Pufferfreaks 42 Gallon Temperate Aquarium

[Hero]

So this tank is going to be a DIY. Don't ask for pictures because i wont have any until i get money to buy the supplies. Anyways for now i am going to be setting up a 10 G so i at least have some filter bacteria. He is a very basic sketch of what the tank will look like.

 

ignore the left sump shot.

 

The flow will come into the sump from the left and be pumped into the chiller and back up to the tank. There will be a 4 inch over flow space that will cover the whole back of the aquarium.

[C-Rad]

I like the sketch, what software do you use to do that?

 

Are you asking for input, or advice on your design?

 

Setting up a 10 gallon now, to get your bio media started growing bacteria, is a great idea, and shows amazing forethought.

[Hero]

I used google sketchup.

 

I am asking for input as well as advice as this is my first DIY tank.

[Hero]

Okay well here are bad pics for the cycling tank. Decided to go with a 7 gallon and make it look zero edge . I know i need more rocks to. But it is just a cycle tank.

 

[C-Rad]

I designed and built a 70 gallon cold water tank and stand, and I can tell you a few things that went into my design, and a few things I would do differently.

 

My primary design issue was that I wanted to ease the burden on my chiller as much as possible, which meant I wanted to keep heat out of my tank as much as possible. To minimize heat I did the following:

1) I limited the amount of surface area per gallon by designing an All-In-One (AIO) tank instead of having a separate sump.

2) Instead of using a submersible return pump, which dumps excess heat into the water, I used an external pump (iwaki) pump, which is air cooled.

3) I insulated all but two sides of my tank with 3" of Styrofoam insulation board. Styrofoam can easily support the weight without being crushed (it's less than one pound per square inch).

4) On the two uninsulated sides I attached a 2nd pane of glass with 1/4" of air between the two panes. I filled the airspace slowly with very day air from a SCUBA tank, and then sealed the edges with silicone so I wouldn't get any fogging inside.

5) I put my chiller, and Iwaki retrurn pump, in a well ventilated area where cool air could come in and warm air could go away. Chillers don't "make" coldness, they move heat from one place (your tank water) to another (the air passing through them), so they must not be enclosed in a stand or they'll have no place to move the heat to.

 

Other things to consider:

1) Filtration - Since none of the animals in your tank use light, you will need to feed your tank like crazy compared to a reef tank, so you'll need a way to remove a lot of excess nutrients from the water. I use a large skimmer, a large wet/dry filter, and a deep sand bed. Unless you have a small bio load, it is likely that just going with live rock won't cut it.

2) Cost. I built my own stand, and it ended up costing me MUCH more than I had expected. What really got me were all the little things that were too small, by themselves, to worry about. Eventually they all added up to a lot more than I had expected. I had budgeted for the big stuff, but all the little stuff killed me. Watch out for that.

 

I hope you find some of that helpful

[C-Rad]

I just noticed that you live in San Diego. How do you plan to stock your tank? Do you SCUBA dive?

 

Are you aware that you can get filtered sea water for free at the Birch aquarium (Scripps)?

[Jamie]

Tip: go snorkeling at Mission Point (up against the rock wall). There are sooo many gorgonians there. The water is like, 5 feet deep, you barely have to dive for them. After you get a few, send me one.

 

edit: here it is

 

http://www.sandiego.gov/park-and-recreatio...ionpoint.shtml#

 

in the middle picture you can see the beachiness. There's an eelgrass flat in the middle of the bay. The opposite side, with the rocks, is where the gorgonians are. Now get to work!

[Hero]

Right now i'm in colorado . But in november my parents are going to get me stuff and next spring i will be able to go snorkeling for stuff. I've been to that park before.

 

C-Rad do you think having a fan in the side of the stand would work as far as having a chiller inside the stand goes?

[Jamie]

cool. That'll give you plenty of time to get your tank cycled!

[Hero]

My thoughts exactly. I put in some more rock. It's all granite by the way. I will try and get some pictures up tomorrow after school.

[Jamie]

since you have a long time, I would cycle it with ammonia like steve weast did, then you should be fine even if you end up adding a lot of stuff at once.

[C-Rad]

Right now i'm in colorado . But in november my parents are going to get me stuff and next spring i will be able to go snorkeling for stuff.

 

Are you planning to wait until spring to give your tank time to cycle, or because you think the water is too cold until then? In San Diego you can snorkel any time of year without a wetsuit (although its more comfortable with a wet suit, but you get used to it.) I encourage you to do as much snorkeling as you can, even before you are ready to take animals, just so you know where to find what, and so that you gain experience and your snorkeling skills improve. That way, when it is time to collect animals, you'll be able to stay down long enough to find what you want.

