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65-Gallon Aquarium Build Thread

Andrew

Members
I see build threads all the time on saltwater forums but not many on freshwater tanks, especially smaller aquaria like this 65-gallon tank. Perhaps this is because the equipment we use is not particularly advanced, not having changed appreciably in the last 30 years or more. Perhaps freshwater fish keepers just don't put that much thought into individual tanks, although planted aquarium folks would certainly be an exception to this idea. Whatever the reason, I'm going to go through the process of setting up a tank, including and especially the reasoning behind making the decisions about the setup that I do, that's been sitting dry in my basement for a while. Yes, it will be the only tank in my house... For a while anyway. I hope you find it interesting. By the way, I'm doing this the risky way. Many people will finish the whole process and then start putting the build thread together. I haven't gotten very far and some of the more ambitious challenges I've set for myself may not work very well. You'll know if they don't, because then at least you'll know not to try something that some other knucklehead (me) already screwed it up.

After owning an aquarium shop with a gazillion tanks and access to virtually any fish that I could possibly want to keep it became a process first of selecting exactly what kind of fish I wanted to put in the tank. Most of my "dream aquaria" are of a size that simply isn't possible for me right now and while I could keep some of the fish that particularly interest me, I couldn't keep them the way I would want to in this size tank. For instance, my favorite freshwater fish is probably the Tanganyikan killifish, Lamprichthys tanganicus, but I would want a tank of at least 300 gallons so that I could comfortably put upwards of 100 of them together. 300 gallons ain't happening in a rental house.

For those that visited the store while it was open, you may remember the large sumps (~300 gallons or so) under each of the racks. I put about a hundred Pseudotropheus saulosi fry into the sump under the African cichlid system. A customer had brought them in after breaking down his tank to move overseas. About 30 made it to adult size, escaping the predatory attentions of a few haps and peacocks that were also growing out in the sump. From there, they started reproducing and every few months I could pull 20-30 out to sell. What surprised me is how much I enjoyed these fish.

So I'm doing Saulosi. Not many decisions to be made from here right? Just slap a filter, heater and light on the tank, drop some gravel and pile of rocks and I'm ready to go! No, not for me, not this time. Again, after being in the aquarium business for ten years or more, it has to be a really special project. Think of the European experience in the hobby. For whatever reason, most Europeans dedicate most of their available resources into one or two special aquaria, rather than filling their basements with as many tank will fit like many Americans do. There's nothing wrong with that, by the way, but I find it leads to a lack of particularly spectacular display tanks, again with the exception of the planted tank people. If I sound a bit snobbish here, I don't really mean to. I'm happy for and encourage everyone to enjoy their fish in the way that they want to with only modest limitations on the well-being of the fish and their keepers. For me that enjoyment means taking the time to make a spectacular, well thought-out display tank (I hope).

Back to the fish. Saulosi are dwarf mbuna (rock-dwellers) from Lake Malawi. Males are metallic blue with black bars, similar to the possibly more popular Ps. demasoni. Females are gold-yellow, a few shades more orange than the definitely more popular Yellow Lab. As an aside, I see people talking about Demasoni/Yellow Lab tanks all the time. For a smaller aquarium like the one I'm doing, consider the Saulosi instead. You'll get the same colors all within one species and can do it in a tanks as small as 30 gallons or so. Where was I? Saulosi. As a dwarf mbuna, they grow to about four inches, but are usually not seen in aquaria larger than three. A nice group of 3-4 males and double that number of females will get along just fine in the 65-gallon tank. Other fish? No. Maybe down the road a nice Protomelus steveni "Taiwan"... but more on that later.
 

Andrew

Members
OK, this thread is worthless without pics, I know, and I'll have plenty as I make more progress. For now, though, here's a few pictures from Larry Johnson, the intrepid Canadian who explores Lake Malawi as often as just about anyone else who isn't named "Ad". Larry's web page, by the way, is http://home.cogeco.ca/~ductapediver/larry's web page.htm. It's definitely worth a look if you like Malawi cichlids or enjoy fish collecting adventures in general.

