Part 2
I started building my 360 cm (141 inch) aquarium. This aquarium i make, just like my previous project, from multiplex and liquid pond liner. I liked working with these products with my 2200 liter Malawi
aquarium. I want to link both aquariums to each other through the filtering. I got reasonable extra capacity with my Malawi aquarium, but do want to make a new filter part with that. Also for the heating i
would like to link the aquariums to eachother. And also my current heating system has extra capacity.
Besides all this i want to make a solarcollector for the whole system.
I started building the
substructure of the aquarium, i think it is easy to make and doesn't cost too much.
This is the way Uaruyjoey did in his tube on this forum.
I have build aquarium stands before, but when i was working this
afternoon on the one i'm making now, i got the feeling that i made it wrong the other times or to difficult. Used too much wood than while it wasn't nesecary. So thanks Uaruyjoey for your tube about this
I plan to finish the whole with laminate. And i think i will also do that with the already existing aquarium, because i want both aquariums to have the same look.
The existing aquarium i painted, looks ok,
but i don't want to paint for weeks anymore, lol. I don't know yet what i will use to create a background. And i think that when it is all finished, the Malawi fish will go to the aquarium i'm building now and
that i will use the existing aquarium voor middle american cichlids.
Today i bought the wood for the aquarium and some underlayment for the construction. I connected the parts together and glued some
parts, including the underlayment. I still have to do some work at the construction, but i'm satisfied with the progress.
Getting stuff always takes a lot of time, so i hope the next few days i can work and take it easy.
I do have to buy some material to finish it, but i saw at a retail shop some laminate that i liked and can use for that and this week its for
sale too!
The costs so far are:
110 euro (145 USD) for the bars + screws
240 euro (316 USD) for all the wood of the aquarium + plate material for the substructure, glue and screws
I bought everything at a retail shop where i also could use some coupons for 20% off.
I'm mostly busy with the front, the whole is quite long this is especially a difficulty at the top of the frame.
I'm almost ready to work of the substructure. I bought laminate for that and was looking how i want it to look when it is finished.
I think the best way to do it is as in the picture.
I don't know yet how i want to make the filter cause there are several options.
On the pictures you can see an example of how i could make it.
The filter excists of a relatively small before filter and a room for the pump, than the water will be spraid into the dry filter. The whole dry
filter is filled with bio balls and substrate.
I could of course also choose for a somewhat more confessional preparation with for example a large wet biologist.
Feel free to give your opinion ...
Glueing the laminate takes quite long. I am depending on the numbers of clamps I have.
i have made the pre-filter and overflow.
I started making the aquarium waterproof.
And now is the time to make some decisions about the lights and decor.
And about what to do with the background: keep it open and use seperate stones i can make myself; make a complete background or make partly a background with open pieces or a piece.
I saw some nice examples i could try to make. There will be mostly utaka's swimming in it and the rock walls i saw looked like what you could see in their natural habitat.
I started making a rock background, i make 1 big part and a smaller, lower part. Upside the lower part you will see still blue. I'm also making some seperate rocks, a bit smaller than planned. For the
background i use tempex, i use 2 layers of it, 1 layer i cut of the pieces and the other to glue them on.
I don't want to make everything to tick, but still get a lot of depth.
When i put the tileglue on the tempex i finish it of with epoxy with some pigment in it.
I did put both parts of the rock wall in the epoxy and added some collor on it,i did the collor in dark grey.
I did try not to give it a smooth color.
I'm going to put everything one more time in the epxoy.
I have the largest piece backwall glued in the tank, I did this with the liquid pond liner,i did this already for a part in the other fish tank
It goes on this way, fine.
Iam also working on the lights, i made a list on the ceiling where some hanging lights are comming and two kinds of spots, same as the
ones i'm using to light the room. And for all the lights i use the led variants.
The list on the ceiling i make of the same material i used for finishing the aquarium.
The two rock walls are glued into the aquarium.
The lighting is now ready, I still need to replace certain lamps to LED lamps.
The aluminum cap lamps I have taken over from a guy, the rest of the spots I had at home lighting the house. I
have replaced the bar where everything is assembled and it is made ??of scrap pieces I had left over from the aquarium.
I do not have all the lights I have mounted directly needed in the aquarium, but I've also installed lights to the room where
the whole is able to illuminate.
I cut the lights standart but is of course a lamp / fitting, if needed the number of lamps in the caps i can
extend through a round piece of plywood in the hood to fit it in with several holes for other lamps / fittings.
If I estimate the hoods offer space for around 10 LED spots E27 fitting, at the moment I have enough light.
I must say that this is difficult to say without water in the tank.
This week I'm going to make some rocks for the bottom.
Thursday the glass will be delivered.
I'm still watching how the filtered water in the aquarium must flow, I am still not sure how I'm going to do that. I would obviously not use such a tube in the aquarium where the water is sprayed, but
something like I've done my existing aquarium Malawi.
This will ensure good circulation to get into the aquarium.
Iam bussy to make the rocks.
I ordered the glass and received it on time, the company gave a number of days for delivery and said between which time they were coming.
And indeed the glass was at home at the time they said..
