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Chayos00's 125g tank journal (Updated 10/17/2021)

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#1 · (Edited)
Welcome to my tank journal, yes it took me right about 3 years from the start of the stand to filling with water! The first 4 posts of this page will contain the majority of the updates to the build itself. Kind of a TLDR (too long didn't read) summary. This first post will contain the most recent updates to the tank.

The tank went into action with fish on 03/01/2017.

Fish List:
30ish - Royal Tetra or Kerri Tetra (Inpaichthys kerri)
4-6 - Pristella Tetras (Pristella maxillaris)
11 - Serpae Tetra (Hyphessobrycon eques)
12 - Black Neon Tetra - (Hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi)
6 - Glass Bloodfin Tetra - (Prionobrama filigera)
9 - Rummynose Tetra - (Hemigrammus bleheri)
9 - Glowlight Tetra - (Hemigrammus erythrozonus)
6 - Panda Cory - (Corydoras panda)
1 - Julii Cory - (Corydoras julii)
10ish - Oto - (Otocinclus vittatus)
3 - Clown Pleco - (Panaque maccus)
3 - Pea Puffers - (Carinotetraodon travancoricus)
3 or 4 - Zebra Loach - (Botia striata)
1 or 2 Dozen - Amano Shrimp - (Cardina multidentata)

Plant List:
Blyxa Japonica
Anubias Barteri Var. Nana Petite & some larger ones
Java Fern needle leaf (they called in long leaf, but it's the skinny leafs looking one I wanted)
Java Fern
Amazon Sword
Amazon Red Sword


FTS T minus 1 days till fish, or Day # -1 (02/28/2017)



FTS - Day 1691 - 10/17/2021

Glass Bloodfin Tetra, Glowlight Tetra, & Black Neon Tetra's:

Glass Bloodfin Tetra:

Panda Cory:

QT Rack (4 20g's and 1 100g tank, which has a bunch of manzanita wood soaking that I just put in on Friday and has the water funky at the moment)
 
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#40 ·
Thanks for the kind words!

I just found a local supplier who can get me the acrylic I need to make my DIY overflows. Getting a 48" X 48" sheet of 6mm black acrylic for what I can get a 48 X 24 sheet online. Not just at 52-53 bucks. Plus I found a buddy who has a decent table saw that I can cut it into what I need. Finally nice thinking that I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel!

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#42 · (Edited)
Ummmm..... yeah...... It's been very off and little on for working on the project. I'm a horrible procrastinator! But I've gotta get it done shortly as we have another one on the way.

Plus I over think the crap outta things an end up getting "analysis paralysis!" Screws me horribly for getting stuff done.

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#45 ·
So time for another update! The stand and canopy build is finally finished!! I have the final coat of urethane on and if there's any imperfections, I don't care anymore I am done! LOL I am FINALLY done! I way over did this to make it a furniture grade stand. I can say I will never do that again!! However I hope you like it! Now to get the tank resealed, drilled, plumbed, and my overflow setup!















 
#46 ·
Here's my DIY on my ghost overflow that I'm making. I initially was going to do a glass setup till I saw Joey (King of DIY) make one out of acrylic for his goldfish tank and I was inspired. However as I didn't have a table saw, I was able to find a friend who did and he let me borrow it, however I upgraded the blade to a 10" 90 tooth one to get the smoothest cuts I could get. One quick tip was to slide the piece back and forth once the last tooth cut was made to smooth out the blades rough cut edges. I don't have it glued up yet, but will be doing so as soon as I get the mounting surface prepped for gluing. Here's the pics of the overflow so far.

Internal overflow box - 36" L x 5" H x 2" D
External plumbing box - 23" L x 7" H x 6" D
1.5" bulkheads, 3 to be drilled in the tank to hold the overflows together and 3 for the beananimal drain system I will be using.

I wanted to try a router, but the setup I was working with wasn't keeping it stable enough to get straight cuts, however I have since seen a method that would have probably worked if I ever do it again.

Internal box has the teeth, the outside box is the other one.


Close up of the inside teeh
 
#47 ·
The stand came out great! Nice work. I've built a similar one so I know what goes into it.

So............three years to build the stand...........what's the ETA for the rest of the project??

Looking forward to seeing it all completed............someday!:grin2::grin2:

Now I'm joking with you a bit, but really am looking forward to seeing what you do with it. Has the makings of a very nice tank.
 
#48 ·
Thank you! Yeah 3 years [emoji15]..... But as far as my ETA to get water in it MUST be by Feb 1 as our 2ND one will be here shortly after. So if I don't get it finished now I might as well get some gas and matches and get rid of it. LOL

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#50 ·
So I'm designing my 55g sump and wanted to see if anyone had any input.

