

Plants where then planted and tank filled on 30th Dec

Plants used
Dwarf hair grass (Tropica Eleocharis acicularis mini)
Tropica Alternathera Reineckii mini

I have never been successful in growing both, with my understanding I never had enough light when I tried so with my extreme light levels I will give this a go again



I only have 1 single fish my loving blue eye golden pleco, with my filter seeded from the temp tank he was and colour looking a little pale due to the change in tank

He made quick work of unearthing plants and even the substrate spacers I used to keep the levels every day I replanted the plants this went on for about 1 months

I also ended up adding my old crypts from my old tank I salvaged when I moved these have not seen any artificial light since May the odd sunlight coming into the room kept them alive enough but how they survived with very minimal light was outstanding

That's looking good Z. Would be good to see how this develops.

I keep thinking about some custom lights for my tank to bring the brightness up but never get past the thought stage! Was it expensive?

to be honest it was expensive because i did a lot of testing and i decided to buy an expensive driver which is the size of a brick from the uk rather than the usual Chinese import ones.

the Heat sinks cost me a fair amount too the old heatsinks I usually use in my previous builds the LED's would burn out after 6 months so i think these will survive longer.

This was the growth after 9 Days


after 12 days I could see visibly new runners as you can also see pleco still having fun unearthing my plants



I actually ended up throwing away a lot of the crypts as I had to many for this tank

This is the tank after 26 days, a lot of growth and I was not expecting that around of growth is such short time
As with all new tanks I started getting algae, it cleared after a while although the GSA is sticking around I need to think on how to get rid of that

I also think my filter is not powerful enough as surface agitation is low feels really low and some film is appearing over it, not sure what this is from

Update 9th /10th February sorry I’m still playing catch up with my updates I did a deep clean and the dhg has fully carpeted the substrate.

I gave the dhg it’s first trim and it growing back well, I also timed the mid ground plants however they don’t look like there doing very well, I have no idea how to look after these and I may replace them soon


I have also been feeding my pleco Cucumber and as you can see is Loving it

I like how well the dhg is growing. It looks lovely. I can never get it to do much in my tank but then my lighting isn't quite strong enough at the depth of my substrate, hence my thoughts on new lighting...

Yea I don’t know if you remember my old setups when I tried dhg, with both my 330l and 80l tanks both failed, similar setups and same led lights the only difference is I have led crammed into the space so I can only presume enough light is penetrating down to the surface for it to grow

If you like I can link the exact parts I used excluding the wood frame to give you an idea of pricing

Update for today, 54 days since planting (8 weeks) I decided to change a few things, I used the rest of my soil at the back to raise it up slightly since this had settled slightly, I did not like how the red plants where growing since I trimmed them but my crypts WOW what a transformation, because of my old setup with low lighting the crypts grew tall very tall, now with my high light setup they are growing low and bushy so I moved them to the front there roots had already taken hold some over 10cm in length I’m impressed in just 8 weeks

I raised the rocks at the front and back so they sit above the DHG slightly and not sunken trimmed the dhg and game the sides a clean.

I couldn’t be any more happy with this result so far

I am thinking of getting some Cabomba and an Amazon Sword to fill in the back a little

Zikofski said:

Yea I don’t know if you remember my old setups when I tried dhg, with both my 330l and 80l tanks both failed, similar setups and same led lights the only difference is I have led crammed into the space so I can only presume enough light is penetrating down to the surface for it to grow

If you like I can link the exact parts I used excluding the wood frame to give you an idea of pricing

Click to expand...

Yeah you've had quite a few nice looking tanks before. Your journal posts are always informative as well. If you can list what you got that would be great. I'm seriously considering doing something like this with my tank.

