125 gallon build log

[pitt420dude]

Rcs?

 

[neilanh]

Red Cherry Shrimp

 

[pitt420dude]

Ohhhh. How about that. Well now I know and knowing is half the battle. I wonder what is the other half?

I like learning!

 

[neilanh]

The other half is doing...

 

[neilanh]

A little progress

I've yet to start dosing, so I am getting a little hair algae and dust on the glass. Not much, definately not as much as I expected, so I can't complain.

Even without dosing, I'm seeing growth on nearly everything. It's slow, but a few inches over the past week I'd say.

The cloudy water has cleared up, finally. Lasted about a week, and was driving me nuts.

Here's a quick shot I just took. It's not great, still playing with camera settings to figure out how to take a good FTS:

So, my project for today was to make an automatic dosing system. Yeah, you can buy them, but they're not cheap. Thanks again to the folks over at GWAPA, I did something very similiar to this autodoser from GWAPA

I didn't snap pics along the way, not really too much to it. I found some tall 3.2L canisters at bed bath and beyond, drilled a 1/4" hole in them for the tubing to run through.

For pumps I'm using a mini-jet 606 I got from my shipment this week from F&S (yes, lately this has been a weekly thing, sometimes twice a week - lol). I used a piece of 1/2" tubing I had laying around and a medication dosing syringe (that the pharmicist at Target gave me for free) to convert to 3/16" standard airline.

So, using a hamilton dual outlet digital timer that has settings for 1 min durations, I did some testing with water and calculated that I pump about 100ml of fluid per minute with this configuration and my head height.

I decided to give the PPS-Pro solution a whirl and see how it does. I modified their standard mixture, increasing the K by about 20% and scaling everything up for my 100ml dosages.

Here's the installed pics (left is macros, right is micros):

And the oulet above the tank - taking special care to make sure they cannot get in the tank and create a backflush onto my floor:

Thoughts?

 

[Purrbox]

Very neat. I think that should work well for you and will make vacations a lot easier, since you won't have to ask someone to dose for you just make sure the canisters are full and go.

 

[pitt420dude]

Very cool neil. Would you suggest using the PPS-Pro Solution over the EI dosing method? Do you run your CO2 at night?

 

[neilanh]

This will be my first run at PPS-Pro, so I'll let ya know. I definately like the concept better than EI, but whether or not it works will take me some time to see for myself.

I do not run my CO2 at night. You can, nothing wrong with it, but running it at night would cut my tank time in half between refills.

 

[FiveSix]

That tank looks really classy man. Good luck with the algae.

 

[neilanh]

Thanks. I'm sure I'll get the algae under control, always expect some whenever setting up a new tank. Takes time to get it all balanced out.

So, I've been putting in RCS as testers for the tank. I have quite a few, and they're doing well.

We spoke earlier of the zebra otos I had been searching for. Few weeks ago I found some and got a dozen, all destined for the 125. They're currently being housed in a year old 46g upstairs that has plenty for them to eat.

Tonight I opted to catch 3 and put them in the 125 to see how they do. They just went in, and within seconds we're going nuts on the tank.

This is one of the younger/smaller ones that doesn't appear to be camera shy.

 

[Purrbox]

Wow! Those Zebra Otos are stunning. I can see why you're so taken with them.

 

[mom2reds]

Your tank looks great! I love the zebra otos those are cool.

 

[pitt420dude]

Fantastic pic too. Neil I'm very envious of your tank. It's stunning. It makes me want a bigger tank to work with. You've really done a great job. Are you happy with it, want to change something?

 

[travis simonson]

Awesome work man. I admire the attention to detail you have put into the technical side of the tank construction. The aquascape is also beautiful. I am anxious to see it fill in. The zebra otoes are a great choice, too. IME they get considerably larger than standard otoes and look a heck of a lot nicer. Win-win

 

[FishEggs]

Where did you get the Zebra otos and how much were they? I was gonna get some otos soon myself and those look perfect. Doing a great job on the tank. Someday i'll have one like that.

 

[neilanh]

Thanks again everyone for all the compliments.

The zebra otos I got at Scales out in Cloverly, MD. Andrew over there every so often is able to get shipments in from Peru, and these come whenever they're available. They're not cheap like the regular otos are due to the fact that they're not as readily available as the others.

 

[FishEggs]

Great!!!! i live 12 minutes from there just around the corner. I hope you didn't buy them all. i'll have to stop in there after work tomorrow and see if he has more.

 

[neilanh]

Good Luck! I got most of them he had 2 or 3 weeks ago... LOL

I've been after Andrew for almost a year now to get more in, after I saw them once and didn't get them right away, went back a week later and they were gone.

 

[Ziggy953]

WOW!! The tank is looking amazing!

 

[MrMalta]

That is one amazing tank! Everything about it looks great, I really like that aquascaping too - you must've really took some time to play around with it to get it like that eh.

Stunning!

Great job!