PlanetCatfish.com

snowball wrote:That is a great technique for affixing the rocks in place. Now if only I had a big cutter & diamond wheel...

Electric powertools are cheaper then ever. Especially the chinese no-name types. Some of them are surprisingly good to. I´m sure they are sold in Australia to.

The grinder I use is 2200 watts no-name chinese with a 230mm diamond cutter wheel. Its huge, powerful, noisy, dusty and extremely dangerous. The cutting wheel cost about 60us$ and the machine itself about the same price.

What a fabulous idea. My head is spinning. Have you thought of writing an article on this technique? Also, the German edition of Wels Band 2 is worth owning. If you own Band 1, you can understand a lot of Band 2. Plus, the photos....
Amanda

Here is an article on my first zebra tank.
http://akvaforum.no/text.cfm?id=1971
Maybe I should make a version for PlanetCatfish?

I will probably buy Wels band 2. Nice to have a complete set.

Have been thinking about the substrate(sand) today. Maybe my fish(and me) don´t need any substrate at all for this tank? I can lay the cut rock flat on the glass.

I will start the actual furnishing of the aquarium in 3-4 weeks, when I get my two new 720 liter tanks from Denmark.

Meanwhile... Here is a photo collage of my 312 liter tank. The picture have been put together from nearly 100 photographs I made this morning:


Left side:
[img:1000:739]http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa23 ... e/Left.jpg[/img]

Right side:
[img:1000:739]http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa23 ... /Right.jpg[/img]

What a dream. I'm speechless.

Haavard Stoere wrote:Here is an article on my first zebra tank.
http://akvaforum.no/text.cfm?id=1971
Maybe I should make a version for PlanetCatfish?

I will probably buy Wels band 2. Nice to have a complete set.

Have been thinking about the substrate(sand) today. Maybe my fish(and me) don´t need any substrate at all for this tank? I can lay the cut rock flat on the glass.

Haavard,
If you PM Shane, he would tell you how to submit an article for Shane's World.

On the substrate, the choice is completely yours. I find when I don't use a substrate, I clean up after the fishes more often(more than once a week), since I see the detritus more easily seen. Some people are not bothered by mounds of detritus as much. The fish seem to love the substrate in this tank as you can see. This is just my personal preference.(but it looks really good with the substrate!) Do you have a smaller tank you can test this with? Just a thought.
Amanda

I have been sleeping on it, and I will definetely use sand as substrate.

Instead of using my 200x60x60 cm tank I will use a 160x75x60 cm tank for this project.

Meanwhile I have made the english version of the article and sent it to Jools.

This is the most beautiful tank I have ever seen! I will start looking for another tank do test your technique today!
I think it will be hard to find that type of rocks in my area since I live by an "rullstensås" ('esker' in english??)

What lighting have you used there?

barksten wrote:This is the most beautiful tank I have ever seen! I will start looking for another tank do test your technique today!
I think it will be hard to find that type of rocks in my area since I live by an "rullstensås" ('esker' in english??)

Esker is indeed the correct word (I just learned something today too!): http://www.fettes.com/cairngorms/esker.htm

And, no, those types of stones are probably not the most common in an esker.

[Whereabouts do you live, I used to have grandparents near "Hallandsåsen"]

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Mats

grokefish wrote:What lighting have you used there?

The everyday lighting is two 36watts and four 18watts normal T8. The tubes are cheap no-name (biltema) daylight.

For the photography I use 5 studio flashlamps.

MatsP wrote:

barksten wrote:This is the most beautiful tank I have ever seen! I will start looking for another tank do test your technique today!
I think it will be hard to find that type of rocks in my area since I live by an "rullstensås" ('esker' in english??)

Esker is indeed the correct word (I just learned something today too!): http://www.fettes.com/cairngorms/esker.htm

And, no, those types of stones are probably not the most common in an esker.

