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My Odyssey- Building a 100G Tank into my Living Room Wall

56K views 241 replies 29 participants last post by  CITADELGRAD87 
#1 ·
I have been keeping Africans for about 8 years, always in a 50G acrylic with an Emperor 400 and an Eheim classic canister. To my, that was a perfect sized tank. In the office, I ran an Artica chiller because of no AC during summer Sundays and the 95 degree air temp.
Recently, when repiping our house after a plumbing issue, I decided to open a false wall and build in my 50g. For about 5 seconds, then I looked at the wall, and instantly decided to put a 5 foot tank in the wall, visible in the living room. The great thing for me is that the space inside the wall is so large (approximately 4 feet by 5.5 feet) , I will have a fish room, with water supply, a drain, and room for all my stuff to be together, food, chemicals, etc.
Even though I have run several threads on minor parts of this, now that we are getting serious, I thought it might be better for anyone who cares to use this as a reference to have it together in a properly titled thread.

Here's an establishing shot of the living room wall, this spot has been covered by the TV for years, the TV is going up on the opposite side of the fireplace.


So I started haunting Craig's List, I was at a bit of disadvantage, because I have just over 5 feet of wall space, and I did not want a 46 inch tank. I scored this ex saltwater tank, 100G Visio glass with a single overflow box, a stand which I have been using to work out plumbing issues, and will later sell, a small SW sump with a Mag 12, a skimmer that I am not sure if it works, and a ton of salt crust and general saltwater nastiness and stank. I plan to sell the stand, the sump, and the skimmer on CL when I get a chance. It cleaned up WAY better than I thought it would.


I decided early on to use a sump, and in cleaning up this one, even though it was smaller than I wanted at 24 gallons, I hooked it up and gave it a try. The problem I was having is that with the Mag 12, I needed to keep the pump totally submerged to keep it from sucking air, then, when I unplugged it, to check what would happen for a power outage, it came to within about an inch of the tank rim, too close for comfort, especially coming off some non fish tank water damage to our floor. During this phase, my wife came to look at it in the garage an immediately mentioned that the rushing whitewater noise was far too loud, so I built a Durso standpipe with about $5 worth of plumbing parts. It works as advertised, my only contribution to that system is the ability to tell you if you need to offset it, 2 45 degree elbows do not affect operation.

Back to Craigs list, where I found a 60G acrylic that was only $40, so I picked that up. I briefly flirted with a bucket setup, but for a variety of reasons abandoned that in favor of a built in bio ball chamber, my first work with acrylic. I made a single wall to hold the bio balls in, and added ¼ acrylic rod to hold up the egg crate and drip tray, and I made a top plate to attach the hose to the top of the sump, and filled it all with 10G bio balls, which sources tell me is good for 300G or so of water.
[/img]http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/k634/citadelgrad871/photobucket-17252-1317528063574.jpg[/img]





With the batting on the top of the drip tray, I get a nice, quite sprinkle of water over the entire bio chamber.
 
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#177 ·
prov356 said:
Water changes can, theoretically, reduce cycle time a bit by not overwhelming the bacteria attempting to get established, but I cycled dozens of tanks just fine without doing them before that suggestion was ever made to me. You'll see nitrite go off chart. You can do water changes to reduce, just be forewarned, keep them low. I've seen large water changes cause setbacks to the nitrite converters, so it's possible to shoot yourself in the foot. Personally, I seed tanks with a small bit of biomedia from another tank (you don't need much and best to be free of mulm) and cycle them in 7-10 days without bothering with water changes. I use water changes if I've got fish on the way and need to quickly finish things out, although I don't recommend putting yourself in that position. Do what I say, not as I do. :D
That's EXACTLY what I have done, I am 10 days in, seeded with some bio media, actually, i re seeded when I broke down that 10g and figured it could not hurt. I am anticipating 0.0 ammonia today, with nitrites to follow. Funny how every article says "you will think the process stalled" and almost every concern I see about fishless cycling is "I think I am stalled..."

Thanks for the input, I will not do a water change until nitrites drop to 0.0, and I will do partials to get nitrates down.
 
#178 ·
I post this in the firm beleif that I am not the first person to jump the gun in this fashion.

Today, my best LFS is having it's 1/3 off sale, better prices but mostly more and better fish.

I got a mating pair of Black Calvus, a blue peacock, and a couple haps, a tangerine tiger and a Taiwan reef, IIRC.

So now I am REALLY waiting for the cycle to complete, because the 50 looks pretty crowded, and I am planning on daily water changes in the 50 until the cycle is completed.

Photos









I am rapidly approaching completion of the first part of the cycle, so far I added amonia once, seeded with established media and tested the water, NOTHING else.