 

 

C-Rad do you think having a fan in the side of the stand would work as far as having a chiller inside the stand goes?

 

Yes and no.

If the stand has two openings in it, and the fan pushes warm air out of the stand through one, causing cool room air to come into the stand through the other, then yes, you could keep it in the stand (that's how I have my 1/4 HP JBJ Arctica chiller set up)

 

If, on the other hand, the fan just moves air around inside the closed stand, then no, because the small volume of air inside the stand will quickly become hot when the chiller is running, and hot air does a really bad job of cooling things off. The chiller will work extra hard (wasting electricity) and get extra hot, possibly damaging itself. It might "work", but it's like driving around with your parking break on.

 

I wanted mine inside the stand because I expected it to be really noisy, and because it was not very attractive. I learned too late that the JBJ Arctica chillers are so amazingly quiet that I didn't need to worry about it, and I could have handled the unattractive part using louvered doors on the stand. Why do you want your chiller inside the stand?

 

 

I put in some more rock. It's all granite by the way. I will try and get some pictures up tomorrow after school.

 

It's my understanding that "live rock" works as a bio-filter because it is porous, and even then, its a little weak as a filter if you have a very large amount of waste (as cold water tanks usually do). Granite is not porous, and I strongly suspect that it won't provide nearly enough surface area to allow sufficient numbers of bacteria to grow. I've got 6 gallons of bio-balls in my system, with only 50 gallons of water to give the bacteria a place to live (although I keep an octopus which produces a lot of waste, so I need a lot of filtering). IMO, a few rocks won't be nearly enough to constitute a bio-filter, and you'll need something more.

[Jamie]

ooh, that's a good idea. You probably will want bioballs in the future, so throw them in along with the rock so bacteria can get established on them. And yes, granite's surface-area to mass ratio is terrible, but it will look attractive, so go for it, just get some bioballs too.

[Hero]

Thanks but i know all about the live rock situation and granite not being porus. I will try and get some bioballs this weekend and i am mostly getting stuff in the spring however my parents will bring back rocks and within a month or so i am going to expect them to explode with algaes, anemones, and other inverts.

[Hero]

New pics.

 

[Nanobuds]

nice start

[Hero]

and i want one of these for sure....last time i couldn't tank it home but this time i will be prepared!

 

........!!!

[intermision]

and i want one of these for sure....last time i couldn't tank it home but this time i will be prepared!

 

........!!!

I'm not sure what that is but it looks awesome.

[Hero]

Navanax inermis

[Jamie]

cool, but how do you plan to feed it?

[Hero]

I plan on breeding bubbleshells (their main diet). They frequent the Newport Bay.

[Hero]

Ahh i couldn't stay away. I was browsing RC when i came across this. I am for sure doing this in my tank except temperate. It is about as modern as it gets, XD.

 

[clownfish617]

wow!

 

is your cycle tank the 6.6g bookshelf tank from petco?

i have the same one, but its a planted tank

 

 

oh yeah, i like the idea!

[C-Rad]

I plan on breeding bubbleshells (their main diet). They frequent the Newport Bay.

So you've got a target species that you want to keep, you've done your homework and determined what they eat, and you plan to breed the bubble shell food animal. AND you're starting to build your bio filter six months before you will get your animals. You sure seem to be doing everything right - great job!

 

Will you be setting up a separate tank to breed the bubble shells? The "sea slug forum" say that bubble shells eat green algae; how are you planning to grow enough green algae for them? I know you are sort of an intrepid pioneer here, so you'll probably have to learn as you go, but I'm curious about what you're plan is.

[C-Rad]

There will be a 4 inch over flow space that will cover the whole back of the aquarium.

That 4 inch space sounds like a perfect place for bio balls. That's basically how my cold water tank is set up. You'll need some kind of mechanical filter before the bio balls, that you can easily replace every few days. Without it junk will build up in the bio balls fast, and rot.

 

I also found that using bio-balls did a great job of dealing with the heavy feeding (typical in cold water tanks) but that the non-porous rock did nothing to reduce nitrates, which were high all the time, requiring frequent large water changes (PITA). I had a deep sand bed, which is supposed to foster anaerobic bacteria that keep nitrates down, but it wasn't working because I had an octopus, which dug the sand up a lot. When the octopus laid eggs and holed up all the time (stopped digging) my sand bed recovered and was able to keep the nitrates down nicely. Now I have a new octopus, and I'm back to lots of water changes. I recommend a "remote deep sand bed" (5 gallon bucket filled with sand, with water running across the top) after your bio balls. It's probably much better at eating nitrates than the DSB in the display tank, and it won't ever be disturbed. From what I've read, 5 gallons was enough for 100 gallon tank (tropical), so maybe for your tank you could get away with a smaller one, if space is an issue.