Redoing Tank.

[Blaze]

Many of you know that I change Sunnys tank around fairly often just to keep it exciting for both Sunny and human.
I have my own chiller ( I hate you Australian weather ), two internal filters and a light for Sunnys very high and very wide 3 foot Aquarium.
At the moment it has some large black rocks, white play sand, a big terracotta pot (thats now too small for all 12 inches of Sunny) a piece of driftwood that I found myself and 6 plants I have collected over a year consistiing all different types of anubia and java fern in terracotta pots and one plant thats slowly rooting itself into the driftwood that the name slips my mind.

What I want to change is I want to get rid of the black rocks and get perhaps two BIG grey rocks. I want to get the plants out of the pots as I think the pots are quite ugly.I also need ot get rid of the pot at Sunny every night when the light is on curls himself up in there and it looks squishy.

I ambuying some slate and making a more natural looking hide and buying some more plants including elodea to hide the filters and other misc plants. I need to add some more sand because god knows where the hell it all disappears to!?

I will post pictures once I am done

 

[siona]

wow sounds amazing - can't wait to see pics!

 

[Blaze]

Thanks Siana.

Well today I managed to get some aquarium silicon, some more plants including wysteria, unknown and native elodea. I also got some new chiller piping and a brand new filter a Tank Maid. I am still yet to get the slate but that can be done tomorrow. The silicon takes 7 days to cure for aquariums so it'll take a while. Heres a photo log of the 4 hours I spent on the tank so far.

This is what the tank looked like before:

One unhappy Axolotl (ps I know he looks a tad underweight but if I feed him anymore than I am already feeding him he throws it back up) :

All my plants including new ones and old ones in a bucket of water:

The tank without the plants:

The tank with nothing:

The sand stirred and the filters removed:

The piping cut and in comparison to the old piping (it's the same brand, it's just to show how dirty it gets) :

This is the new filter, it's neater than having two:

The filter and chiller were attached with the piping and plugged in and the light was plugged in too:

The output of the filter was way to strong for my tank and was blowing the sand around so I put a piece of filter sponge over it to reduce the current. It worked really well and isn't too ugly:

The tank at the moment. I want to wait for it to settle some more before I start adding plants and arranging things:

I will be tying the plants to a smaller rock to weigh them down and will cover the rock under the sand. I may do this tonight or tomorrow.

Sunny is still in the esky feeling nice and cool

 

[ax]

Looking good! : ) cant wait to see the end result - if you extend the piping from the filter and drill/cut holes in it you could use it as a spray bar rather than having to clog up the end...Might make the filter last longer. Cute axie btw

 

[Blaze]

I hate spray bars, they shoot down and still hit the sand, I already tried it :\
This way he has basically no water movement
Thanks heaps though

 

[carsona246]

how fast is your filter rated for? I ask because I have a diy spray bar that is really ugly and if your filter has the same gph as mine I might just try your way.

 

[Blaze]

My filter is rated for up to 100L and my tank is 200L but it filters 1000L every day I think so it's pretty strong. I am just testing this out at the moment because at the moment my filter is pushing water up a pipe, into the chiller then out a big long pipe then through the sponge so it's doing a fair bit of work. I'll let you know

Last night I put the plants in and put Sunny back in and this morning one plant has come lose and one elodea has come out of the ground. Not bad considering the amount of swimming the silly little thing does. Will post pics soon.

 

[Blaze]

Heres the plants. I want to spread out the ones in the right hand corner because they look really squished. The native Elodea on the left will stay there and the slate hide will site diagonally in that corner with the two java ferns on each side of the hide.

 

[The Banana]

It looks lovely!
I'm sure Sunny adores you, and will love his new home.

I love how you wrote his name on the tank! So cute.

 

[Blaze]

He adores me enough to spend a few hours every night staring at me from his tank haha.
I found my old window art. It's sort of like a glue that sticks to plastic but comes off and can be transfered to other windows so I did his name and put it on the tank
He also had a piece of cardboard I cut out of a box that said KEEP ME COOL and another that was from a box of Sunny Boys which he was named after

 

[ax]

haha awesome didn't notice the writing until you pointed it out
Tank looks great by the way

 

[Blaze]

Thanks Ax

 

[Blaze]

Finally got the slate today! The tank is clear once again and the plants are thriving. I have to wait a week for thr silicon to be completely safe then i'll put the hide in.

 

[carsona246]

I'm jealous, I've been looking for reasonably priced slate for forever.

 

[Blaze]

Wow really? It was $9.35 for 5 really nice pieces but in saying that it's the ONLY place that sells slate in my area so slate is very hard to find. Sunny seems to be liking his new setup so far

 

[Morrison]

Looks great! I love the light sand

 

[Blaze]

Thanks Morrison, it's very white isn't it!

 

[Blaze]

Sorry this has taken so long guys!
Sorry about the pictures, they arn't blurry just the tank condenses 10 cups of water a day so even if I wipe the tank it's already condensing in under 10 seconds!

 

[siona]

love it! That little platform you made is a great idea Makes my PVC pipe look a little on the drab side >_> Thanks for all the photos

 

[Blaze]

It's actually a hide I made because he was too big for his pot (he is 10 1/2 inches long now) and it enables him to get his head under and his body can stick out. PVC pipes are practical, this is just to please the eye

Thanks