My new 800g+ pentagon FOWLR tank

[flagg37]

What’s up with the overflows that you’re not fully impressed with?

 

[srcleary]

Wait… this tank of water is going to have FISH, TOO?!?!

Lol! Loving it!

Well… no fish… no ich! LOL

I’ve been collecting for about 9 months. Have a half dozen temp and QT tanks. It’s been good experience and I’ve learned a lot.

had ich twice. From fish that were supposed to be ich free.

Now I have to lay out the plan of who to put in first. I have some smaller angels I would like to put in first to give them a chance to find hiding places before the larger fish come. Or I may start with the dragon wrasses as they are pretty hardy.

looking forward to it !!!!

thanks for following.

 

[srcleary]

What’s up with the overflows that you’re not fully impressed with?

They are a 3” pvc pipe connected to a box about 5” x 5”. The intake is a 1.5” and the return is a 3/4”.

1. The box is formed from some type of plastic. It’s thin and overflow and return are not straight because of the contour of the plastic. A higher quality and thicker material should have been used.

2. The holes are drilled exactly opposite each other. When you fit the bulkheads and the elbows they hit each other. I had to cut down the bulkheads and the elbows quite a bit to get them to fit.

3. You cannot fit a 1.5” and 3/4” PVC in the 3” pipe. You have to use tubing and heat it up to get it to fit.

I don’t have recommendations to make it better as I just focused on trying to get these fitted. But I would try to not use them again.

there should be a market for a properly engineered tower overflow. Seems to make sense and IMO looks better than an Island overflow if you want to have specific aquascapes. when I considered an island it had to be fairly large so the drilled holes were not to close together. The towers certainly gave me more flexibility.

on a positive side they did blend in well (after we covered them with rocks and sand) and if the overflows work as planned it will be pretty sweet!

 

[rsp919]

Wow Steve, what an EPIC build. I read you buy most of your fish from DNA. Not sure if you know him or not but I would also recommend Rodney with Exotic Fish N Tanks. He is in Plano and gets some of the harder to find fish. Most are show size.

One other thing I noticed on your plumbing you might want think about. Do you have a valve before your uv sterilizer? I couldn't see one and was thinking changing the bulbs could be a nightmare.

Congrats with the build, can't wait to see it stocked with swimmers!

 

[rsp919]

oops, double post

 

[srcleary]

Wow Steve, what an EPIC build. I read you buy most of your fish from DNA. Not sure if you know him or not but I would also recommend Rodney with Exotic Fish N Tanks. He is in Plano and gets some of the harder to find fish. Most are show size.

One other thing I noticed on your plumbing you might want think about. Do you have a valve before your uv sterilizer? I couldn't see one and was thinking changing the bulbs could be a nightmare.

Congrats with the build, can't wait to see it stocked with swimmers!

Thanks for following. Yes I do have valves to remove the UV Sterilizer. It is a pain to remove. I have to remove the top sections to be able to remove it and access the bulbs. It is a VERY tight fit. I also installed an Apex Flow Meter to monitor and adjust the flow.

I buy quite a bit from DNA. Not as many fish from the store though. I usually hear about customer tank tear downs and have purchased some fish that way. They have also ordered a number of fish for me including my three banana eels!

I purchased some harder to find fish from Lee at School of Fish. They have some on hold for me now that they are eager for me to pick up! Can't blame them.

I think I have been to Exotic Fish N Tanks. But it was early on and I probably didn't even know much about the fish species. LOL. I'll check them out again.

 

[rsp919]

Cool, sounds like you got a plan.

I have only been to School Of Fish once (I'm in East tx) and he had an awesome selection. Prices were a little steep but the fact you could walk in and see at least a dozen species no other shops would keep in stock was worth it.

Rodney is super nice guy. He is a smaller shop but does have some nice fish, especially if your looking for larger show size. Ie, he has a 12.5 in porcupine puffer in stock now. His prices had to go up once he moved into a commercial building but still very fair.

 

[srcleary]

First Fish in Tank!!!

After surviving the ice storm in Dallas I managed to work on the tank this past weekend. Hooked up the heaters, got the water to temp, added a bunch of pre-seeded bio media and added the first phase of fish!

