1320 liter clearwater biotope

[DJ-don]

i have been follwoing this thread and this tnak is a fish keepers dream!!
my parents got me stop having and buying tanks until i leave home get married blah blah blah
very good set up here though!!
how long did it take for you to cycle the tank?? a big tank means big filteratio and lots of time
how do you do water changes too? it must be very hard for you to do the changes

[Haavard Stoere]

The system has to sumps of 200 liters each. The lifting pumps are one Aquamedic 6500lph and one Aquamedic 3500lph.

Because I used sand and some rocks from other tanks along with already cycled filtermaterial I put the fish in only hours after filling. One of the sumps has a runoff, so waterchange is almost automatic. I just open the ball valve of the RO unit for 24 hours to change around 300 liters of water.

[Haavard Stoere]

My first video from my new Canon EOS7D....
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[nvcichlids]

WHAT!!! no corny music to go along with it? ;) That was truely awesome to watch. I am going to have to sit my wife down and show her what a tank set up like yours will do for plecos! As always, extremely inspiring. Took me to the 5 minute mark to realize there are two species of tetras in there lol.



Nate

[Haavard Stoere]

Thanks:) I am only just learning to use the camera, so the quality of the movies are not great.
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[nvcichlids]

once again, nice clean video!

[MatsP]

Off-topic: Nice camera...

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Mats

[hydrophyte]

That is really cool.

I wish that my Olympus SLR would take video. I need to figure out some other option.

[Haavard Stoere]

L024 and L240 eating peas.
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[DJ-don]

Thanks:) I am only just learning to use the camera, so the quality of the movies are not great.

harvaard stop lying these are great videos

[Haavard Stoere]

L240 eating
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[Haavard Stoere]

Panorama of the whole tank.... Tip.. These movies can be viewed in high def from my youtube page.
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[Farid]

hi havaard,
this tank again looks really beautyful!

maybe i missed it..but what filter are you using for this tank?? could you post any photos of it?

cheers
farid

[Haavard Stoere]

I use 2x200 liter sumps with lots of HMF driven by Aquamedic 6500 and Aquamedic 3500. I am drawing the system in Google scetchup (my whole fishroom actually). The scetching takes time.

[wrasse]

On this occasion the stars of the tank all think they are Greta Garbo! Just as well the tetras are always busy and on show.

Haavard, I like the way you make your rocks using concrete, how many coats of varnish/ sealant did you apply? Have you ever experienced a sudden PH rise or water chemistry problems because of cracks or chips exposing the concrete?

Fo aquaria (and gardens) people can save a lot of money by making rocks and collecting wood, so long as its safe to use.

[Martin S]

Can someone post either the movie IDs or Haavard's youtube username - my work blocks all youtube content, but can watch them on my iphone.
Thanks
Martin

[Haavard Stoere]

Sure:)
My username is HaavardStoere

[MatsP]

Haavard's username on Youtube is: HaavardStoere

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Mats

[Martin S]

Sure:)
My username is HaavardStoere

Haavard's username on Youtube is: HaavardStoere

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Mats

Thanks

[Haavard Stoere]

Today I mounted a rather large rock in the top of the left corner to hide the pipes:

[Haavard Stoere]

The filter system with pumps, pipings etc... Please ask if anything is unclear about how it all works. The piping from the right sump to the drains are not drawn in. Some of the filtermaterial is also not shown for the sake of clarity.












The pipe on the left is a 40mm siphon to ease the volume of water for the 50mm durso standpipe on the right. They operate very silently.

[nvcichlids]

Very cool design, my only question is, how does the water flow from one sump to the next? I see there is a pipe connecting them (or am I looking at it wrong?)

This general idea will help me when I get my custom tank built for plecos

[MatsP]

Assuming the pipe from one sump to the other is low enough (and big enough diameter), water will flow by itself from one side to the other without overflowing the "input" sump. If it's placed high up, then it may not get enough pressure to equal the level (and of course, the input side will always have a bit more water in it than the pump side). I have two sump systems based on this principle.

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Mats

[Haavard Stoere]

Yes, The second sump (left) has a water level 40mm lower than the first sump (right). The pump on the left is "only" 3500lph. Apart from the two filter mats in the left sump everything is filled up with sponge cubes. The right sump gets all the water from both the 50mm durso standpipe and the 40mm siphon. The first stage of this sump is a sort of fry safe refugium. It gets all 10 000 lph that passes through the first sponge. In the refugium I keep guppies and shrimps to biologically process the waste and food residue from the main tank. Behind the first sponge there is a 6500 lph pump that delivers the coarsely filtered water to the fish tank. Some water (3500lph) passes through a 40mm pipe to the second sump. The second sump is the main biological filter.

If anything is unclear please ask. I will explain to the best of my abilities.