Here's a picture of a Copidachromis borleyi-type cichlid:
mt%202003%20Taiwan_Reef_22.jpg


A pic of the aforementioned Protomelus steveni "Taiwan":
mt%202003%20Taiwan_Reef_9.jpg


And finally, one of the Saulosi that I want to keep:
mt%202003%20Taiwan_Reef_60.jpg


All of these were taken on location in Lake Malawi. I wasn't looking at the fish in these pictures when I saw them though. Behind the fish are great habitat shots with tremendous information about the location where these fish are found. In this case, Taiwan Reef, a pile of rocks in Lake Malawi that doesn't quite break the surface to make it an island. Of course, "pile of rocks" is a little misleading. You can get some idea in the pictures that these are HUGE boulders! As Larry says, bigger than apartment buildings. The rocks behind the fish are actually what inspired me to do this tank. I contacted Larry to ask about other habitat features and he generously and quickly responded with answers about the habitat. I asked if there were any plants, nope, no plants except algae on the rocks. How about substrate? Sand, gravel, pebbles? Larry was funny with this reply "I've never made it to the bottom to see." OK, so we have a big pile of huge rocks, no plants and no substrate. I asked about other fish that lived there but didn't really plan on including anything else anyway. According to Larry, the only other fish in the hobby from that location is the Steveni "Taiwan" which is why that fish is an outside possibility to include in the display.

Look carefully at the last picture, the one with the Saulosi. One could almost imagine that the space being occupied by those fish is about the same as my 65-gallon tank! Now we're talking, I can do a realistic biotope display for this fish. I might even try to make it look like that particular picture. To do that though, I can't use regular rocks. In order to achieve the illusion that we're looking a very small slice of a very large place, I can't use small rocks piled up because it won't be plausible. I have some ideas for this, more later.

There you have it. That's my inspiration and I'm going to try to make my tank look as much like not only Lake Malawi, but the particular spot in Lake Malawi where these fish are from. Another side note (I do that a lot): If you're going to try a biotope aquarium, it's really helpful to have been to the place you're trying to replicate. Short of that, it's really helpful to talk to someone who has been there so big thanks to Larry for his help with my project.

Update in a few days after I've had some fun trying to "make rocks".
 

Cartel

Members
I like your thinking/plan I'm sure it will be quite a nice setup looking forward to filling the build.
 

SubMariner

Master Jedi & Past VP
Sounds Great Andrew! Let me know when you're ready for some Protomelus steveni "Taiwan Reefs." I have been steadily breeding them in my basement. LOL! And yes, I too love the Saulosi's, they are a wonderful Cichlid.

Keep us up to date on your project.
 

Tony

Alligator Snapping Turtle/Past Pres
Looks great bro. You going the styro/Drylock route on the rocks?
 

Andrew

Members
OK, it's been a while. Life gets in the way, and then I make knucklehead mistakes like those aforementioned in the first post. Most on the mistake(s) later.

First a bit about tanks and design: The Greeks figured out a mathematical formula for the ultimate aesthetic quality of a piece of art, architecture, etc. That, of course, is the Golden Ratio. For ease of use, it is simply the ratio 1:1.62. Here's my initial sketch to get prepared for designing the background features:

1281480503.jpg


Planted tank folks will recognize this, as aquascapers have been using the Golden Ratio for some time to guide them to a good aesthetic for their work. I'm using the same principal except with rocks. If I follow the formula too closely, it will look artificial. But, the drawing assists in figuring out where margins of features and particularly dynamic points of interest ought to be located for maximum effect.

The purple lines are the outline of the front of the aquarium with the hash marks indicate the plastic frame. The green lines are a standard spiral of units in the Golden Ratio. The red lines are other divisions using the Golden Ratio but outside of the spiral that is created. Over this I can draw the features of the background and come up with a scheme for decorating. There's a little bit more to it than this but I'm not very good at explaining it farther so I'll leave it here. If a math whiz wants to contribute, please feel free.