Not a Problem,

Mean Well HLG-120H-CB Series Dimmable LED Driver 150W – 155W 230mA – 1050mA - £56.04
10x 3W Royal Blue LED with PCB (440nm EPILED) - £8.57 (£1.09 ea)
10x 3W Amber Orange LED with PCB (595-610nm EPILED) - £8.57 (£1.09 ea)
50x 3W Cool White LED with PCB (6500-7500k bridgelux) - £36.29 (£1.09 ea)
4x Aluminium Heatsink Profile B (T Series) - (pack of 3 £69.99)+(individual £27.99)
10x 100 deg lens for red LED - £3.18
30x 30 deg Lens for white LED - £6.59
20x 60 deg lens for white/blue LED - £3.99
4x Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive - £55.92 - £13.98 ea

Suspension - from Tecni https://www.tecni.uk
4x Tecni Grip Ceilling attachment - £5.81
4x Tecni Grip type 12 Holder - £9.50
5x Stainles sSteel Ferrule - £3.18
2x Tecni-Grip Nickel Plated Gripper with M6 Grub Screw for V Hanging - £7.78
5mtr 1mm 7x7 Stainless Steel Cable MBL 57kgs - £2.34

Used a more expensive 2 part epoxy thermal adhesive and a good one because I've had issue with LED's burning out in the past, its the same reason I went for a very large heat-sink as well.

Bought more LED and lens than i needed for spares and potential screw ups that i made.

I think i ended up using 30 deg Lenses on the White LED's to keep the footprint low as i have a large amount of LED's used larger 60 or 90 deg lenses on blue and 100 deg on red as red needs to be the least strongest I kinda bought a bunch of sizes all around £3.99 each for a pack of 20 and tested them out on at the height i wanted, to ensure the cone reaching the substrate levels was enough.

Total Price of the parts i used = £248.96 (excluding suspension and housing) most expensive was the Heat-sink's you can get smaller ones far cheaper on eBay same with most of this stuff but I've not had good experience with electronic stuff bought from eBay

hope this helps in anyway and in my eyes the money was well worth the results I am having.
Bare in mind I have beyond high light levels this is extreme light levels to the point where light is not a limiting factor for plant growth I have 3W per gallon of white Light LED if only I had an expensive light meter to test all light parameters

Thanks Z. Definitely gives me some food for thought. I quite like the idea of having some extra blues to give a moonlight effect but that will need extra planning. Might push the price up too much though.

My setup is complicated as I have a lid and would need it to fit under that or at least replace it. There's about 4 inches to play with though.

I think in the past I've been put off getting things from Ebay as I'm never quite sure where they're coming from and whether they're manufactured properly.

Exactly that I think the products are questionable especially the LED’s and the Drivers however one of my drivers in the custom tank cabinet with the 88L tank has worked solid since I installed it altho compared to this tank it’s low light levels so less heat, and the number of LED’s are less meaning the drivers are not pushed as hard calculating how much W you need is key that’s what I did and found this driver that supported my target W with some + or - to spare

Feel free to message me or tag me if you do decide to make your own and need some advice/assistance I will be happy to help

A little update, some how and I have no idea how I have a snail issue.. now the plants I got from AquaEssentials are grown dry in jelly so where these snails have come from beats me

Can snail eggs stay dormant on dry rocks or in substrate or maybe it come in through my water supply I very much doubt the last one but the snail population I noticed a few weeks ago and this has exploded to the point I need to hover them out daily to prevent the filter from being clogged.

Last weekend I bought 4 Assasin snail which I think did not survive I have never been able to keep them longer that a few days. I hope they are alive still I know they like to stay hidden and that’s how they hunt il just leave them in there for now

But tank is where I want it now and I’m confident it’s 100% cycled and nitrates are in check to the point I need to now do water changes without my Nitrate filter to add Nitrates into the tank for the plants so I will be going fish shopping this weekend I have chosen green neon tetras they seem suitable and I loved how they school together when in the shop. 30 should do it in a single species

I have also bought a Mosquito net to cover the tank and prevent any jumpers lost far to many fish in the past to them jumping out when I’m not home.