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I am upgrading to a 7ft tank in the next 12 months so I thought I would star planning now so I have knocked up a plan

Lets se if this works


I would like to be criticised as this will find any flaws so i can make it perfect

what do you wanna keep in the tank?

The refill tank at the top can probably be replaced by a much less expensive item from B&Q or similar - they do small and large water tanks for domestic use. I'm planning on having a "Coffin tank", approx 160 x 40 x 40cm -> 230 liter in my fish-room.

You may also want to put a heater in your refill tank - even if you set it to a few degrees below the actual wanted temp in the big tank.

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Mats

I am planning on housing my gold fish in the 4ft tank and maybe keep a small community in there.

I am going to have a heavily planted tank with lots of wood and realistic looking terrain and keep a really nice and colourful community in there possibly, earth eaters, some other cichlids, cats, frogs, fan shrimps, i will research this at a later date and get my stocking list ready after i have cycled the tank (fishless) for a few weeks,

A few technical comments:

1. The powerhead, as drawn, is placed in the main tank, sucking water from the sump. I don't think this will work as most powerheads are useless for sucking water. I would suggest putting the powerhead in the sump pushing water into the main tank. Then of course you can another power head in the main tank just for the current.

2. Why not let the water in the sump pass slowly through some bio balls or other substrate as filtration rather than having a few internal filters in it? That will give a filter with a lot mor biologically active parts, and better filtration.

Thanks Mikael this is what i need, every comment i get like this i will alter the plan until i have the perfect setup that my girlfriend wont let me build

I never thought of the bio-balls, i was thinking of filling the sump tank with those chimney brush things for ponds, or i was going to put 2 nocturnal cat fish in there as well but i thought this was a bit tight but i was told they would prefer it as it will be dark 95% of the time and they can swim around and eat in peace

What do you guys think?

add some water flow baffels to your sump and put a media box in each one fulled with whatever media you like, far more effective than internal filters (and a lot cheaper).

check out this page, has a photo of what I mean
http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... c&start=30

yeah i see what you mean, i think i will opt for that and a small filter just to help things,

Thanks

I have updated it what do you think

I believe you are aware of this, but just as a safty reminder: keep the outlet on the pipe taking water from the sump back to the aquarium at water level or above in the main aquarium. This will avoid the pipe ending up as a siphon, taking the content of the main aquarium down to the sump in case of a power cut. Except for that it looks good to my eyes! (I'd love to start planning for a new and grater tank, but I cant realistically have much more than my current single 330L tank in my flat)