Here's some pencil drawings I made over the guide: It's a bit hard to figure out what I was thinking here but when it's compared to the final product, I hope it to make sense. I also made drawings of side, top and bottom views so that I would have some direction as I worked with the materials. But they make even less sense than this one so I've left them out.

1281482184.jpg


I made each square of graph paper one inch in scale to the tank so that measurements would be easy to transfer from drawings to the actual materials. I chose the lower left corner as the nexus of the spiral because it fits in the room better that way. Or, it might just be because I always think left to right as I'm aquascaping, just like I read. It could have been in any of the other four corners. Except working with rocks you probably would not have wanted to try to put it in the top.

A note about aquarium dimensions. There are certain size aquaria that are very popular and always have been because their dimensions are attractive to the eye. Guess what? The Golden Ratio was applied to the dimensions of the front panel to achieve that attractiveness! The following tanks line up approximately with the Golden Ratio in the dimensions of the front panel.

Tank size; LengthxHeight
2.5gal 12x8
5.5gal 16x10
10gal 20x12
20High 24x16
29gal 30x18
65gal 36x24
120H, 150XH 48x30

Enough about that. We could go on forever talking about this one aspect.
 

Andrew

Members
Now to start making the rocks! Tony hit one something with his replay: you can make styrofoam features and cover them with a slurry of DryLock cement to make realistic looking backgrounds. I didn't want to use the cement as it has to be done inside the tank and I just imagined it to be a horrible mess... But I am using styrofoam.

Tools of the trade: Serrated steak and bread knives, 3/4 white styrofoam sheets. Cutting with these knives is almost as easy as slicing a loaf of bread.

1281480654.jpg


I cut a bunch of sheets to the basic out side dimensions that I wanted and stacked them in an order to be further worked.

1281480561.jpg


Holding the whole block together I cut out facets to make something closer to my desired shape with the bread knife.

1281480613.jpg


Using a glue gun with 100% silicone (GE Window and Door 2x from Home Depot) and taking special care to keep the sheets in the right order, I started laminating them together. I also cut a chamber out of the middle of the "rock" to fill with gravel to help with buoyancy.

1281480720.jpg


All glued together, and you can start to see where I may have made some mistakes: That's why this particular "rock" is an experiment to refine the process and make the big mistakes on a small piece of the puzzle.

1281480816.jpg


Now the fun part. I have a flexible arm lighter like one might use to light charcoal in a grill or the pilot light in a water heater. I use this to texture the outside of the "rock". Of course I know that burning styrofoam creates toxic fumes! That's why I'm doing it outside. And the nasty sinus infection that attacked me later that night is a pure coincidence... OK, try to stand upwind next time.

1281480873.jpg


Not exactly what I was hoping for, but a good start to try and figure all this stuff out. My mistakes here are that I did not smooth the silicone between the sheets, instead I assumed that the pressure of pushing it all together would cause it to fill the entire area. Other mistake, I did not glue the outside edges with silicone. I thought I was being smart here because when I went back to burn I knew that the silicone would be intact while the styrofoam shrank under the heat. The result? Gaps between the laminated sheets. That's OK, I'm not using this piece in the tank. It'll now become a guinea pig for whatever material I find to paint the forms. Oh, the gravel wasn't enough either. I put a porous aquarium gravel in instead of a dense pea gravel. Next time use the heavy stuff if there's any hope at all of this stuff staying at the bottom.

This rock, by the way, is modeled after the rock in the second of Larry's pics that I posted above. Technical challenges notwithstanding, I'm pretty proud of it!
 

Andrew

Members
Now on to the forms for the back of the tanks. Using what I learned from my experimental "rock" about cutting, shaping and gluing the styofoam sheets, I started to cut the sheets and prep them for gluing. Here's some of the sheets that will come together as the back left third of the background form. The slot cut out is to house filter intakes. This time I'm only trying to glue two or three sheets together at a time and I'm using heavier pavers to hold it together while the silicone cures.

1281480974.jpg


Here's a part of the form that was glued together and now I'm forming with the bread knife.

