Loaches Online Forum

The sump is operational now.

This is the overflow pipe draining water into the sump. I used 1" pvc with a Tee fitting. With the piping outputs in the middle of the tank, I think I'll get the better circulation.


Here, the water level is right up to where I want it to be. It should be just out of reach for the snails..... and if snails do find there way up the pipe it won't cause any trouble.



The tank is 26" high. The gravel is 3" thick and there is 10" of water above the gravel. Minus the gravel, there is 75 gallons of water in the tank.



The return pump goes to the UV Sterilizer. It 's a Rio pump that's rated for 650 gph. There is a shut-off valve near the end of the return line so that I can control the flow rate. I have it set at about 300 gph. If I set it any higher right now, it will overflow my main tanks. I'll need to get some 3/4" tubing for the overflow intakes if I want to increase the flow rate.

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Here's the shut-off valve for the return pump and above it is the external overflow.


The return hose goes to a spraybar in the rivertank. The spraybar has a hole above the water line to act as a siphon break, just in case if the power goes out.



Here's a pic of clowns going at some cucumber.

Looking good!

Wow, what a nice good looking gang of clowns

Here some of what I´m practicing, re the plants, for a while now. Yes defenitely provide some flow, just a little but steady. Against algae, a 4-5 hour lunchbreak may help, min. light phase in one piece should 5-6 hours.

I recommend plants, likeEchinodorus, that can live below and above water. The above water part of the plant gets Co2 from the air. But eliminate the floating leaves once they develop , they create too much shade (they are thicker than the under water ones).
The plant thrives a stem above water and develops now plants on the stem (pic3), that stay there almost for half a year, than they dry out. You could pick them and throw them into the water – they get roots… they also bloom a lot…

I´m in the middle of rearraging the entire system, to prepare for the planned big tank. I´m using the “sump” tank as a Bio filter and run currently 3 tanks at the same time with it.

This pic shows the an Echinodorus which “lives“ in that small bio-filtertank. It has almost no substrate but a steady flow around the roots. And important, they need good food at the roots (mainly iron). The one shown here lives above water only and only gets light when sun shines through a short period of time of the day. However As I just moved that from my daughters room to my construction site. So it´s not at it´s best shape right now but still blooming, see below (I guess I´m one of few guys, having tanks at a construction room). …





Pic 3 (now plants on the stem)



smaller Echinodorus harvested from big one in the bio-filter-tank.



These ones are the out of water part of fully functional Echi´s that live under water (dual)



In the new temporary setup, I keep cutting off the stems which are trying to get out of water. Btw, keeping the stems under water, avoids the nice blooming, but makes grow little plant immediately…

Way to go Magyver . I like this kinda input. I too have reworked some stuff. This is a great idea. Is that the 36 watt Turbo twist. I run the same one. Are you only using gravity for your return ? 300 gph as the measured fall from your loach tank? I know you watch the power bill but an additional powerhead in the sump pointing away from your powerhead feeding your spraybar would increase your circulation and aggitation greatly. I am saying from where you drop the water in ,right under that push it up and away from your pick up to the rivertank and the heat from the powerhead would replace some of a heater anyway. Your surface is too smooth and you are missing an oppurtunity to exchange gases over 12 square feet or so . ......Great idea fer sure though nonetheless,just an observation .I don't mean to be so forward but its hard to write without sounding critical and you know I am not...........

Thanks all. What great ideas too.

With terrestrial plants, you have me thinking that a Paludarium would be great for this tank. It's got plenty of space. It's begging me to do it something like this.

I've got 100#'s of lava rock and lots of slate that I could use for building a land mass. Then I could put some eco complete over that.

Oh, the possiblities are endless.

Tinman- Yep, that's a 36w Turbotwist. I'm still not sure where I'm going with this. I might end up wanting to have a waterfall or something like that. Atleast the basic plumbing is done for now.

a paludarium would be sweet.

I love to see this kind of thing. Evidence of total obsession! Great work, Keith, and nice plants, Wolfram.

I didn't realize I had some many snails n shrimp. I cleared out 2 more tanks of them. There must be about 200 MTS, 100 cherry shrimp, and 100 Ramshorn Snails in the there now. I replaced a few algae covered pieces of driftwood in the tank also. The shrimp sure do enjoy it. They have been very fasinating to watch. I never knew shrimp could be so active.
A few pics-






Well, I have plenty of free time from now until next Monday to work on this project.

I'm wondering what would be a the best way to build a land mass that's 12" high off the gravel bed, just above the waters surface. I think I need to do it in layers, like how retaining walls are built. I've got plenty more driftwood I could use. I think once I saw an Amano tank that does something like this.
I'll search for some pic's.