I'm set on using poret foam (I know it ain't cheap up front, but if it lasts 10 years I'm fine with it). I also was thinking about using lava rock (or something) after the poret for an additional biomedia.

I took a pic of my tank and what I've drawn up for helping me figure out spacing of stuff.
The poret is either going to be 2x2" sheets of each PPI or a single 4" sheet of each PPI, so 4" total of each of 10ppi (coarse), 20ppi (medium), & 30ppi (fine).

The Lava rock would be a volume just shy of 4 gallons worth but I made it where water would be forced to flow through it. Using eggcrate to hold it together, but narrow enough to pull out of the tank and to use 1" wide or 2" wide strips of glass on the sides to force the water not to bypass it. Same for the polyfill section.

I have a 5" wide section where the water would fill into the sump from the DT, the heaters will be in this area too. I was thinking of a 17" tall divider to be used here so I could maintain a constant level for the incoming water level to keep the pipe only 1" deep into the tank.

With the stuff arranged like it is this would leave me with a 16" wide area for plants or a hospital section for fish in the sump which would give an open area of about 15 gallons.

Revision 1


Talked to Stephan @ SwissTropics and he suggested the following. Ditch the poly, it's not needed after 30ppi. Then go with a 1" gap between poret sheets to see if the water level drops due to clogging so I know when to clean the foam.
 
#53 ·
Thanks!

I had a sump with the same design as you are intending with the poret foam separating the return pump from the rest of the sump. I used 20 ppi instead of 30 ppi. The issue I found that if you have snails in your sump they will multiply and eventually snails will end up in your return pump area leaving a giant pile of snail s*** over time. If possible, I would recommend a piece of acrylic or glass separating your return pump area from the rest of your sump with a piece of filter material on top to prevent any waste, shrimp or snails from ending up in your return pump section.

I saw you mentioned something about glass strips in one area, but I don't understand this concept.

As far as a sump is concerned, keep it simple stupid. I like poret foam a lot in my sumps and I still use it. However, I still use felt or blue filter pads to catch waste. To me, poret foam is bio media used for various purposes, but in my experience is not ideal to filter small waste particles. Sure, you could use a higher ppi, but that would clog faster and cause you water level issues in your sump.

Nice woodworking by the way.
So the glass strips are to force the water to go through the biomedia, as I can't make the eggcrate box to fit the glass opening, or I wouldn't be able to pull it out through the top frame to take it out and clean it. So the tank is 12" wide (inside diameter) and the top trim is 10.75" wide (ID), so I need something to force the water to not bypass the media but to go through it which is where the glass strips are stopping the water from going around the sides. Hope this makes sense, if not I can probably draw something up.

Good feedback about the snails. Still not sure if I want snails in this tank or not, I see how my MTS breed in my 10g tank with dwarf pea puffers and the shells scattered about. However I think if I do go with snails I will use some sort of fine mesh material think there's something like that from knitting supplies that's plastic I could use to make some sort of buffer area to keep the snails away, or to even surround my sump pump with to keep them from getting in. However with water changes I planed to use the sumps volume to drain so I may just have to use the hose to suck out the snail poo from there if I get some.

Also thanks about my stand!
 
#52 ·
I had a sump with the same design as you are intending with the poret foam separating the return pump from the rest of the sump. I used 20 ppi instead of 30 ppi. The issue I found that if you have snails in your sump they will multiply and eventually snails will end up in your return pump area leaving a giant pile of snail s*** over time. If possible, I would recommend a piece of acrylic or glass separating your return pump area from the rest of your sump with a piece of filter material on top to prevent any waste, shrimp or snails from ending up in your return pump section.

I saw you mentioned something about glass strips in one area, but I don't understand this concept.

As far as a sump is concerned, keep it simple stupid. I like poret foam a lot in my sumps and I still use it. However, I still use felt or blue filter pads to catch waste. To me, poret foam is bio media used for various purposes, but in my experience is not ideal to filter small waste particles. Sure, you could use a higher ppi, but that would clog faster and cause you water level issues in your sump.

Nice woodworking by the way.
 
#54 ·
You will have plenty of surface area that water will contact the poret foam without the glass strips. I think the benefits of biomedia are overly exaggerated in my opinion but that is a topic for a different forum topic. Any plants you place in your sump have the potential to bring in pond snails depending on where you get them from. Pond snails are the nightmare pest I was referring to. Happy building.
 
