At long long last I am finally able to providee both the space and resources to have the ideal tanks I've longed for.
As I've helped many achieve this state over the years, I've long neglected my own desires and goals.
However, having put it off and delayed for so long, it's really allowed me a chance to really and truly focus on what it is that I want from my own personal tanks.
So the goals:
This is where it all starts right? What is it that I want?
Hummm........(obligatory head scratching)........
Well,
I hate water changes
I hate testing
I hate cleaning filters
I hate ugly stands and lighting/hoods
I hate over spray from pendent lights
I hate noise from tanks
I hate cleaning CO2 equipment
I hate testing CO2
I hate not being able to vary the light intensity.
Let's see if I can over come these items I hate and achieve these sets of goals:
I want to mainly prune, preen, maybe wipe glass, garden, feed fish, feed plants, and look at a nice aesthetic display with a good fish load.
I want the primarily fish keeper and primary a plant keeper to be equally represented.
So one room will have all south maerican themes in the decore and furnishings as well as the tank. Another will be African, another Marine etc.
Each tank is required to have a pendent light.
These have over spray issues. So, to get more out of the lights, I have chosen to use a light rail or disc to move the light around slowly to get better light dispersal and thicker growth without burning the tops etc. The light rotates around or else moves front to back to forward again etc each hour.
This will allow me to drop the light right over the tank closely without poor lighting for the entire tank. The look of the tank will also change hour to hour.
I'll also paint the lights a nice white to match the walls. I want the light and stand to blend into the wall so all you see is the tank's content.
Each tank will be rimless/braceless and have an open top with a thin glass lid and S shaped hooks. Lemar in LA will be making these.
Good prices also.
The stand will be simple but I'll use flamed maple that will be bleached white. This will blend well with the walls but still show nice pretty wood.
I will use metal(white painted) pipe to suspend the lighting and hide the metal cables that move the lights. This will reduce any noise from the motor.
So this allows me a lot of light flexibily and aesthetics.
What about water changes?
I'll add a in the wall drain and fill valves. I turn a valve to quickly drain and another to quickly fill. This will have a carbon prefilter on the tap water line so I do not have to add dechlorinator.
I'll have to get in to the crawl space and put these lines in place.
I could entirely automate and use solenoids and float switch, but I can drain more water and change it as easy as flipping a valve so that's not worht the trade off there. Essentially I can change 50-90% of the water easy and fast but cannot with the solenoid float switch set up that's entirely automated.
So when I drain the the tank, that water is going somewhere.
So a wise aquarists will send this through their canister filter in reverse to back wash their filter each week. By adding a drain ball valve to force all the drain water through the out let of the cnaister filter throught the intake side, we can backwash all the dirt using the water change to do it.
I just add 2 more ball valves to do this in line with the canister filter.
Now I can do a similar thing for the wet/dry and/or add a sock type filter which are very easy to clean.
Most of the finer flow reducing filtration is done through a canister while the surface extraction and bio is done through the wet dry which also maintains a constant level in the tank due to vaporation.
I can add a solenoid and float switch for the sump to keep that maintained with refilling it for evaporation and still maintain my semi automated system for large water changes weekly.
So I do not have to change water, clean the filter, nor test, nor worry about lighting or a tank that does not match the others.
Each tank will have a canister and a wet/dry.
I use a pH probe with a KH reference and membrane pair so I can monitor the CO2 well and have a data logging USB port to measure it on the computer. The CO2 reg is a light duty Victor. The valves are all Swagelok metering.
Tubing for gas: tygon.
CO2: venturi valve for each return with bypass loop plumbing/mixing.
So for the tanks:
Two 40 gal cubes, 24x24x20Tall
One shall be a Rift cichlid (Tangys) and eventually will become a West African and a larger tank in the future for the tangys.
Val foreground and a nice rocky center mound.
The other will be a Californian rocky tide pool loaded with macros. Orange Garibladi are very pretty, red and blue banded gobies, severla neat local shrimp species and some other inverts.
Baby Garibladis are very pretty.
The next pair of tanks will be 180 gallon for a south american theme.
Community tank shall focus on a large schools of smaller fish.
The Aggressive tank will have larger, unusual, not normally kept fish and be a more open system with caves.
Then finally a 120 gallon reef SPS with a nice displayed 65 gallon macro warm water refuge, main planted marine tank.
That should keep me out of trouble and happy to boot.
Some day I'll want another 120 and 180 but that is the limit
7 tanks is enough for me.