I'd be happy to hear any ideas or suggestions.

I could just grow plants off of driftwood. Like how this article suggests-
http://members.tripod.com/~Tropic_Cove/ ... rgent.html

I think I have enough driftwood where I could build a radius of surface exposed driftwood around the back and sides of the tank for bog plants to grow on. Then I could leave the front viewing area for aquarium plants.

The idea of an fog machine has just caught my interest.

If you want to grow terrestrial plants, I'd suggest looking at suspending pots with the bottom inch or two under water, filled with an inert growing media like perlite or clay pebbles. This is basically a hydroponic type setup, with the plants growing long roots into the water.
Searching 'aquaponics' on google turns up some interesting stuff, like this, although the concept of aquaponics is based more around the idea of using fish to provide a good nutrient level to the plants, rather than using plants to minimise the levels of fish waste in the water.

Mark in Vancouver wrote:I love to see this kind of thing. Evidence of total obsession! Great work, Keith, and nice plants, Wolfram.

Yea total obsession. If I stay on this forum for long my husband is going to hate you guys for tempting me to get into anything like this. The only thing on his side is the new baby coming, so I will be busy with him for a while. LOL

I just want to say I'm in awe of the work you guys do. I fantasize about a fishroom someday. I absolutely love to drool over your stuff until that day.

Hi Keith,

I´ve switched to fine sand, for various reasons. Hope it works out in the long run, it´s possibly tricky for my plants. What´s in it for you, would be, that fine sand sucks water up by itself. I made tests and discovered, that fine sand (1/4mm size of one seed) draws water higher then the watersurface.
You could use an acrylic tray cut corners off and cofer with filter-cotton. Put the tray with the sand in an angle, so the open corner dives into the water, or, alternative use a pipe in the bottom of the tray that you fill with sand cover the hole with filtercotton and use that to suck the water. This way you would never need to water the plants. Unless you build a waterfall anyway, that also can be used to water the plants…

Planutarium would be a great looking thing, with a humidifier (fog producer) an eye-catcher for sure…

The landpart, I´d design from acrylic, use nice looking dark sand, so it looks like a natural wall – less work, using acrylic stands (or/additionally hang the landpart). cover the stands casually with some rocks or driftwood, so it looks like the stones or wood were the actual structure…

Here pics of my tests, it took the water 1minute to penetrate the sand and additional 20seconds to get sucked up to the tip on then right-top. The sand was dry.



I´m using trays of fruits as flowerpots and found the transparent stuff looks actually quit cool. That pic actually show a cooky box – so it´s rather milky not 100% translucent – but still ok…(sorry did not have time to sort the pics yet to find the proper picture, but it´s ok to get the idea… this pic is from a test setup where I want to run hilly-current below the plants – tunnel/canyon like…)

I set up a small window box sort of thing over a tank and planted some house plants in it.
The box was plastic, about 18" long, and about 6" high x 6" wide. I sealed hte drainage holes with silicone. (THe box actually included some plugs, but they leaked a bit) I cut holes in one end about halfway from the bottom so water can come out, and attached some short lengths of large diameter tubing to keep the water aimed at the tank. (Bulkhead fittings). A 200 gph pump pumps the water out of the tank into the box. The planting medium is red lava rock, about 1/4" diameter. I have some coarse sponges in front of the outlet tubes so the lava does not fall into the tank.
I did measure some reduction in the nitrates in the tank, but not much. SMall box, large tank. THe plants are still thriving, though the tank leaked. I now water the box about every other week with used tank water. The plant that is doing the best is Philodendron oxycardum (Old name-and I forget the new name... Heartleaf Philodendron)

For more info about using plants to remove Nitrogen have a look at Diana Walstad's Ecology of the planted Aquarium.

Basic concept: fast growing plants are removing nitrogen and incorporating it into their new stems and leaves. Fast growing plants need lots of light, Carbon and other nutrients, more than what are usually available in an aquarium.

I have found that a volume of plants that fills the aquarium to the point that the fish have little or no room, 2 watts per gallon of light, and EI dosing the aquariums will need a little nitrate to be added.

Emersed plants get CO2 from the air, so if you do not intend to dose CO2, but want the maximum nutrient export, I would turn this into a planted bog or pond-margin sort of sump, rather than using submerged plants. Water flow can be relatively slow. I would measure incoming Nitrates and outlet nitrates, and when you see a significant difference, that is the flow you want.
Maybe a gallon per minute?