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Added water a few scottish pebbles today. Sump seems to be runing nicely now after a bit of fine tuning with the pump controls.

Nor can I. The place I used to order them from unfortunately has gone bust. Greenline aquatics used to do plnat collections that were ideal. Have to loom elswhere now but don't want to spend £200 like some of the shops seem to charging for a plant collection.

Here's this afternoons efforts. This is the fullers earth cat litter I used, this 10kg bag was just right for a cm or so of coverage on this 5footer. At only £3.75 a bag too. Here's some full tank shots with the sand and wood added. I've still got some cabinetry to do as yet as you can see...

Been thinking about my lighting this afternoon. How's this? 10am ---- 1 x pair of tubes on 11am ---- 1 x pair of tubes on, moonlights off 12noon -- main power lighting on 8pm ----- main power lighting off 9pm ----- 1 x pair of tubes off, moonlights on 10pm ---- 1 x pair of tubes off This...

Here's the wood I'm going to be using. I've had most of this for years but the long spindly one is a new addition. I also ordered all the co2 equipment today. Going the 2kg extinguiser route as these are so cheap now it's cheaper to buy a new one than it is to get re-filled or serviced. I've...

To summarise for this weekend here's a few pics.

Done the background today, tank is currently sitting on it's side drying a bit but will take some more pics tonight once back upright. 1st lay tank on it's side. (turning your front room into a bomb site while you're at it! Luckily wife is at work ;-)) Gather some media in some bowls. I'm...

Do you mean the end caps? These are the newer waterproof arcadia's. There's a crew cap that goes on them too that's not yet fitted too. They come on as part of the starter unit but I bought these cables seperately as I made my own starters. They also come with the plastic mounts as you see pictured.

Have now added the bio-balls into the tower, 1st & 2nd sections. Hundreds of them, that area is almost 18" x 18". There's gonna be a theorectical 6000l/h flowing through these so they should be a bubbling mass when running. Have also bought the materials for the background build today along with...

Masking tape isn't a requirement when fitting the panels that way, just a good way of having neat edges. If your handy with a caulking gun you'd be OK without it.

Both tanks are a credit too you. Couple of questions. Do you does any fertilisers at all? Any special water treatments at all? And what's your water like round your way? hard or soft as I believe this makes a difference too.

Can a mod move this too the members tank section please? Probably were it should be.

I'm going to go for an amazonian style theme. I'm quite tempted by one of those big backgrounds but this tank has 3 brace bars so getting one in would be a problem so I'm going to use spray decor and sprinkled sand and then let nature take it's course with algae growth on it. Along with some...

That's it for now. I plan on doing a custom background on the tank. Substrate will be fullers earth & sand and fertilisation will be Ei dosed dry into the sump to make sure it's mixed nicely. There's gonna be a big gas exchange in this tank so co2 dosing will probably be higher than normal and...

Onto the lighting, this consists of 4 x 54w T5 aqua-medic planta tubes + 2 x 6400K power compacts. These are very bright as you can see and make the 54w tubes pale in comparison!! Here's a pic of the frame build as well as the custom reflectors. If you using a sump you need a...

Here's a drawing of the sump use I have planned. Water enter the top of the tower, trickles through the bio-bsll tower down the to deeper bio-balls, through to the 2nd section of bio-balls. The largest section is going to contain a moving bed of smaller media, probably kaldnes K1. This will be...

Here's the sump. I had a tank laying around which was suitable. 48x15x12 I had a glass merchant cut some baffles and these were siliconed in. Here's the sump on test. I then had an afterthought. As an inlet I thought I'd make a small trickle tower. So back to the glass merchants...

As mentioned it was originally planned as a marine tank so a custom build stand was needed. Here's some pics. I wanted a nice clean look was needed so I painted it gloss white. I also sealed the bottom edges just in case of the odd spillage/flood.

This will be an on-going thread but a quick one as I have documented this build already in photo's as it was orginally going to be another marine tank, but this ever growing expensive world has brought me down to earth and I'm going back to my roots(pun). And going back into planted tanks which...

If you sump drains go deep into you main tank you can drill a small hole just below your waterline to act as a siphon break, when tank starts draining in power out as soon as the hole is exposed the siphon stops.

