My new aquarium project

[Ron Jeremy]

Last night I picked up a new toy. An aqua one acquience cube 550.

It was a marine tank in a former life, belonging to my sisters fella, he has thousands of pounds of marine stock, he builds tanks and he's currently making a wall mounted nano reef from scratch.

So, I've got it home, nice clean and filled it up. Got the filter set up, primed and leak tested. I've got two uv tubes, one to be replaced with white and hopefully give the tank a nice colour, make the fish glow. It's very blue with both tubes on so I'm not sure on that yet. I'll have to see how it looks with a white tube in.

I need to make a cradle for the bulb tubes out of perspex and a lid to finish it off.

Plans are to get some white/light natural gravel, some plants and a centre piece of either bog wood or rock.

Fish wise, my male fighter from the fluval, rainbow shark, load of neons, then I'm not sure.

Some pics for now

[turbonutter]

i am getting to addicted to these things. i have a fluval roma 200 with bala sharks, clown loach and a plec. and a 60l tank with guppies, neans, barbs, cory's and a tiny bristlenose plec. would love to do marine, but dont have the time or money

[Ron Jeremy]

This is a link to his build

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/inde...hl=Suggs&st=60

[Monkey]

Jem has a similar size/shape tank to that.

do not,

i repeat do not

just to make myself clear

DO NOT

seach for the thread on here though

[turbonutter]

i am intruiged, why not monkey?

[Ron Jeremy]

I've seen it. Check out my link if you want to see mega money being spent. My sister is tearing her hair out. I'm keeping it simple and cheap.

[Monkey]

i am intruiged, why not monkey?

i'm trying to find it, but i cant, the search indexing is still borked,

[Jem]

i'm trying to find it, but i cant, the search indexing is still borked,

You mean this one http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/showthread.p...ts-of-pictures

[Monkey]

You mean this one http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/showthread.p...ts-of-pictures

Yes, I thought you posted the mag article as well in that thread

[Jem]

That's in the members area, here http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/showthread.p...al-Fishkeeping

[Ron Jeremy]

I looked

I've just made a list of what I need:

Gravel
Thermometer
Bog wood
Plants
Backing film 525x525
Fish of course
White strip bulb
Jubilee clips for the hoses

Now, the lid. There is an inner lip which I want to make a Perspex lid for. A sheet of Perspex big enough is about £40. Foam PVC board is 15 quid delivered. Will that be suitable?.

[RichP]

Mega clean water with that external filter. What fish you going for.

I used to have a 14" Golden cobra snakehead. Epic fish. Need a large tank for them though.

[Ron Jeremy]

Fish, no idea yet. I need to seek advice really. I want some bright interesting fish. Angels, shark, I like the look of the cichlid ram too. The blue spots look awesome.

Maybe some tiger barbs, but the beta, barbs and angle fish may not end well.

As for the filter, it was dirty from the marine set up. I've cleaned it thoroughly but I think it needs carbon.

It has (bottom to top) bio max rocks like little tubes, then a dense foam pad. Then another foam pad, and finally fine cotton wool stuff. I think it needs carbon in there so I'm not convinced its right for fresh water.

[Ron Jeremy]

Found the instructions. Where would carbon go?

[Marcos]

Found the instructions. Where would carbon go?

I put it under the wool, at the top. It doesn't give any real mechanical filtration, just bacterial.

[Ron Jeremy]

Cheers mate. That'll do me

[RichP]

If you have cleaned your filter out then you will need to replace the wanted bacteria in it. when you have it up and running after a few months , if you ever need to clean the filter never use tap water. The clorine kills the bacterian what cleans the water. Saying that though, that filter should run itself and never need cleaning out.

[Monkey]

going on what RichP said, you can buy a reverse osmosis filter and plumb it in under your sink, you then have roe water on tap

(im not sure if the words i used are correct, but you can do that as i plumbed one in round my mates house a few years back)

[turbonutter]

you still need to clean the filters. my external filter gets clogged up with poooooop (most likely my 12" plec) i just was it in a bucket of the tank water when i do a water change

[VIDAL BABBOON]

Watching this with interest.

Would love to have a simple effective tank in the house, my biggest concern is knowing exactly how much time and money i would need to devote to it before undertaking the purchase.

PDH has some fantastic tanks in his house and every time i see the one in the living room it makes me think about getting one lol

Closest i have ever come to keeping fish is two that i won at a fare as young lad lol