Planted 20G Long

[WarEagleNR88]

Hello, I wanted to share my tank with you, I hope you enjoy. My plan is to make it an ongoing log with updates here and there to keep you the reader informed. I want to look at this thing as my underwater garden in the works. We'll see how it goes.

Tank: a 30"Wx12"Tx12"D 20 gallon long all glass aquarium. I like the look of the longer tank while remaining small enough to move very easily.

Stand/Canopy: custom built at home using a fairly simple design of 2x4s and 1/4" plywood. It will be trimmed, sanded, and stained for protection and aesthetics.

Lighting: the bulbs will be 1x55W 6700K and 2x13W 6700K about 4" off the water. I'm hoping heat doesn't become a factor. The 1x55W kit and all bulbs are from AH Supply. The electronic ballast that will power my 2x13W is a tiny Fulham workhorse ballast model number WH22-120-C. I hate those stupid magnetic ballasts so I'm going with all electronic.

Substrate: two bags of Eco-Complete Freshwater Planted Substrate with some mulm from my current 10 gallon Freshwater tank to help seed it. Fairly basic uniform substrate, nothing fancy like 6 layers of stuff. My thoughts are when you get too fancy with lots of layers, things mess up in a hurry when things go wrong.

Filtration: provided by a Rena Filstar XP3 and will have a filter sponge on the intake to prevent animals from getting into the filter. The return will be via the spraybar approximately 1-2" below the surface of the water and will point down at an angle for good water flow within the tank. At the moment, I haven't decided how much and what type of media I'll use within the XP3. Even though the XP3 is for a much larger tank--the container it came in said up to 175 Gallons--I still want to use it. My thoughts on it are if it's too powerful, I can always throttle it back. But if I need more flow and I have a smaller filter, it's hard to get more flow from that filter.

CO2/Fertilizers: for carbon delivery, I'll be utilizing a pressurized carbon dioxide system on a 5 pound tank with the Milwaukee SMS122 pH controller to keep the pH at a nice steady spot all the time. I'm building a passive flow reactor on the intake side of the XP3. It will be made out of PVC and will be filled with bioballs. I'll detail more when I cross that bridge. For fertilizer, it's hard to beat Greg Watson's fertilizers. For that I have the usual--KNO3, Plantex CSM+B, etc.

Decorations: as far as plants, rocks and driftwood goes, I've yet to decide on a good design. This part is still up in the air as to what I'm going to do. I may just begin and see where it takes me. But I do need to find a good source for rocks. Driftwood I can order or pick through at an LFS. But it's the rocks that really help make a tank. For the background of the tank, I'm thinking about painting it black and going from there. I really like the look of a black background on a tank.

Animals: a uniform school of small fish that I'm still deciding on and the Neocaridina denticulata sinensis--the popular Red Cherry Shrimp--for cleanup along with some otos and a few ghost shrimp. I'm trying to decide if I want P. axelrodi, Aphyocharax anisitsi, or Rasbora dorsiocellata. I love the cardinal tetras, they are so colorful and will really enjoy a densely planted tank over the black Eco-Complete, but the hardness will be a pain to keep soft. That's why it's still up in the air. RO/DI? The A. anisitsi is a bulletproof choice--but I'm not sure if I want to go with it. I wouldn't have to worry about the heat as much, the hardness as much or the pH as much and I don't know if I want to deal with the fry. They might be a fun choice though. Then there's the little dwarf emerald eye rasbora. Such a nice, active schooling fish they are just so hard to pass up. Arghh! Which one to choose. Maybe I should just go with a mix of the said fish. Anyone have a suggestion/recommendation?

Well hopefully this is a good spot to "break ground" so to speak on this project. I'm really looking forward to it's progress through the years of it's life. Thanks for reading and check back soon. I'll try to keep this thing updated on a regular basis. Coming up next are some pictures.

[WarEagleNR88]

Originally Posted by WarEagleNR88

Coming up next are some pictures.