It was honestly more satisfying than I even thought it would be. I sometimes recruit my adult son to help me on the weekends. He always agrees, but never really enjoys it. Well this weekend he was like "This is awesome! Let's move more fish!"

I added ten fish but all but two a rather small. 3" - 3.5". This will give them a chance to get used to the tank before my bigger fish go in and help increase the bacteria for the bio load. I've run most of the wiring through wore channels but have a bit more to go. I have a guy from Dallas North Aquarium coming Wednesday to begin setting up the Apex. I also have to add trim to cover the plywood and foam edges between the tank and stand.

It's been a bit over a year since I made my first post on the build thread. it's been quite a journey to get to this point. But everyone in the office is loving it. However they may be looking at the tank too much and not doing their work! LOL

I was worried about the busy aquascape but I am now loving it. When it reflects on the glass it almost looks like one of those endless mirrors. The fish hang out mostly in the front when they see me or others as they are pretty much used to us and looking for food. The fish are enjoying all the swim-throughs and MUCH calmer than they were in the holding tanks.

I was also worried about the goldflake angels. I have three and had to keep them separated. But in the big tank they are hanging out together and not fighting. Fingers crossed!

I've add...

Gem Tang
Dragon Wrasse
Catalufa - He was chasing the smaller fish at first but realized he is too slow.
Goldflake Angels (3)
Blueline Angel
Clown Trigger
Cleaner Wrasse - that has somehow survived for a while
Banana Eel (I didn't want to move him yet but his two tank mates (also banana eels) were really beating him up.

I've added some pics. Hope to have the rest of the wiring all cleaned up in the next two weeks and the ATO working. If all goes well I'll add a few more fish (I have a couple more smaller ones) this weekend. The fish look so small in the tank you can't even see them in the wider picture.

 

[Jonathan Adams]

Congrats beautifully done and can’t wait to see more!

 

[JumboShrimp]

3 Goldflakes! Wow… Three thumbs-up!

 

[CC_N]

love the catalufa and the eels ! catalufas aren't as popular here and bananas are almost absent(yeah...special orders =)) very cool idea but i feel a yellow light will fit more...everything especially that catalufa's color is kind of washed out(may be stress)

 

[srcleary]

love the catalufa and the eels ! catalufas aren't as popular here and bananas are almost absent(yeah...special orders =)) very cool idea but i feel a yellow light will fit more...everything especially that catalufa's color is kind of washed out(may be stress)

Thanks! Yeah the Catalufa was a bit stressed. He has good color. He always comes straight at my phone when I am taking a picture. I am not sure if he sees his own reflection or it is just the shiny iPhone.

From what I understand they prefer low light. We have lots of ledges and lower light areas n the tank. We configured the lights with 4 in the front and only one in the back where there is also lots of rock aquascape. We haven't dialed in the lighting yet. We set it on the default Kessil Tuna Blue. I tried to take some of the blue out with photoshop.

The Catalufa tends to hover all over the tank. And he is still recovering from a really bad pop eye. He scratched it on some egg crate I had in his temp tank.

When he was first offered to me I was like huh? But he is really unique and people always comment when they see him. He thinks he is king of the tank but too slow to hurt anyone. LOL

Steve

 

[srcleary]

3 Goldflakes! Wow… Three thumbs-up!

Thanks. I was really worried they would do well together. I had two of them in a smaller tank and they fought. And they fought when I first moved them to the large tank. But they stopped after a few hours.

The challenge is the two larger ones are the same size and neither will back down. The third is about an inch smaller (and one of my favorite fish!) and the other two don't even give him notice. And while the two larger ones will challenge each other, they tend to stick together in the tank. I swear they are siblings! Actually I usually see all three together.

I really like the Goldflakes. I tried my hands at multiple Scribbled twice and failed both times. And I had a large male on hold but he started harassing the other fish that were in with him. I finally gave up on Scribbled and went for the Goldflakes. I really like them. They always come up to the glass and my small one survived a bad battle with ich! I highly recommend them but I know they are also hard to get and a bit $$$.

Steve

 

[Mhamilton0911]

UPDATE: This past week we have been working on the columns. We start with a black PVC core and add coarse sand to the outside. We then add a layer of fine sand and cut a 4" x 4" Marco rock caps for the top and bottom. We drilled a 2" hole in the Marco rock so the entire column is hollow. It will lay on the sand (black) for the eels. Lastly I added some corner pieces of Marco rock to give it more of an ancient column look.

