Habitat - Indoor :: Build Log: 220 Gallons

[BlackAndChrome]

So a couple weeks ago I was on here asking about filtration and I figured I would come back and share my build with everyone now that I have started actually getting everything together.

As stated the build is a 220 gallon, it is drilled for overflow but the overflow pipes had previously fallen off with just large fish and I have hard wood floors here so I opted for capping them for later use and doing a larger version of the "hybrid under gravel" filtration system with an Eheim 2217 and a FX5. I would have done an ATBA but I fibbed a little to my landlord when I told her how big the tank was, basically saying " about 125 gallons of WATER". Not counting the filter capacity I'm looking at like 140. Things are still a little dirty, doing a final cleaning with vinegar before I go any further.

So Anyway...
Took 3 college friends and myself to carry it around to house with another person to spot and hold doors but otherwise came right in the backdoor with ease. The black plastic is sealed into the base and a hole leads directly to the basement in case of a medium sized leak.


These are the intake pipes that run the length of the tank. They are drilled so that the total area of the holes is 25% larger than the 1" intake. This way they have high velocity but do not restrict that water flow if a dead minnow gets stuck on one of the 3/16" holes.


The pipes are then covered with egg crate and large rocks for aesthetics. With this size intake I have lost about 15 gallons or2 inches of usable tank space but it also covers my airstones nicely and is 0 maintenance for tank cleaning. I may try to change the long pipes for 3/4" since all three combined is much more ID than I need. I also need to cut small pieces out of the egg crate or plug the ends of the pipes because the caps dont let the egg crate lie level.


Here s the dock. It sits on strips of 1/4" plexi siliconed to the side and a ramp will be fashioned similarly with one end ziptied til I can get some acrylic cement. The whole thing will be covered in 12"x12" mosaic tile sheets that have 3/4" tiles on them. Looks like they got left at home so I will have to get them when I get the turtle next weekend.


Lower plumbing with the fittings for the Eheim plugged (currently with the turtle). I also have a 1/4" vinyl tube that runs to the washer in the basement so I can top off with that instead of running a hose every time. I can also take it off and do a partial or full water changes. Since it is on the out side of the filters it wont clog but it does take a long time to fill. Also due to it's position you never have to manually prime. the water auto fills the empty filters.


Here's the canopy that I made, it has a gutted walmart 18" undercabinet light using only the ballast and the sockets for UV and a ceramic screw in socket for incan heat. The whole thing is covered in water based Polycrylic and black latex on the outerside to match the cloth skirt that will cover the stand.



So far I'm sitting at about 60 gallons to get some bacteria established in the filter (going to go buy some red minnows) [EDIT: apparently there is more chlorine in my water than I thought because all of the minnows died and I don't have any prime with me and I don't want to buy another bottle so I guess I will just run it empty for a few days]. I'll fill it the rest of the way next week when the turtle moves in and I have everything finished.

And here is another litte project I am working on, it is a tank controller that will auto topoff and do partial water changes automatically. Going to add a few alarm features as well, maybe PH probe. Who knows.


A few questions I had... What are the ideal humidity environments for turtles? as of right now I do not have much ventilation in the hood and the rest of the tank will be covered in glass.

Also after having already partially filled the tank I am beginning to see some bad looking seals on the tank. Some places are pulling up at the edges and others have what looks like black plaque in combination with most of the silicone missing. I am definately not wanting to reseal the tank but am wondering what the concerns are if left in this condition. I would take a pic but my camera is rather poor with macro type shots...

-B&C

[Linus]

I would have gone bigger, but I guess 220 is good enough

[Kado]

Really nice start! The under gravel filter is interesting, shoud be a nice poop vacume

[BlackAndChrome]

So after all of the minnows died (literally bleeding from the gills within 15 minutes) I drained and refilled the tank in case I had chemicals from the PVC cement leach into the water. Still smells strongly of chlorine after 36 hours with 130 gallons. Probably chloramine in combination with a lot of water. Looks like I know someone making a trip out here so they can bring me one of my bottles of prime. It is pretty old and smells heavily of sulfur verse my new bottle that smells very little, I assume it smells more as the compounds break down and the sulfur is freed. I'll probably overdose a little and give it 24 hours before I try more fish. Not like I'm going to get much of a bacteria colony established before the turtle comes but at least it shouldn't kill off the establishment in the Eheim. Still interested in input on the ideal humidity and seals.

-B&C

[steve]

Looks pretty good. Silicone will not hold the acrylic after a few days. You don't want any humidity, so I would definitely have more ventilation there.

[Linus]

It's going to take at least 2 weeks to cycle. Don't bother putting any fish during this time, it's just cruel.

[PridgNYC]

Start running one of the filters with extra carbon and some biomedia to start the culture. The carbon will get rid of the chloramine, and you can also artificially start the cycle with household ammonia (not the scented stuff).

[devilduck]

This is an awesome build!

[BlackAndChrome]

I tried to remove the plexi off of the tank and it does not seem like it is going anywhere. I squeezed out almost all of the silicone from underneath it when installing it to the point that I can't get my thumb nail underneath it now. I pressed down on it with my thumb with a considerable amount of force and it does not want to go anywhere. I'll make sure that if it does come free that the turtle will not be in danger but until then it looks like it is staying in place. As for the fish I put in a dose and a half of Prime, waited 24-36 hours, and took a water sample in with me to petco to get tested (wasn't aware they would test for free but makes sense with there fish return policy). The water was free of chlorine/amine so I did pick up another dozen. Did a very slow acclamation of temperature and water, after over 6 hours in the tank now they are very energetic and happily searching for food. I am aware under general circumstances that it is ideal to truly cycle the tank before fish but the turtle is coming out Monday with a cultured filter and they will be much better off in tap water for a few days than they would be if the culture in my established filter died due to lack of organic matter in the water and I had to re-establish from scratch. How much ammonia should I put in to kick start 140 gallons? Teaspoon or two? I can do this tomorrow but there obviously still wont be much of a culture before the turtle comes in, my main goal is to keep the established filter running at max when it gets here.