Ok, I've done a lot with the project--was a little behind on starting a project thread--but it is still not set up as I'm trying to finish up the stand and canopy. Woodworking, staining, and sealing takes a long time when you get busy with work! So far I'm almost completely finished with it all. I just need to do some touch-up staining, let it dry, put a polyurethane coat on it and let that dry. Then I can reassemble everything and do a wet test. Then there's the tank painting, the rock/driftwood gathering, and finally tank setup. So there's still lots of time before there's anything living inside of it.

As far as all of the equipment, everything is here. The tank, the filter, the lights, the substrate, the controller and I already have the CO2 tank and regulator. I just need to build the reactor, fit the lights into the canopy and I'll be all set.

Now for the pictures. They're fairly self explanatory. Any questions, don't hesitate to ask. In the next post I'll go into a little more detail on the stand and canopy construction.



















Thanks for stopping by!

[ct67_72]

cant see any pics

[RoK]

Me either, I think you'll have to host them on another site such as photobucket.

[Jchillin]

That is weird. The image tags are present but the default host is displaying instead.

[WarEagleNR88]

Ok try again, I reposted them on Photobucket. They should show now. I'm not sure why that's happening with angelfire. I had my wife look at the site and she couldn't see them either. Just "Angelfire is hosting this image" stupidity. Let me know if they're showing. Now she can see them.

Like I said in my previous post, I told you I would go into a little detail on the stand design so here goes. I've been trying to decide how to make this stand come together. So I did some searching around and found someone who did a very simple design using 2x4s and sheets of plywood. You can see it here. For the door, you'll notice is it a breakaway-style of door. That is what I really like--no hinges.

This guy basically made a 3'x3'x18' container out of the 2x4s and then skinned it with plywood. Well I did the same except mine is 3' wide, 44" tall, and 18" deep using 3" and 2.5" outdoor screws. There is a small shelf built into the bottom and another shelf 8" from the underside of the upper 2x4 using a 1x8. I then skinned it in plywood and purchased some baseboards/casings and corner trim to pull the design together. I used finishing nails for the trim and drilled 3/4" deep, 1/16" holes to give the trim a little relief in hammering. Then I filled any cracks and ugly spots with wood filler and then sanded it all down as smooth as possible using 200 grit and 150 grit sandpaper. The stain is Olympus "Merlot" stain. The inside was painted using a ghost gray colored acrylic enamel from a previous project.

For the stand door, I used a 48"x24"x0.25" sheet of three ply plywood cut down to fit (37.125" for the height and 24" wide) and is made to breakaway and sit aside during maintenance. I used 4 double snap magnets in each corner and also 2 double snap magnets for each of the canopy breakaway doors. The canopy doors have a small internal ledge to prevent them from moving. There is a portion cut out of the back of the canopy for wires/tubes/etc.

Next part of the project is to polyurethane it all. I've yet to decide how many coats it will take. I'm thinking at least 2 if not 3. Stay tuned.

[rich311k]

They are and it looks like it is going to be a nice looking stand.

[WarEagleNR88]

The project is coming together. After my stellar CO2 growth in my 10G, I'm finally getting back to the 20G project--still have to get that replacement 5# bottle of CO2.

The stand was actually dry--at least the stain--a couple of weeks ago, but this past Sunday I decided to start more work on it. I put a good coat of Olympus Polyurethane on, let that dry, then heavily recoated the horizontal surfaces to give a nice near mirror finish. That dried and since I had the tank back painted black last week, it was time to water test the XP3, the stand, and the tank. Success!



Today I started work on getting the lighting configured for those nice plants that will be going into the tank soon. For now I'm going to work with the 1x55W power compact lighting and if I need more light, I've got two 13W power compact bulbs, sockets, and ballast. Next I need to configure my CO2 system--may need to order some 1/2" bioballs if these don't work. More to come later. Here are the pics so far.











Enjoy!

[rich311k]

That looks really great. Nice job.

[chabooky386]

nice job for real