We are using the technic where we apply layers of GlueMaster super glue , then sand, more glue, more sand etc. It works great. The sand and glue literally create a mortar like substance that gets hard as a rock (pun intended ). I use the "heavy" glue for the coarse sand and the "thin" glue for the fine sand.

I've attached a few images here.

I have some fine tuning to do with the column and then have to make many more to create our design. The first four columns will lay on the surface of the sand. Two will be broken apart and two will be whole to create the 30" cave. The next four will create a structure of sorts for the ends of the tank. I am playing around with the idea of including a tomb or sorts between the columns for a fish hideout (for the smaller fish).

This next week I hope to begin the wall structure. I will do some testing this evening.

Steve

These columns look amazing. Great to see an idea come to life. Following along on this epic build!

 

[srcleary]

These columns look amazing. Great to see an idea come to life. Following along on this epic build!

Thanks for following!

 

[dca22anderson]

That looks amazing!! Well done Steve!!

 

[polyppal]

watching - very cool unique design going on here!

 

[srcleary]

TANK IS CYCLED!

It's been about 17 days since I added the first fish and I have added more since. Mostly small except for a large Black Tang. I also added more seeded bio-media from my other tanks. My plan was to have an "instant" or "skip" cycle by using media from my other holding tanks.

A few months ago I purchased a 7 gallon bucket of Pond Matrix and placed it in different tanks and one main tank (125g) that I was feeding heavy. From what I had read on this forum I believed it would work. Of course there was also those who were not a fan of an "instant" cycle. I also did not want to buy bottle bacteria, I just wanted to seed my own.

I am happy to report that from the start the Ammonia and Nitrites have been zero. Of course I was checking the Nitrates as proof of a complete cycle. For the first two weeks they were also zero. But when I checked today I had Ntrates! Instant cycle!

I know it is a new tank that has to mature but I am excited to see the cycle and will start small water changes. I have a couple plans for dealing with Nitrates but will have to see how it goes over time.

I have lots of wires and such to tidy up and still have my Apex to get fully online. And I ordered a Teco 9000 Chiller from my LFS. I also started manually dosing Alk, Calcium and Mag for Coralline Algae growth. I only fought the brown diatoms for a week or so. They are mostly gone.

Fish I have added recently are...

Large Black Tang
Purple Tang
Maculiceps Tang (one of my favorites)
Pair of Tahitian Yellow Hawks
Formosa Tang

I also removed the Catalufa as he was hitting his eye on the sharp rock which caused all type of problems. I actually think he is blind now. He is in a hospital tank healing. I do miss seeing him in the big tank. :-(

I've attached some pics and sorry the lighting wasn't great as they were dimming down for the evening.

Thanks for following along!

Steve

 

[dca22anderson]

Did you get your new Eel? We need some pics of that bad boy!!

 

[srcleary]

Did you get your new Eel? We need some pics of that bad boy!!

I have not picked him up yet. But I suspect the store wants me to soon. I saw him on Saturday and he ate 8 frozen fish about 2+" each! It's going to cost me an arm and a leg just to feed him. Between him and my 24" Hawaiian Dragon they will be eating more jumbo shrimp they I do!

The Hawaiian Dragon is in a 125 with two triggers currently. A Niger with one eye but great streamers and the Golden Heart I just picked up. He's finally settled in. But the tank is just too small. So I picked up a used 300g 8' long tank. I just got it back to the office and cleaned it up. It's going to replace the 125g that is in my warehouse. (See pic) But I am waiting on Planet Aquarium to build me a larger sump and I want to add a closed loop system to the new 300g.

I also have a small Brazilian dragon on hold. He's really cool! I am not sure which tank I am going to put him in. I may put him in with my pair of Bananas. But I decided not to put any eel in the 800g display. I have too many Anthias and small angels in there. Plus I already have a Darwin Jawfish I have to feed with tongs like an eel as he won't leave his home more than a 8" or so. So I hand feed him some pieces of shrimp when I can get them past the angels and triggers. He's is amazingly cool. He builds an incredibly elaborate home with pieces of Marco ruble and clam shells. I'll try to get a good picture of him.

Thanks for checking in! - Steve