I find this quite exceptional, the driver also explained that this year it had not happened that one is not within the agreed time delivered, this shows also how involved people there where to meet the
agreed standards.
[url="http://www.kikmachinale.nl/ramencalcula"]http://www.kikmachinale.nl/ramencalcula ... eramen.php [/ url]
I have the last 300 days ordered a lot online, and sometimes had to wait long for deliveries.
This company is a positive exception here, I think it's also handy that you get immediately online price and expected delivery date.
We put the aquarium on its side so we could bond the glass flat on the construction.
I brought in a considerable number of troops to help turn the window to be fitted.
And I can not say too much man for this purpose, it was still an entire operation to the window to install.
tsss I myself am of course not in the picture itself.
We have the tank back in its position , I have this done with 6 people again, the tank was now much heavier and more intractable than before.
But fortunately everything went well.
It was difficult to get the aquarium again exactly in good position.
Yesterday for the first time i had water in the tank.
I have also done the sand in the aquarium.
I rinse the sand in the aquarium it self last time I've have also done this.
I had no problems, except that certain pieces of the back have become too light, I have a little variety applied in the color it is now something different than I thought.
Now this is not a big problem and I do not know if I'm going to do something about it.
Besides, I am not finished with the finishing of the whole so there is quite a lot to do.
It's always nice to know everything is ok if u want to do the last things.
I hope that in 14 days this new tank will run along with the existing filter system.
The cupboard under the hopper is just about ready, the intention is to get some electrical connections in it as a number of timers for lighting.
I started with a few things, I still want to do, while waiting for
the leaching of the new aquarium.
I want the filter system connected to the reservoir of the toilet so that when you flush the toilet you do that with used aquarium water and the aquarium fills with fresh
clean tap water (you would normally flush the toilet with).
This way you get every day some fresh water in the aquarium system, depending on how often you use the toilet.
We have historically done this
before, it works fine and the 3 or 2 weekly water changes are no longer necessary, moreover, in this way no water thrown away. Now, this example with an aquarium of 300 liters is not that big a problem.
In our case, the tank system is out of 5000 liters.
In this way, the water quality values and always on the same level.
A major disadvantage of this method of water changes is that for example, every day
you need 150 liters of water to add unheated, here I make a buffer of about 250 liters, where the water is heated by including a number of central lines and in a later stage the planned solar collector.
The
buffer will be placed behind the existing filterline.
When for some reason i don't want to continue with the things i wrote about above, the buffer can be connected to the filter system.
drove to Groningen(the north part of the Netherlands) I bought a bundle of kienwood
for 50 euros.
I checked the price of that stuff and came to the conclusion that you per kilo driftwood also some semi-
precious can buy.
I think the 50 euros that I paid is not too much to spent.
I don't know if you can also buy this in the rest of the world, but from this wood i only know its taken on a small scale at the
border between The Netherlands and Germany. Its very common to use here in aquariums. Kienwood can be thousands of years old.
Kien Wood is a remnant of forests that covered the earth in ages. Trunks
and stumps of them were in the wet peat contact and it sank deeper and deeper way. The wood has been over the centuries under a common meter thick acidic peat should be placed providing it with
oxygen cut off, was well preserved. In raised bogs are found remains of oak, pine, birch and alder. In peat but lacks the willow and ash are also often present. The peat by this material is often a less
desirable byproduct. In the peat areas, however, was much used as a fuel, an advantage in earlier times was that it gave on burning bright. The wood, that dig in wet and soft, after some weeks of hard by
air-drying. Even if timber could driftwood that under favorable conditions had been preserved properly serve.
I have to put the wood in the water, but cant do it in my new aquarium at the moment, because its empty again to make some small adjustments. So i made something in the garden from some old table
parts and put some pond liner in it, so i can leave the wood in there for 2 or 3 weeks. Strange the outside arena is about 240 cm long and 60 cm high. I used about 20 screws and never thought about the
sides not going to hold it or not being waterproof. Unlike the new aquarium i'm building and using all kinds of special materials (screws and glue).
I took the water out of the 360 aquarium to make some small adjustments to the mounting of the window. And now i'm waiting to get my ordered liquid pond liner to finish it of.
Most time last week i
spend on making the filter and finish of everything with wood. I still need to place some slats but its mostly finished.
And the filter needs also to be made waterproof, so thats why i also need the pond
liner i ordered.
Off the side of the Malawi aquarium are the filter/buffer parts now ground floor. Both aquariums are now through the in and out flow bins on the sides of the aquariums linked.
I hope in the
next few days to lay the pipe to the toilet, and a water supply line from the meter cupboard. I need to drill through the floor for this several times, this is tricky. At certain points there are a bunch of pipes
in the concrete.
I did make a extra reinforcement bar on the botton against the window.
The buffer is now also waterproof.
The sand i did put also in the tank.
The wood in the aquarium is almost done.
Here are the connections to the toilet
This is just a summary of the past 2 weeks.
At the moment I write this I did remove all the wood from the tank
eventually it became an malawi aquarium so the wood would not be suitable in there. The
larger species from this lake i want to keep.
I will give a brief summary by pictures of the past weeks.
The buffer is now ready and finished.
jealous!!!! 