5 for now.
Regards,
Tom Barr
As I've helped many achieve this state over the years, I've long neglected my own desires and goals.
However, having put it off and delayed for so long, it's really allowed me a chance to really and truly focus on what it is that I want from my own personal tanks.
So the goals:
This is where it all starts right? What is it that I want?
Hummm........(obligatory head scratching)........
Well,
I hate water changes
I hate testing
I hate cleaning filters
I hate ugly stands and lighting/hoods
I hate over spray from pendent lights
I hate noise from tanks
I hate cleaning CO2 equipment
I hate testing CO2
I hate not being able to vary the light intensity.
Let's see if I can over come these items I hate and achieve these sets of goals:
I want to mainly prune, preen, maybe wipe glass, garden, feed fish, feed plants, and look at a nice aesthetic display with a good fish load.
I want the primarily fish keeper and primary a plant keeper to be equally represented.
So one room will have all south maerican themes in the decore and furnishings as well as the tank. Another will be African, another Marine etc.
Each tank is required to have a pendent light.
These have over spray issues. So, to get more out of the lights, I have chosen to use a light rail or disc to move the light around slowly to get better light dispersal and thicker growth without burning the tops etc. The light rotates around or else moves front to back to forward again etc each hour.
This will allow me to drop the light right over the tank closely without poor lighting for the entire tank. The look of the tank will also change hour to hour.
I'll also paint the lights a nice white to match the walls. I want the light and stand to blend into the wall so all you see is the tank's content.
Each tank will be rimless/braceless and have an open top with a thin glass lid and S shaped hooks. Lemar in LA will be making these.
Good prices also.
The stand will be simple but I'll use flamed maple that will be bleached white. This will blend well with the walls but still show nice pretty wood.
I will use metal(white painted) pipe to suspend the lighting and hide the metal cables that move the lights. This will reduce any noise from the motor.
So this allows me a lot of light flexibily and aesthetics.
What about water changes?
I'll add a in the wall drain and fill valves. I turn a valve to quickly drain and another to quickly fill. This will have a carbon prefilter on the tap water line so I do not have to add dechlorinator.
I'll have to get in to the crawl space and put these lines in place.
I could entirely automate and use solenoids and float switch, but I can drain more water and change it as easy as flipping a valve so that's not worht the trade off there. Essentially I can change 50-90% of the water easy and fast but cannot with the solenoid float switch set up that's entirely automated.
So when I drain the the tank, that water is going somewhere.
So a wise aquarists will send this through their canister filter in reverse to back wash their filter each week. By adding a drain ball valve to force all the drain water through the out let of the cnaister filter throught the intake side, we can backwash all the dirt using the water change to do it.
I just add 2 more ball valves to do this in line with the canister filter.
Now I can do a similar thing for the wet/dry and/or add a sock type filter which are very easy to clean.
Most of the finer flow reducing filtration is done through a canister while the surface extraction and bio is done through the wet dry which also maintains a constant level in the tank due to vaporation.
I can add a solenoid and float switch for the sump to keep that maintained with refilling it for evaporation and still maintain my semi automated system for large water changes weekly.
So I do not have to change water, clean the filter, nor test, nor worry about lighting or a tank that does not match the others.
Each tank will have a canister and a wet/dry.
I use a pH probe with a KH reference and membrane pair so I can monitor the CO2 well and have a data logging USB port to measure it on the computer. The CO2 reg is a light duty Victor. The valves are all Swagelok metering.
Tubing for gas: tygon.
CO2: venturi valve for each return with bypass loop plumbing/mixing.
So for the tanks:
Two 40 gal cubes, 24x24x20Tall
One shall be a Rift cichlid (Tangys) and eventually will become a West African and a larger tank in the future for the tangys.
Val foreground and a nice rocky center mound.
The other will be a Californian rocky tide pool loaded with macros. Orange Garibladi are very pretty, red and blue banded gobies, severla neat local shrimp species and some other inverts.
Baby Garibladis are very pretty.
The next pair of tanks will be 180 gallon for a south american theme.
Community tank shall focus on a large schools of smaller fish.
The Aggressive tank will have larger, unusual, not normally kept fish and be a more open system with caves.
Then finally a 120 gallon reef SPS with a nice displayed 65 gallon macro warm water refuge, main planted marine tank.
That should keep me out of trouble and happy to boot.
Some day I'll want another 120 and 180 but that is the limit
7 tanks is enough for me.
5 for now.
Regards,
Tom Barr