[minorhero]

I love a good sump!

Not sure if you already own the modular marine overflow, but if not, go a bit bigger. I have one on my crayfish tank and I've learned that if you push it past half of it's capacity per hour it doesn't do a good job skimming anymore (because the water level rises up on the slits in the weir and it stops sucking in film on the surface.

I would also consider dumping the gyre. Unless you have almost no flow coming into the tank, the gyre is going to be producing a LOT of current that could rip up your plants. If you are calculating the 8-10x turnover per hour WITH the gyre, then you have the right idea for flow, but you could achieve that flow without the gyre involved at all, so why have the extra equipment in tank?

For the sump, my advice is to just leave it an open chamber and put some poret foam stretching across from one wall to the other. No need for socks or anything else in a freshwater tank and this way you can make a completely silent tank. My crayfish tank is almost completely silent. The only noise is a 3 decibel increase due to the fans running on the light I am using. Otherwise, literally nothing as measured by a phone decibel app.

Regarding livestock, if you really want shrimp, you will need to rethink your fish. The angels will definitely eat the shrimp and probably the apistos as well (never clear to me how many of my shrimp went into the belly of the angel fish or my apistos...

 

[minorhero]

First breakout topic, sump design. Thoughts behind design below. Overflow at tank will skim surface and thus remove film. Gyre pump is below surface so little to no surface agitation. Thought being to reduce losing CO2. Drain into sump is into an aeration chamber to oxygenate the water for the filtration. Looking for thoughts on this. From here, it flows over an algae scrubber (small led light is above this section) and initial 10ppi filter. From here, space for various ideas, probably Indian olive leaves (Catappa), other "additives", and possibly grow out. Then thru the sequence of poret sponge filters. 3" thick with exception of last polishing one at 2". Then to return pump which will dump at opposite side from gyre pump to force "clean CO2 enriched" water down and across bottom. Open to thoughts ideas!!

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Soooooo your plan will work fine. But it will work fine in a way that adds additional complexity without corresponding function.

There is no reason to have an aeration chamber. It will add noise but it won't do anything else. The algae scrubber is likewise not needed. Algae scrubbers are used in saltwater because people want to get rid of every bit of nitrogen in their water along with all the other things algae can absorb and grow from. BUT in a planted tank, the plants are there for that. If you are not going to have any plants, or if you are only going to have a couple of slow growers (like java fern) then it could be useful. But you are already talking about pumping co2, so I am assuming you want more then 1 or 2 slow growers. The amazon is full of really cool plants which would be easy to incorporate into a tank like this so you will have plenty of options if you wanted to keep to only 'local' plants.

Your foam also has additional complexity that is not really needed. You really only need 2 layers of 30ppi foam (this is what I am using). If you want more layers you can go with it, but having 10ppi foam doesn't really do anything. You are not going to be able to clog these layers up.

Run your co2 reactor off of the return pump on a bypass. That will simplify your plumbing.

 

[minorhero]

Next, substrate. Planning on going with Safe-T-Sorb (STS) for the base, capped with Black Diamond Blasting Sand (BDBS) medium grain. Thinking of putting the STS in media bags, kind of like what MD Fish Tanks does. Media bag mesh would be only large enough to contain the STS. This should allow plenty of space for roots to penetrate. I will be rinsing the STS thoroughly as well as prescreening it through 1/8" hardware cloth to screen out the fines. I do have a question about "pre-charging" the STS. I have raw chemicals but am actually leaning towards just using root tabs. Thought was to place thin layer of peat on bottom, then root tabs (leaning towards APT Jazz) spaced every 2" or so, then lay down the media bags of STS, and finally cap with BDBS (rinsed as well).

Thoughts?? Ideas??

Regarding the substrate. My strong advice is to just go with a single homogenous substrate. If you use loose substrate layers, they will eventually become mixed defeating the entire purpose of layers. STS is super light and will float to the surface of any layer system if its not in bags. If it is in bags, it won't float to the surface but other then adding height, it won't be doing anything else for you. STS has some CEC capacity, but not a lot. Your tank will rapidly build up mulm in the substrate all on it's own and it is this mulm that will provide significantly more CEC capacity then any other substrate you wish to name since it is literally mud. Likewise, don't add peat or anything else to the substrate. You will instead want to look into what fertilizer you will be dosing. Since you have a sump, I would be highly tempted to use a dosing pump to simplify your life. Most fertilizer system will be either EI or PPS-Pro. EI floods the tank with nutrients and then you use water changes to reset things every month. PPS-Pro provides much more minimal amounts of nutrients. PPS-Pro needs to be dosed every day whereas EI is typically only dosed one or a few times a week.

 

[minorhero]

Just a quick update. Have been trying to source a tank without a tempered back. Didn't want to go custom. Aqueon is using whatever glass they have so could be tempered or maybe not. I have tried playing around with the polarized lens/laptop technique to tell the difference between tempered and non, and I'm not confident I can tell the difference, Looks like Seapora tanks do not use tempered on side panels so going with them. Hope to have tank ordered tomorrow,

Question on color for back glass. I've been leaning towards going with window film, frosted white. Have always used black. If going white, I will use MM white overflow. I understand maintenance may be more with algae, but if I do this tank right, algae won't be a big concern. Any experiences with white backgrounds and white overflow boxes?? (not worried about frosted film and bulkheads, easy enough to trim the holes and any errors will be covered by internal box.)

Once the tank is in, I can leak test it, drill holes, and start constructing the stand!

I've done tanks with frosted gray, heck my bookshelf newt tank is gray right now. When working with the overflow on my crayfish tank I decided to go with paint (black) and that's definitely the way to go with an overflow. The advantage to window film is that you can take it off and put something else on or leave it off entirely if you prefer. But if you know you have an overflow, you are not going to want to a) change the color (since the overflow certainly won't be changing) nor, b) take it off entirely, so paint makes a lot of sense. Plus you will be able to color match a bit a easier with paint.

 

[minorhero]

How did you work in the mirror to the background, is it under the film or did you cut the film out directly around the mirror?

 

[minorhero]

Your mortises look awesome! Nicely done!