#55 ·
I don't think you are following where I'm putting the glass strips, only in front of my biomedia area that has an eggcrate box to keep it contained. The Poret will NOT have anything holding it in place besides surface tension ie 13" wide foam in a 12" wide area. Since you mentioned the biomedia being overrated, I'm not sure if I'll go the pricier way of stuff labeled biomedia or go with lava rock.

Yeah snails would be a PITA of the kind you aren't wanting. I'm going to try and keep all my plants to tissue culture ones or if not from there I'll do a dip on them and quarantine them in a small tank to make sure there's no pests on them before putting them in this tank setup.
 
#56 ·
Alright, I pulled the trigger on ordering my poret foam. 4" thick sections that are 19.5"x13" to fit my 55g sump so I grabbed the 10, 20, & 30ppi foams.

I went a little wild with biomedia. People say the foam can be it, however I'd rather have something that won't get disturbed when cleaning the foam. I'm sure the volume would be overkill for biomedia if I added the 3.9 gallons of it that I could fit into my 5"x10"x17" bio box.

Seachem Matrix (Ordered 1G bucket)
MarinePure MP2C-C (Ordered 1G Bag)
Eheim Substrat Pro (Ordered 2L, as the seller was half the price of others, @ $25 when it's normally $36, will wait for Amazon seller to get it back in stock to grab 2L more)
 
#57 ·
Did you happen to look at fokestn's pictures of his sump that he just posted in his 75 gal journal? You will see the detritus and excess waste accumulating in the poret foam and in the return sump section. This is the same issue that happened to me and was made worse by snails. That is why I was saying use an acrylic or glass divider to prevent that issue. Because even when you rinse out the foam and place it back, your return pump will send all that junk back into the main tank. Not fun.

Sure, you can vacuum it up if you have enough clearance from the bottom of the tank to the top of the sump, but you won't get all of it. With all my breeding projects I prefer the less amount of maintenance possible with my planted tanks. Just my two cents.
 
#58 ·
Second attempt at resealing the tank went much better. The first time I had a decent sized bubble in a seam and just wasn't happy with how the whole job turned out. So 2 days later I gutted the seam I just did. Tonight I finally had it ready to reseal and with a few tricks I learned got it done looking 10 times better! No bubbles on any seams that I can see either.

So I learned that silicone skims over WAY TOO FAST and was told a tip from someone who uses it on a frequent basis is to spray alcohol over it right after you lay the bead down. Then I found a wooden dowel that was the perfect size to clean up the silicone bead for my 3/8" bead width, it lined up perfectly with the edge on the tape I laid out first. Once I smoothed the bead I then sprayed it again and got the other beads that touched that tape joint done and pulled the tape off as soon as possible this time, unlike when finished last time.

Pics! So not like you can probably tell in these pics, but it's a before silicone and after silicone pics of the tank.



 
#59 ·
Just remember also, the chance of you needing to clean all three poret foam sheets at the same time is very small. The coarsest will be the most often and go less often the finer the foam. I have extra biomedia in my sump as well, but mostly just because I didn't have anyplace else for it and this way it stays cycled. It's not hurting, but I don't think it's necessary either.
 
#60 ·
With cleaning the foam I'll probably do the course sheet at least monthly and then following sheets as needed. I figured the extra biomedia is kind of a bio backup, plus I can use the media for QT tanks or whatever I need to run or for quick cycling a tank too.
 
#61 ·
Some more progress today. I have my power panels installed now. I was going to do the in cabinet lighting, but ran out of time for those, however they will be installed tomorrow and possibly drilling the tank!!

So I used a 3.5" wide extra piece of birch hardwood that I used to mount the panels too. I took off the top cover and drilled a hole in them so I could use some screws with some washers to mount the panel with so I didn't have any ugly ghetto stuff holding them up (my first plan). However I was going to drill a hole through the whole thing and mount it that way, but I was talking with my buddy who improved upon my idea when I took the power panel apart to see if I could go all the way through and he mentioned "why don't you just put a screw through only the top cover?" DING DING DING he gave me a winner!

Here's one of the ADJ PC-100A


Two panels mounted, if a third is needed then I can use the center door to mount another one.


Here's an up close view of one where it's mounted.


A shot from the back showing the board I used to get the panel at the right height. Notice there's no mounting hardware visible from under the power panel? LOL
 
#62 ·
Alright I'm getting more stuff done! Here's what I accomplished this weekend. Setup the power panels as above, got the in cabinet lighting installed, and the big one drilled my tank!!! Drilling wasn't bad to do, it just took me forever to get through the glass with very light pressure and plenty of water flow. The glass did chip out a touch at the end, but nothing that the gasket won't cover.

Cabinet Lights


I'm ready to drill now that it's all planned out.


Tank post drill.