[Flyfisher]

Hi,
I've been reading your thread from start to finish and as many have already told you, it certainly is a fanastic masterpiece, and from a personal point of view, very inspiring.
The fixing of rocks to the glass is something I've given thought to myself, but seeing it here has given me the courage to maybe use this method in my next project. Many thanks for showing how to male it happen
I'm certainly no expert in rocks, or in fishkeeping, but one thing I'd like to ask before I look to choosing the rock to use is how your choice looks when you look at the area it meets the glass? We all know that tank glass becomes a mirror when lights are on, so did you consider this when choosing a dark rock for a black painted glass? Your tank being of a considerable footprint gives you good scape to leave the rear in darkness and only light the front and middle areas. Was this your aim from the start? If you'd chosen a lighter coloured rock do you think the reflection effect against the black would have been strange to view and not as appealing to the eye?
Was there other rocks that you considered that would have worked well do you think? I guess my only criteria at the moment is to choose rocks that do not lift PH, but smoother rather than jagged edges would be preferable too. Any suggestions?
My aim is to have a 6x2x2foot tank and this will be a living room feature with myleus schomburgki and a group of geophagus (as yet undecided) as well as a few medium sized plecs. Favourite at the moment are L124 and L200, so as you can imagine, I love the Hi fins you have and that feeding time photo is amazing!
I love your branches coming in from above, great design idea! I aim to have alot of bogwood but as you well know, finding the best pieces when dealing with LFS meagre offerings and also restrictions of what nature has offered makes finding the right pieces a time taking process.
I had to chuckle at your 'tetras are much more interesting' comment I love my black bar silver dollars, they're amazing to watch. Their biggest downside is their greed, which I hope will lessen with age.
Thanks so much for enlightening us all with this amazing project.
Cheers!

[Harry94]

You should do commissions.

You should work in a public aquarium Haavard, or at least contract for them

The standard of your work, and attention to detail, is far higher than I have ever seen in a public aquarium.

Their attempts at biotope aquaria are laughable in most cases.

I second this. Amazing standard. Prizewinning aquaria.


Harry

[DJ-don]

You should do commissions.

You should work in a public aquarium Haavard, or at least contract for them

The standard of your work, and attention to detail, is far higher than I have ever seen in a public aquarium.

Their attempts at biotope aquaria are laughable in most cases.

I second this. Amazing standard. Prizewinning aquaria.


Harry

same here!!

You should be a coordinater for the public aquariums in your area!!

[Haavard Stoere]

I'm certainly no expert in rocks, or in fishkeeping, but one thing I'd like to ask before I look to choosing the rock to use is how your choice looks when you look at the area it meets the glass? We all know that tank glass becomes a mirror when lights are on, so did you consider this when choosing a dark rock for a black painted glass?

Yes, there is a mirror effect, but not much. Actually it adds a little to the perception of dept.

Your tank being of a considerable footprint gives you good scape to leave the rear in darkness and only light the front and middle areas. Was this your aim from the start? If you'd chosen a lighter coloured rock do you think the reflection effect against the black would have been strange to view and not as appealing to the eye?

The whole tank is lit with 12x18watt tubes, but when I photograph fish I use external flash on the target leaving the background in darkness. Lighter rocks also work exellent.

Was there other rocks that you considered that would have worked well do you think? I guess my only criteria at the moment is to choose rocks that do not lift PH, but smoother rather than jagged edges would be preferable too. Any suggestions?

Smoth edges is generally better than jagged, but I don`t know what kind of rocks are available where you live.

Thanks so much for enlightening us all with this amazing project.
Cheers!

[Flyfisher]

Early in your thread you showed a pic of the first rock to be mounted and said it had 4mm of glass backing which looked in the photo like a flat smooth layer of black silicone. I read that this was the stuff you used to mount it but can you please ell me exactly what the 'glass backing' was?
Have you used this idea in other tanks? With different rock?

[MatsP]

It is just a piece of glass cut (roughly) to match the back end of the stone. I'm sure Haavard will correct me, but if I understand correctly it allows the stone and glass backing to be attached firmly with lots of silicon, and then have a nice smoot surface to attach to the back of the tank with a smaller amount of silicon and still fitting nicely. The glass backing is easy to attach because it's small and light. Once the backing is on, the it can pretty easily be attached to the tank. If you tried to attach the stone directly to the glass, you need LOTS of siliocn, and the whole thing is hard to get to attach properly without sliding/slipping/falling off.

If Haavard used a better machine for cutting the stones (he uses a 9" angle-grinder), it would probably be possible to get a straight and good cut to attach the stone to the back, but you'd still have a much harder time getting the stone surface to attach to the glass of the tank, compared to using glass on glass.



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Mats