Tuesday, October 18, 2016

2016 - A year to make things fun

This year has been the year of doing. Doing around the house and the most fun doing outside of the house. We've been a few places and have plans to go to others but the around the house stuff has been the most fun. A few builds of things like a door i owed my wife for I don't know the last five years or so and several little festivals that were cheap to free but loads of fun for the little girl.  This is the way life should be, minor to major concerns ignored in the background but family and doing put first over the other things that really don't mean much. This last couple weeks I've been working on taking the three aquariums we have and merging them into a single Freshwater tank of about 120 gallons. To do this I had one plan but both impatience, excitement and dollars are stopping me form pursuing the initial plan. So I'm changing it up a bit, a more simplified split tank than I originally envisioned but sometimes skill level and dollar amount change the plan, this is life.

The current Idea is taking the 120 gallon aquarium and spiting it into two, one about 30 gallons and the other well 90-ish. This has been done with a small piece of plex with many 1/4" holes drilled through it. Thinking the one side will have feeders and plants mostly I want an occasional fish to find its way through the holes and randomly feed the main tank. That portion is set up and cycling the tank. This tank is huge, I mean for my living space it is giant. I set it about 4 1/2 inches off the wall which is more than normal for any tank I know. I have it up on a mat with holes, the rubber ones used in garages for work areas or restaurant kitchens, I figure this will allow any minor water to evaporate off the wood floors underneath. It has a sump with an overflow box, this isn't my first choice but I can not drill the tank, issue is the overflow is 4 3/4" thick, so I can not put it behind the tank. I also made the mistake of not water testing the overflow before installing it on the side, well Learned that lesson as it dripped, I was obviously watching it to check for leaks but still upsetting since it was a used tank, I just assumed. Another reason to double check others work. I replaced the bulk heads that were causing the leak and now besides some minor tightening the sump is working well. Just used some CPVC and a couple hose connectors to bring it back into the tank.

I have a bunch of round pond stone and coral stone for the layout currently but do not think I'm going to permanently use either. Maybe the coral because it is more holey than than the pond round stones and more of a white color for the look i think I'm going to go for. Right now the 30 side has black substrate and is planted with some of the plants and a piece of drift wood I had in the old tank. Some Corey's and feeders are swimming happily in there with a few ghost shrimp cycling the overall tank. The 90 side will have Africans, not sure 100% on what type but I'm leaning towards Malawi Peacock's.  Well more to come as the ideas and time to write stuff up appears. Cycle cycle cycle..
Thanks,

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