Almost 13 days in, it's at .25 or 0.0 on ammonia, about 2.0 nitrite.

I have NOT changed water or added ammonia.

My first fishless cycle, I am at a crossroads.
Any tips other than cool my jets?
 
#181 ·
Correct. Seeded the bio balls with established media, dosed a singel time Saturday, two weeks ago today.

No water changes, no re dosing for the entire time so far.

I hung an established Emperor filter pad in the overflow box, didn't touch the new filter, I just put a pad in the drain box of the tank, at about 10-12 days just because I had changed the pad in my other tank.

At 10-12 days, ammonia dropped rapidly to very low levels, .5-.25, then hung for two days. At that time, I tested nitrites for the first time, they were between 2 and 5.

Now, last night, 13 days in, ammonia definately zero, nitrites at about .5, the API kits are sometimes hard to distinguish.
 
#182 ·
thats not common,in my experiences, for ammonia to take that long to be converted,especially with established media,there maybe a couple reasons,low temps.,or low ph/kh,even high temps with lack of oxygen
I would dose the tank to no more than 2 ppm ammonia,wait 24 hrs,and verify that ammonia is being converted
 
#183 ·
I dosed to between 1 and 2 ppm this morning.

Based on what it took to get to 1-2 ppm, I believe my initial dose was high, above 4.0 ppm. I cut the re dose by more than 1/2, and it is still between 1 and 2. I wonder if the intial dose beign too high stalled/slowed it?

Just before dosing, Nitrites were .5. They were between 2 and 5 two days ago.

I will check again in the am.
 
#187 ·
Where you are right now is my issue with fishless cycling...

If you are "cycling" with fish, they are releasing ammonia gradually and not in an instantaneous 1-2 PPM dump (pardon the pun) to the biological system.

That fact that it happens gradually favors the colonization of the bacteria more so than the latter, IMO.

Just speculation on my part - no evidence, scientific study etc, and I could be completely wrong.

My bet is that you are close enough now that once you change some water and get the Amm & Nitrite values to zero - you could add SOME fish. Start with a small bio load and gradually build it up over the next 7-10 days while monitoring the parameters every 24 hrs and adjusting as necessary. All JMO though..
 
#188 ·
newforestrob said:
did ammonia go to zero?
I did not test, it was at zero yesterday before I dosed.

After your question, I tested, it's at .5 ppm.

API test kit. I get a shadow of a hint of ammonia from tap water, thinking it's chloramines. This result is darker than that, but no darker than .5 ppm. This tank was most definatley 0.0 yesterday at 8 am, and I have added no water, just ammonia to 1-2 ppm.
 
#191 ·
I would dose when ammonia reaches zero,and then wait 24 hrs before testing,if its zero I would dose every 2-3 days,only testing for nitrites,once nitrites are zero,test for nitrates,you will probably find they are high,I like to do small water changes(no more than 25%) on the off days of adding ammonia during the nitrite stage
 
#194 ·
Today's results, I dosed Saturday with between 1-2 ppm after ammonia zeroed, so 48 hours after a re dose:

Anmonia 0.0

Nitrite .5

Last night I retested PH, we are at 7.6, very close to where we started.

Nitrite has never read 0.0. It was dropping, and at .5, right before the re dose, so with a .5 nitrite, I dosed, then 2 days later nitrite is .5 again.
 
#197 ·
I picked up a KH kit on the way home, tap and aquarium water is identical, 89.5, 5 drops of the API kit solution.

I checked the nitrite, it's at .25, the lowest reading so far, 36 hours after the first re dose.

To re dose tonight, I dropped the ammonia back a bit, and tested 20 minutes after dosing confirming 1.0 ppm of ammonia as of 6 tonight.
 
#200 ·
Normally I'm a patient guy, see this thread for an example, but this is killing me. I am doing water changes in the 50 every 2 days, nitrates are fine with those, but the new fish are pretty big and I feel bad that they aren't in the new home.

It doesn't help that every single person who looks at the in wall says, "What, no fish yet?"
 
#201 ·
CITADELGRAD87 said:
Normally I'm a patient guy, see this thread for an example, but this is killing me. I am doing water changes in the 50 every 2 days, nitrates are fine with those, but the new fish are pretty big and I feel bad that they aren't in the new home.

It doesn't help that every single person who looks at the in wall says, "What, no fish yet?"
:lol: :lol: I went through the same thing that you are going through. Everyone was giving me a hard time because I had it set up with water in it for about a month before I put fish in. It took a while for the Ammonia and Nitrites to drop to zero. I didn't do a water change until the nitrites dropped to zero and dosed the Ammonia up to 3-5 PPM daily.
 
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