1281480923.jpg


More of the form coming together.

1281480942.jpg


I still have some gaps between the sheets but am hoping that I can fill those a bit when I get to painting.

The goal here, by the way, is to use silicone to glue the forms to the back of the tank and thereby secure them from floating up and looking rather stupid.

Speaking of painting, I got about this far before I decided to head over to a paint store and start figuring out what to use to coat these things. My original thinking was that I would find a water-based two part epoxy in a medium gray color. I can't use any petroleum-based solvent because it will eat the styrofoam and probably kill me in the process. Anyway, a couple of coats with some fillers and additional shaping should give me a nice look, right? Well, I go over to the Sherwin Williams store in Rockville and tell the guy behind the counter what I'm trying to do. Yeah right. Dumb look, "maybe you could ask the manager? He's outside but should be in in a minute." OK, I wait for a while and decide to check out the boat store next door where I find the two part epoxies on the shelf.

At this point I finally get smart and put a call in to an acquaintance, Rick Quintero, at the National Zoo to ask him what I should use. Rick has worked in all of the local aquariums and zoos and knows a thing or two about making exhibits. Now the painful part of the story.

He tells me there's no covering that will hold the styrofoam shapes together. They are so buoyant that the laminate sheets will pull apart even with a heavy coating of something really, really strong. He's tried, others have tried, and it just doesn't work. ****.

My choices now are to go back to the DryLock idea, or to use Ricks alternative: Another epoxy product from which the entire form is made, instead of just covering the styroform. This is the stuff that all the fake trees in the rainforest exhibit, and just about everything else at the National Zoo and Baltimore Aquarium that isn't real, is made. But it's expensive.

My decision? Go with what the pros use. I went home and threw away all the styrofoam stuff, except that which could be returned. The lesson? If you know someone who has the answers for you, call them before you start something! At least I didn't get any farther than I did.

So tonight I get to order about $200 worth of materials to start over. It'll be a few days before you see me again...
 

minifoot77

Members
whats the new material you are gonna use? i'm thinkin on doin my 120 but was leaning towards the drylock/ cement idea...
 

Andrew

Members
Ordered - 1 Sheet of plastic netting, 3'x50', 2 gallons of Polygem 307 FR Lite modeling epoxy. I'll get the masonry tint and walnut shells after the other stuff gets here... More in a few days.
 

chris_todd

Members
At the risk of sounding like a McDonald's commercial, I'm loving it! Well, I'm not loving that you've decided your original approach won't work, and that you're starting over, but I love the Golden Ratio approach (I'm a planted tank guy, so I get it), and I love that you're sharing your learning experience with us all, so that we may learn by watching.

But I'm wondering... I know I've seen many examples of the carved styrofoam approach to backgrounds on the web. Are they all just fibbing about the longevity of the approach? I have both styrofoam and two-part epoxy (as a result of other hobby projects not worth describing here), and had planned on doing something similar with the 110g I got from Tony, including using silicone to secure it to the tank - do you really think that approach is futile? I value your input and feedback...
 

Andrew

Members
For my application I really am pessimistic about it work. But the I had pieces planned that were 9 or more inches thick. Thinking on it after my conversation with Rick, I can see how the bouyancy of something that substantial would tear apart. But I was also staring at some very expensive epoxy paint and consider myself out of depth when it comes to materials. I figured if I was goig to be spending that mcuh anyway, I ought to go with what is known to work.

In another application with less substantial forms and leftover paints available, I might try it just to see what happens.
 
Subscribed.

I love these kind of discussions where everyone can learn...

If I understand correctly you were worried about the sheets seperating? Some builder supply places (not home stores like Lowes and HD) carry sheets of this foam up to 6" thick in 4'x8' sheets. one of the biggest benefits of the Styro is that it can be cut and sculpted with a hot wire gun. Most model railroad guys build a solid sheet of this up to 2 feet thick, then just carve their entire layout.

I used to do set/prop modeling a long time ago, I am very interested in seeing how this epoxy approach works.
 
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