[Whereabouts do you live, I used to have grandparents near "Hallandsåsen"]

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Mats

I live in Gävle. If you have some tips where I can find some stones like these youre welcome.

The cheap brands are readily available here too, to be sure it is on the wish list along with many other handy tools, not to mention a larger house to put them all in!

They are truly beautiful tanks you have, a real pleasure to see such dedication.

Haavard Stoere wrote:

snowball wrote:That is a great technique for affixing the rocks in place. Now if only I had a big cutter & diamond wheel...

Electric powertools are cheaper then ever. Especially the chinese no-name types. Some of them are surprisingly good to. I´m sure they are sold in Australia to.

The grinder I use is 2200 watts no-name chinese with a 230mm diamond cutter wheel. Its huge, powerful, noisy, dusty and extremely dangerous. The cutting wheel cost about 60us$ and the machine itself about the same price.

Haavard Stoere wrote:

This is a magnificent tank. Very well done. Pure eye candy

Thank you:) Looking forward to placing the rocks in the big tank.

what an amazing tanK!!! what type of filters do you use? how do they work? i cant see any?

Here is an article on my first zebra tank.
http://akvaforum.no/text.cfm?id=1971

The article is in norwegian, but you get the idea of the filtersystem from the pictures.

Currently I use three powerheads that cycles 1000 lph each and one external powerfilter that cycles 1000 lph.

The article will be available in english here at PC soon.

what did you use to cover ur filter? how do you get to it for maintanace?

I pull out the blue filter mats from the sides. You can´t se the filtermats in front view. I will make a side view picture for you in a couple of minutes.

I am awestruck by your tanks. Makes mine look like a bucket of water Many congratulations on the most inspired tank-scaping I have ever seen. That is truly beautiful.

Thank you:)

I have made a couple of illustrative photos of the filtermats from left and right side. Because they are in the shadow and are dark from silt and dead brush algae they are difficult to se. The rocks that hang out in front of the filtermats are detachable for maintenance. The tank ran for 9 months before the filtemats had to be cleaned. I am very pleased with the efficency of the system.

[img:500:566]http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa23 ... t_1280.jpg[/img]

hi, are those lots of cherry shimps i can see? how do you keep them alive? everytime i add cherry shrimps to my zebra tank they die normally in 2-3 months.... i dont think they like the high temps or current.... any tips? whats temp is your tank?

I introduced a lot of them, and most of them died, but now it seems like I have produced a more heat tolerant stock. I often see dead shrimps in the tank, but overall the population is very slowly on the rise. It´s evolution:)

The tank is 31.2 degrees all year.

very nice tank. i wonder how you can deal with left over food? as there are plenty hidding spaces for zebs but also a place for algae and left over food as well.

That is absolutely true. The tank is quite dirty, and I have several kinds of algae growing on the rocks. This is why I won´t build the background as high in my next setup. It is probably wiser to leave the top half of the tank unfurnished.

First congratulations !!

Your tank set up is magnificent.

I have a question dealing with the way you cut the stones.
Do you use water or oil to cool the cutting wheel when using it ? Which kind of cutting wheel do you use? And how long does it take to cut a medium sized stone ?

Charly

I use a 230mm diamond cutting wheel on a 2,2kw grinder. No cooling or lubrication. It is extremely dusty. The cutting wheel or machine don´t have any brand names. Both are chinese.

It is difficult to say exactly how fast I cut, but I think I use about 40 seconds to cut a flattened 30 kg boulder in two. This of course depends on the type of rock.

Something like this.

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Mats

Same prize range. Although it was cheap it seems to last forever.

Yes, I expect the brand to be different in Norway, as Screwfix is a UK company, and Erbauer is their "house brand", i.e. what they brand the noname products that they buy from China, Poland, Russia, etc.

I saw a similar blade at the local Wickes for the same sort of price.

[Note on English language (from a Swede who have lived in England for 11.5 years now): Price is what you pay for something, Prize is what you win in a competition/lottery.]

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Mats