Easiest way to fit the panels is by standing the sump on it's end and then insert books to the height of your first baffle. Place baffle in, stick masking tape around the tank leaving 1/4" gap and silicon, just the one side. Repeat until all the panels are in and let dry, turn over and than...

Think about what you need and have glass cut at local glass merchants in 4mm, glass is cheaper than acrylic. I had several sections for this 4ft sump cut and it cost me £18.00

No worries, I have several kg of carbon and some filter bags perhaps I might use some of this too. I used to do this in my previous planted tank & replenish once a week.

I'll stick filter floss in that section instead then as a final polisher. Have to get my head around this no carbon thing though.

Sorry see below, didn't expect posts to pop up that quick and was just posting the rest of the project up and catching up. I've never heard of a tank being run carbon-less in 20years of fish-keeping, please explain more as I thought the carbon soaks up impurities and helps with the yellow water...

Anyways back to the sump. I'm going to use pre-filter pads & bio-balls in the 1st section. 2nd section is going to be more bio-balls. 3rd section I was looking into doing a large fluidised bed. After that it would be carbon & then to the output pumps. What do you think? I'm looking at a...

Here's what I'm currently in the process of setting up. It was going to be a marine tank but changed my mind due to running costs and set-up a smaller one so at the moment so i'm going back to freshies for my main tank, at least for the next 5 years anyways. Ignore any marine equipment in these...

Here's mine originally set up for marine use but going back on myself and going tropical with it instead. Sump filters are a little more complicated than you think unless you want to end up draining the contents of your tank on the floor!! You need to find a way of getting water from the tank...

First you need to check the floor can handle the weight!! That's several ton's of water. You could get a metal frame made up for £150/£200 mark and then just buy kitchen cupboard doors or melamine for the sides. Like this

Am looking at getting a couple of oscars for my currently empty 6x2x2. It currently has 2 x fluval fx-5's as filtration and t5 lighting. I assume this would be enough. Is sand substrate ok. What's a good choice of decor as research tells me they don't like plants. Would a pleco + a few clown...

Are you running rowaphos/ultiphos etc??

Most boxfish/cowfish and puffers secrete a high toxic venom when stressed/dying. Enough to destroy the livestock of a whole tank, including live rock in fact!! Not a fish for the beginner!!

If you want inverts (corals, shrimps etc) don't use an external filter out of the box. Cearmic rings tc are a nitrate factory and inverts are very sensitive to this. Best to use it with, from the top 1.filter floss 2.rowaphos (phosphate controller) in small filter bag 3.carbon, in small filter...

This is the idea/concept. I was hoping to start on the cupboard/stand today but rain has stopped play. Main 24x15x15 Sump 24x12x12 fuge 24x12x15 Sump baffle area masked ready for insertion. Sump built last night for testing today. Sump in preliminary testing phase. Showing the path...

Just built this, electronics run on 6v so nice and safe with only 6v at the floatswitches and 240v at the pump using an ssr. Printed a label too for neatness, what do you think. Doing long term testing at the moment but can't see a problem as the circuit is fairly simple. Using a lamp as a...

If you add plankton (i assume phyto) you can turn the skimmer offf for a few hours, lots of people go this route. I have mine on a timer that switches off the skimmer for 3 hours at 8pm when my main lights go off. I then add the phyto then so the corals get as much out of it as they can before...

What do you mean sump rund dry after 3 days?? You are topping up arn't you?? My 6ft tank iused to evaporate around 10litres/day striaght onto my windows :no: This has to be topped up with ro every day on auto if possible.

Is that the same type of dog as 'hooch' from the well known film. Loads of slobber & ruined furniture type dog??

Ok, forget everything that's happened so far Due to a change in living space (got rid of my pool table due to lack of room) in my office/dining room. I am now changing the whole of the design above to something like this. What do you reckon. Excuse my dodgy plumbing drawings though. Main...

Sump framework looks ok. I would lose the 3rd compartmnet with live rock in though and just have one large dsb. Their is no point in live rock in a sump unless their is a good flow around it. And if theirs good flow around the rock that means theirs too much flow for the dsb!! Recommneded dsb...