Mini fish room

[Ch4rlie]

Interesting choice of lights. Hope it works out.

Personally I've never had much luck with whatever LED light units I have had in the past and therefore have stuck with T8's which, to me, is more of a tried and tested light that works for my tanks.

I'd be very interested to see if these little spotlight type LED's works for plant growth etc.

Keep us posted

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Looks like a really fun project. Interesting scaping scenarios as well, as the tanks on top will only be visible from the short ends...


I've been looking at the Mattenfilter set-up for a while... There's a 100+ gallon tank at my school that's currently empty... Not sure if I will ever get it going again, but if I did, I'd likely do it with a mattenfilter. Very inexpensive set-up, and seems to be an ideal filtration unit - in terms of energy efficiency, and more importantly, more closely mimicking the natural filtration of streams.

 

[Ch4rlie]

I've been looking at the Mattenfilter set-up for a while... There's a 100+ gallon tank at my school that's currently empty... Not sure if I will ever get it going again, but if I did, I'd likely do it with a mattenfilter. Very inexpensive set-up, and seems to be an ideal filtration unit - in terms of energy efficiency, and more importantly, more closely mimicking the natural filtration of streams.

Absolutely, thats a fantastic idea. that would be great teaching material in a science class.

The denitrification process of the mattenfilter is an interesting one and why it is so beneficial in a fish tank is obvious due to be the closest type of filtration that does indeed, as you say, sort of mimics natures own filter.

I would 100% urge you to set this up as a teaching aid as well as being a satisfying part of your fishkeeping nature

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Absolutely, thats a fantastic idea. that would be great teaching material in a science class.

The denitrification process of the mattenfilter is an interesting one and why it is so beneficial in a fish tank is obvious due to be the closest type of filtration that does indeed, as you say, sort of mimics natures own filter.

I would 100% urge you to set this up as a teaching aid as well as being a satisfying part of your fishkeeping nature

The only issue is that its hard to incorporate a fish tank into physics!

I have used it in the past in terms of pressure differences, such as how to create a siphon, etc. So, there's the practicality. We also calculate the pressure on the glass at the bottom of the fish tank, versus the pressure on the glass at the top.


But, there was some crazy stuff this past year in my school, and I've switched rooms. The new room doesn't really have as clear a spot to put it - it might be surprising that a 100+ gallon tank takes up a bit of room!

 

[Munroco]

Tanks and most of the heaters arrived at LFS, time to get to work. I'd allready done loads like making the filters, cutting up plastic greenhouse panels to make condensation trays. Drilling lots of holes with my wife's new drill (probably didn't need them all but drilling holes is enjoyable). I fixed my electric socket extensions (securely) and air manifold on a beam above the tank so I'm ready to roll.

First tank in place.

Two tanks......

This is how they look from the back with the filter uplift and heater hidden.

hmmm this might be tight......

Oh me of little faith. For once I was really fussy with measuring and was pretty sure I could fit them in, there's at least 1/10th of an inch to spare.

Now for the fun part...washing gravel.

 

[RRaquariums]

Looks awesome man can't wait to see it up and all running.

 

[NickAu]

Looks great.

 

[Munroco]

My lights turned up at last, a bit smaller than they looked in the advert but hopefully they will be fine

I Fixed them all onto my overhead strut that the sockets and air manifold are also going onto.

Its going to be a few weeks before I put fish or shrimp in but I've started planting the tanks with cuttings from one of my bigger tanks. Hopefully by the time I come to stock them I will have some good growth. I made the mistake of putting a clump of java moss in the bottom tank before the substrate had settled. Thats why it looks so brown, its covered with dust from the substrate.

Attempting to make a carpet. Not sure what the plant is but it is growing well in a 4ft tank. I'm not sure the light will be up to the job but we'll see. Took ages to plant all these little cuttings.

I'm still waiting to get dedicated sockets installed which is why there are wires all over the place.

 

[Munroco]

Got my electrics in at last and finally some inhabitants.

Tank 1 (top left) has my 3 surviving Crystal Shrimp, 1 of the 10 that I started with and 2 that were born in my tank. I had a disaster that wiped out most of my shrimps. My own fault but hopefully a mistake I won't repeat.
Tank 2 has 22 mischling shrimp which are to small to be breeding yet.
3,4,5 are empty except for plants. I decided to put sand in one tank to give me a bit of flexibilty.
Tank 6 has 9 beautiful Nannostomus Trifasciatus. I'm hoping to add another 10 soon if My LFS gets them in again.
Bottom left tanks has 11 Cherry shrimp and the bottom right is just for growing plants atm.

The Shrimps in tank 1 and 2 have discovered that they can get into the back of my mattenfilters by crawling against the current through the filter outflows. I wouldn't have thought is was possible, but they seem able to get out and then back into the main tanks. I'm hoping to get them all back in the main parts of the tanks then I'll put some netting on the outflows. I'll get some pics of the shrimps and fish later tonight.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Looking good, lots of work done there.

The lights look good actually, hopefully they will do the trick for the plants.
This is just me, but a few cable ties or something to tidy up those loose wires would go a long way to smarten things up, like I said, its just me, I have a OCD thing about loose wiring......anywhere, not just tv's and lamps

The bottom tank, on left side, is that under different lighting?
Just nosey.

Now just a case of letting these tanks settle and the plants to established their roots etc, then things will really come to life

Nice job all round

 

[Munroco]

Yeah the bottom left has an arcadia stretch light. I am planning on running a pipe along above the tanks from my air pump and just dropping the airlines straight down but the wires are a problem. They are safe enough and do the job but I agree they could look better.

 

[thrujenseyes]

Now for the fun part...washing gravel.

Ha...never fun.

This is how they look from the back with the filter uplift and heater hidden.

I'm glad you showed a close up of this, I like seeing the behind the scenes!

Took ages to plant all these little cuttings.

I love carpeting plants but can never make them work in my low tech set up...so I'm jealous ...not that I'm not jealous of the whole thing....this is AWESOME!

Got my electrics in at last and finally some inhabitants.

OMG this looks soooooo amazing I can't even take it!

Shrimps in tank 1 and 2 have discovered that they can get into the back of my mattenfilters

It's amazing what they can and do get into!
Are you planning any Blue shrimp? I always see those Dream Blue Velvet Shrimp on Instagram and man, they're so Gorgeous! No-one around me sells them and I'm too scared to order live creatures online.

 

[Munroco]

Funny you should mention that, I've been thinking about getting them to go in the tank with sand substrate. I get all my shrimps online, so far I've only had healthy ones in the bags.

 

[Ch4rlie]

I get all my shrimps online, so far I've only had healthy ones in the bags.

Can you let me know where you get your shrimps from as I have considered buying online as well but not had the recommendation of a reliable supllier from anyone in UK.

 

[Munroco]

I've got them from a few places. I'll check out the sellers and let you know.

I've used 3 recently on ebay and was happy with them all.

Shrimp-land - Bought 10 Taiwan bee mischlings All alive, good variety of colours, fairly small though

Topkits23777 - Bought 10 fire red cherry shrimp, All alive, great colour and got one extra. Very nice lady selling them, she was extremely helpful.

Alexg1602 - Bought 10 Taiwan bee mischlings, all alive good variety, a little bigger and I got 12.