Moving to the Basement with 180 gallons + 125 gallons + 75 Sump

[bigwave]

Recently I got evicted from the living room by the wife!

More accurately the fish-tanks have been evicted, and really it was a joint decision. Currently I have a 75 gallon planted discus tank, a 95 planted corner tank, and a 20 gallon quarantine tank.

A couple years ago I got a 125 acrylic, that needed some cleanup, and it has just sat around since then. They 2 weeks ago I got a used 180, that has NEVER had water in it. It was bought brand new and never setup. So I got a good deal on it (thanks to craigslist!)

Here is the 180 and my little guy:




The plan is to move the discus into the 180. This will be set on an 'open' stand, built of 4x4's made to look nice and pretty. I plan on making the stand 8 feet long, just in case I upgrade to a longer tank later.

The opening under the 180 will hold the 125 acrylic, with 3 gold severums, and rainbows, and some hardy plants.

The 75 gallon tank is goign to be my sump with heaters and filtration. I don't know if I am going to divide it in half, one for each tank so I can run different temperatures, or perhaps I will only heat water going to the 180, and just take cooler sump water for the 125? I want the 180 to be in the low 80s, and the 125 to be in the high 70s. (Suggestions on this would be great)

Today I am filling the 125 on my deck, to see if it has any leaks. I removed silicone that was on the corners, for 2 reasons. 1 it was blue, probably from being treated with medicine, and 2nd it shouldn't need silicone on a acrylic tank. (Please correct me if I am wrong)

Here is that getting filled up right now, sure takes a long time!



Equipment I have so far are 2 250Watt MH lights, and a set of t-5's and 4x65 watt of compact fluorescent (the long straight kind, not the twisty kind).

All plumbing and etc is still to come, but I just wanted to get this started so I had a place to put pictures as I continue.

Please drop me lots of suggestions, and any idea's you may have. Currently I need to figure out a few things and you could help me with these:
1) For the 180 gallon, I have 9 discus, what else can go in there. I am thinking lemon tetras (I have 8 with the severums right now), and some panda cories. Will they handle the temp?

2) What else could go with the severum? Do you think Anubias and Vals will be fine in with these 'plant eaters'?

Here's pictures of my current stock, and a cool purple plant flower in my current tanks!








Enjoy, and I will keep you updated!
David

[bigwave]

Question 3 : The Acrylic tank has a dark blue background painted onto it. I would really rather have a light blue. Should I just sand off the old one and re-paint it? It won't just scrape off unfortunately!

[bigwave]

The other details I left out, and just remembered:

The sump will be on the other side of a wall, behind the tanks. That is a room with all our house plumbing so I am going to plumb in a system to do automatic water changes. That way I can keep nice clear water, I am thinking something like 30 gallons a day being replaced, probably 15 gallons in the morning, and 15 in the evening.

That should work out to about a 10% daily water change. I am on a well so I don't need to treat the water.

PS - 125 is close to full now, no leaks so far.

[Rbishop]

Nice!

[bigwave]

Just because I know my written description above is kind of hard to understand, here is a quick sketchup of what I am planning.

The stand will hopefully be wrapped in cherry, and the top will either be granite, or perhaps some counter top material, although I am leaning toward granite. The only problem really will be cutting holes in it for the overflows, but I think I can order it with those where I want them.

This is the design view, set at an angle, you can see where the 2 MH lights will be:


This is the front view, which is how I will normally see it:


And the rear view, where the sump is. I don't know if the hole between rooms will be this big, but you get the idea:

[snoopy65]

Looks like a great project. Looking at your diagram-make sure you give yourself enough room to get into the bottom tank to do maintenance or catch a fish if you need to. As far as your Severum - they may not eat anubias, but mine tore the leaves to shreds and then spit them out to float in the tank. The vals will be salad! I would not put plants in with a Sev, they will even tear into fava fern. As far as tank mates for a Severum, pretty much anything that it can't swallow whole. They don't actually look for small fish to eat, but they will gulp anything tiny. I had mine in a community tank at one time with Bolivian Rams, Aeneus Cory Cats, & BN Plecos. I moved them to the "large sa/ca cichlid" tank and they also did fine with a green terror, nicaraguanese, robertsoni, convict, polleni, chocolate pleco, 6 yo yo loaches, and 6 silver dollars. Now the discus. I have aeneus cory cats and bn plecos in with mine now. Before our house renovations they also had rummy nose tetra and glolite tetra in with them without any problems. I think the lemon tetra will be fine as they are deep bodied and discus have small mouths. I am not sure about the panda cory cats.

[bigwave]

Looks like a great project. Looking at your diagram-make sure you give yourself enough room to get into the bottom tank to do maintenance or catch a fish if you need to.

This is a little bit of a worry for me. I will only have a couple inches of room there to get into the lower tank. The dimensions there are just rough for the moment, nothing is set in stone yet.

My sevrum are in with a TON of plants right now, and I just get a few nibbles, but they are only about 5", and I understand they can get twice that pretty easily. I do worry about them turning my plants into salad as they get bigger. On the other hand I will have a nice place to put clippings I don't want!!!

[Chrisk-K]

Question 3 : The Acrylic tank has a dark blue background painted onto it. I would really rather have a light blue. Should I just sand off the old one and re-paint it? It won't just scrape off unfortunately!

I doubt it was painted. It's the color of the panel itself.

[bigwave]

I doubt it was painted. It's the color of the panel itself.

Pretty sure it was painted. There are a few brushstrokes that are real obvious and some nicks in it you can see.

Outside:


Inside


Maybe I will just see if sanding a lower corner takes it off? I really hate to scrape the acrylic all to pieces though.

[Arkangel77]

Nice project