Here's what I used to drill the tank plus my glass "pucks."
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#63 ·
So here's a question for those following this thread. I'm thinking I want to keep this tank low tech for now with EI style fert dosing as needed, or DIY osmocote root tabs to feed my plants that I will grow. I don't know what plants I'm going with either at this time, but I should probably stick to ones below medium lighting. However I'm unsure about lighting. For sure I'm not doing CO2 anytime soon. I was thinking of starting with CFL bulbs, I think they are 6.5k in color and are 75 or 100w bulbs. I saw the King of DIY do his cheap DIY lighting with a floodlight from Amazon, but after looking online more it seems these floodlights are dying in about a year's time. I thought about some 5' T5's @ 80W, but not sure about that either..... I'm at a total loss. I hate the idea of spending a TON on LED's too. But a DIY led setup would be fun to do as well. Either way I'll probably do a DIY moonlight setup though. Thoughts?
 
#64 ·
Hee hee, the glass pucks are half the fun!

My approach on the tank was similar to yours...wanted to hold off on CO2. I felt that doing the lighting right (i.e. dimmable LEDs) was worth it the first time around. Unfortunately didn't have much luck with the manufacturer, but it worked out in the end. If you have the time/willing to take the risk (reliability is based on your skillful execution/planning), I'd totally do a DIY LED setup. So much info out there these days, and parts readily available.
 
#65 ·
I used to be an aircraft electrician in the Air Force so no worries there on my skills for building a setup. LEDs are my ultimate end goal, but the DIY setups I see for these larger tanks just seem to cost a ton. LOL For which money has been kinda tight lately. Wish I could do one for less than $100. Unless I come up with a plan for a scalable setup where I design a lower powered one that I can easily add on to for ramping it up over time in more LEDs if I go CO2.

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#66 ·
Time for a few updates, doing little things all at once lately so no boom this is done kinds of things.

So I've got my heater controller setup now. I'm using a RANCO ETC-111000 to control 2 or 3 of my 200W Eheim Jager heaters that I currently have, I figure I will only need 2 to run it based on feed back of folks in the local area for heating needs vs what an online calculator told me when I first bought the 3 heaters. I wired up the controller to power on the 4 outlets in the back to control the heaters. The heaters will be calibrated to about 3-4°F above what I want the tank maintained at.


Next is the overflow, this is finally done! WOOT WOOT!! I have a friend coming over today to help place the tank on the stand so I can get the plumbing for the overflow started.










I placed what I have for the sump in the stand to see how much space I will have left. I have the majority of the sump done, I'm getting the glass cut for the my pieces I need for a decent price too! They might be done tomorrow or next week, not sure yet.


So plumbing next and figuring out something for a DIY LED setup. Currently I've moved past a large CREE LED build and I'm looking into the Bridgelux vero 18 COB LED's, which seems like a number of folks on here have done. Not sure how many I need or how large (wide) of a heat sink I need either, I like the idea of one 6-10" wide so I can have a wide light spread for this tank. I want one to stretch at least 62" long to have an all in one unit though. Not really a fan of having to figure out hanging two smaller ones.
 
#70 ·
Had my buddies over Thursday and got my 125g tank up on the stand now. Today I got the canopy up on the tank also, just to see what it looks like, plus I can tidy up my work area a bit now too! LOL I've been trying to figure out what I'm doing for my lighting setup, which I have a link to in my signature. Lots of decision making there. Plus trying to avoid sending too much money on it too. I still haven't had the chance to get my plumbing worked on, but I'm going to see if I can some tomorrow while my daughter is napping.
 
#71 ·
Here's another little update. I placed the canopy on the tank and got a picture of it finally. This thing is large, it sits at 7 feet tall from the top trim to the base.



I got a little plumbing work done today. Started setting up my beananimal plumbing setup. I started on the emergency and the standby pipes as they are staying at 1.5" plumbing, but the main line is going to be 1" to keep it quiet. However the bulkhead and the valves are all 1.5" ID as I wasn't sure if I would need to ever make it handle a larger flow one day. Better to oversize and make it swappable than to be stuck with something too small. I didn't have all the plumbing parts I needed so what you see below is all the further I got. Nothing is glued in yet, I wanted to make sure it all dry fit first. But that's a bit of a pain as PVC almost has to be beat together to fit all the way. A chop saw makes quick work out of cutting 1" & 1.5" PVC!

I was going to put a disconnect on those valves but they basically have one already.




I then went to Lowes before Home Depot and I found the plumbing fittings I've been wanting the whole time! PVC to hose barb!! Looks like I wasted some time today making some of the PVC cuts I did. LOL
 
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