I do admit the first round of fish was a mistake. Foolish me being used to well water, never had a tank with a light load turn sour without pre-cycling and the only fish I've ever had that couldn't handle straight tap (well water) were violet gobies and they were an odd case with whether or not they needed brackish water, plus I was like 12.

Pic Update: You guys ever play with an "IKEA Dioder"? My girlfriend got me one that I had on my 55g that I got moved over to the 220. They are strips of RGB LEDs that can smoothly color shift (slow transition, pulse, or solid color). I stuck them to the bottom of the tank pointing up, they put very cool ripples of light on the ceiling and they look even better when bubble are running. Not sure if they will be this bright with rocks on top of the grate, if it is dark enough I would like to leave them on 24/7 but I wouldn't want to disturb the turtles sleep patterns. Although the water looks slightly cloudy in the pic it is just because the output pipe from the filter is blowing bubbles under the surface to aerate the water until I get an air pump from home. The air is not going through the filter, just getting sprayed around by the jet.


Blue Gatorade anyone?

-B&C

[steve]

The Dioder is pretty cool, definitely something to use once in awhile.

[Listen97]

can't wait to see the finished product.

[BlackAndChrome]

I'm thinking about getting a long strip of plexi and drilling holes every couple inches or two then running lucky bamboo through the holes so the roots are in the water and the leaves are out of the turtles reach but still give a decent back-drop.Anyone ever tried this? What would be the best adhesive for plexi to glass?

-B&C

[steve]

If I were to attach plexiglas into glass, I would try to make brackets using glass strips. I think some of the major fish keeper forums might give you better ideas though

[BlackAndChrome]

So long story super short when I was at my parents last weekend I borrowed a caulking gun and noticed that it had GE Silicone 2 in it, which looked very similar to the tubes that I had picked up at HD for various things on the tank. When I asked him if it was one of the tubes I bought he said yes. Although I did find some support that the window and door S2 would not be dangerous, you can find supporting info for just about anything online... So not wanting to risk the turtle I drained the tank a started stripping caulk back off in a few places (I filleted the bulkheads for the hell of it). After about an hour I got really sore because even at 6'2" I can barely reach the back bottom of the tank with the front lip cutting into my armpits. So i decided to change out the old tube of caulking with some S1 and redo what I had undone. So I picked up the gun and saw the label was down in the gun, and thought, "what are the odds", spun the label around and sure enough GE1. My dad had given me a old tube that he had by chance instead of the S2 that I bought, I was mad I had wasted so much time, but glad I could stop wasting time. Life's funny. I had to drain the tank to drill more holes in the intakes anyway because it was still too strong and many of my minnows got sucked up against the intake and died. My roommate was supposed to keep an eye on things but apparently that was not noteworthy

So after a few extra days of drying silicone here's where I am.

Dock and ramp are attached with heat bents strips of plexi and PVC cement clamped tight. Not an ideal bond but I tried JB and it popped right off and I don't have any Weldon. Stress tested it to probably 10x turtle weight without failure so seems solid. Tile sheets are held on with dabs of silicone, not terribly strong but also should be plenty strong enough to withstand a turtle, definitely hard to get off with a fingernail. Will have to keep an eye out for loose ones.


Air stones, heater, grate and largest of the rocks installed. Added benefit of the grate is that if you drop a rock you don't crack or chip a very expensive tank. VERY LOUD though so I stopped for tonight, trying not to be a bad roommate. Rest of the rocks are in front, they are large river rocks from a dumptruck load that I hand picked through. Lots of red quartzite, some granite, and plenty other I am ill-informed about. All hard rocks naturally. Some have been further polished in a 5 gallon polisher I built and ran with sand. cleans them up nice if nothing else.


Also got a hole for a PC fan cut in the hood and one of the plastic strips for the glass sheets is already notched for air lines and related.

Tomorrow I move the rest of the rocks, fill her up, let her come up to temp then see how things are going. I will probably add the turtle, wait 2 days for her to add some ammonia then swap the media out of the Eheim into the FX5. I am thinking about keeping the 55g (currently holding the turtle) that is in my room running with the Eheim with something different inside. I would like to take a crack at saltwater but I am rather short financially for that sort of thing. Maybe a true axolotl'?

til tomorrow,
-B&C

[BlackAndChrome]

Finally the results! Still a few tweaks need to be made but the turtle is official enjoying her new home!

Overview


Happy turtle


Introduction Video
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdRZwrfI6Ho[/youtube]

The heater is placed there temporarily to speed up the initial heating, I'm going to see if I can get away with just one 300w heater. The one in front looks like a nice heater but apparently it has a recall notice on it for causing like 80 something incidents of fragmentation and in some cases fire. Sadly we had been running it for 2+ years before I got it, only noticed it was recalled after I looked up to see if it was submersible. Just finishing up wiring in a dimmer into the basking lamp, it was like 130 degrees on the platform!

-B&C