The 700 gal indoor sunken garden project

[knuggs]

Coming along nicely

[medicineman]

Next is planning for constant water change system, or in another case, easy water change system.

As stated before, there is an overflow check to the drain by the pond that will keep water level constant, so no more spills to the house no matter what happens (forgot to keep an eye on the tap while WC for instance). By adding in new water, the total mixture of excess new+ old water will get to the drain.
Same like what most people face, I'm seeing our local tap water instead of my own well water) as a better source for it came from such that the hardness is not too high (kH 2-4 and gH 3-5). The only drawback is that like most tap water, it is treated with clorine by the company. Most of the time the concentration is so low that people can go right ahead use it straight away without killing fish. However on bad days, the concentration may elevate a bit to the level that it will start to kill some of your weaker fish.

Not wanting to go to time consuming manual WC and using something like chlorine remover all the time, I resolve to carbon filter route. After all, our fellow members here have proved that using double, sometimes a single carbon block before the tank is effective enough (thanks to scolley for the posting). I get myself a cabon filter canister and some carbon blocks and fortunately they are quite cheap around here at just $14-15 a set. If it is not good enough, I guess I have to use two or three in line.

Anyway, here is another pic showing another side of the garden. You can see the stairs from here, and it seems going to be a good place to enjoy top view.

[LondonDragon]

thats just amazing congrats
how about some photos of the room from different angles to get a better idea where this is situated?
Keep us posted on this great project

[zach]

wow, that tanks probably bigger than mine, NO JOKE

[StUk_In_AfRiKa]

Wow it's so beautiful and it's not even finished yet. I can't wait to see it in its full glory

[Roc]

Funny thing is if I was buying a house and saw this tank, no matter what the rest of the house looked like I would have to have it....LOL

[Gill]

Its breathtaking, Well worth the effort.

[Paul999]

That is really fantastic!!!

A credit to your patience and planning ability. Top marks.

Watching with interest,
Regards
Paul.

[PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn]

what have you got for a substrate in the tank, i just went through all 15 pages and didnt see that specified.

as for what fish. whats the water parameters, and what sort of temprature do you get.

for me a large school of eartheaters and discus/angels, maybe some dwarf sp,(like apistos, or mikrogeophagus and similar), allong with corydoras, tetras and BN plecs (i know they wont show up as well as a big plec, but they will eat the algae) possibly rays, though they'd like it open, so that would spoil the planting aspect.

the advantage in choosing amazonian fish is they will cope with high heat (several sp live at or above 30c) (corydoras wont apprciate that unless you get something like C sterbei)(i noticed you talked a lot about chillers)

[A Hill]

Hey MM it's looking great! I really like how the finish looks.

I just thought of a possible frog that you might want to look into, "White's Tree Frog(s)" They're a fairly large tree frog that I've read can be trained to stay in a "room" or a specific spot in the house. Usually it was done with a few plants and a water dish, but I think this might work.

Can the light swing away during the day?

-Andrew

[FelixAvery]

im pretty sure at some point he mentioned going hunting for large bags of gravel , so i think thats what he is using
its certainly too big for aquasoil, imagine the cost!

[zach]

thats tanks huge

[medicineman]

Thanks for the compliments folks!

@Fish Newb,
Sadly, no. The light is fixed. I may also made a mistake on this one, should have at least set it higher and suspend the fixture using steel cable, playing on the safe side. Should later the intensity proved to be too great, I must ask a re-do on the whole light hanger
Hey.. frogs. That would be hilarious. With somewhat medium to high humidity and average warm temperature all over the house, the creature might stray to the bathroom

@FelixAvery,
Well, you got the point right. It is virtually impossible to get large amount of fancy substrate right here. Sure I can special order and import myself, renting a portion of a freight container. Will certainly end up with large sum of bill, probably three times the original price tag and I would not want that. Another thing that deter me from using AS is Tom Barr's experience of going into the tank and becoming a fish for one day, finding that AS is a no go for bigger tank - too much mess, he said.


I did prepare good old school gravel, locally obtained. Whitish quartz, that is the best I can get (you probably know this one already if you have seen any one of my existing setups).
700+ lbs of it in huge bags, mined from off shore island of Bangka and specially pre-ordered and now waiting to be washed clean. I've done this before and I know Its going to be painful, so I'm getting lots of helping hands for assistance.

There was another option, also quartz mined from other area. Some are rather sharp edged, some are earthy coloured, which would be a better choise but they are extremely muddy and almost impossible to wash clean, even when done dozens of times.

I think bright coloured substrate, though might not be up to some folk's taste, should fit in the best in this tank. You can already see now what is the effect of dark ground within the tank when the light is out.
Reflection from everywhere overwhelms the glass panels, and I observe that when it is brighter inside (before applying black pond waterproofing), the reflection from outside is somewhat diminished (almost gone when light is on though).

As good as the planning and design goes, there will always be a flaw. Another one I found is having too small of overflow waterway.
With the current pump power I'm using right now, more reserve water is needed just to even out between returning and overflowing water.
Just like in a tank with an overflow filter, you must use big enough bulkhead so not to create imbalance between the tank and the sump.
It is minor work nevertheless, so there goes chisel, hammer and drill again, enlarging the overflow waterway to the filter box.

[medicineman]

It has been some time eversince I stalled the project.

With huge bags of gravel stacked by the store room, I start to collect the rest of what I need.

One thing is another CO2 regulator. This part is easy as it can be obtained from many shops, for fish tank or not, it does not matter to me as long as I make it work.

It goes quite different around here for CO2 cylinders. You need to own one instead of exchanging for a filled one. Naturally, I want to have the biggest cylinder I can get, and I want a good tank which will not fail and last a long time before I need to get another one.
Iron-based ones are quite plentiful, new or used, but they rust over time.
A hunt for big aluminium cylinder was on and I finally managed to get 20lbs capacity.
Bad timing.... no CO2 gas for now. Need to queue for a long time before any fresh supply from factory will ever come (another reason to own several big gas cylinders). Fortunately the refill shop is kind enough to lend me a half filled tank - just because he owns an aquascape as well and know how bad it is not to have any CO2.

I also managed to collect much needed big enough powerhead/pump to power CO2 micro bubbler - my plan of CO2 diffusion into the pond. Since there is a huge outgassing process that will be happening on the waterfall part, I think it is better to create small bubbles of CO2 and blow them out like a mist. These will get stuck everywhere and dissolve, hopefully absorbed by plant stomatas that outgassing is no longer a big problem. I have done this before in a tank with those bad wet and dry filter and the result is quite acceptable.

As time goes by, my research pays off.
Somehow continuing from a success in making quality root tabs, I find a way and create another product... my own base fertilizer.
(dont mind the label... it is just for fun right now)


Like usual, I turn mad scientist and decided that it is going to be the fertilizer to test in large scale. 40+ lbs of the stuff, mixed 1:5 ratio with plain gravel to become base fertilizer. This is a critical decision which I may or may not regret. With a large stake, there is no turning back now.

[joe the pleco]

This is an incredible project

When did you start it?