It's really something you have to experiment with and much will depend on how the tank is aquascaped with driftwood, plants, and other decor. I have spray bars located everywhere, at both ends and in the middle. This way debris doesn't have to travel as far to get filtered out. I think the more intakes there are around the tank the more effective the filters will be. Usually you get what you pay for.įor water flow, setting up the intakes on one end of the tank and the spray bars on the other doesn't always work out as well as it sounds. Some are built with just spare parts that a long time fish keeper would have laying around. Many of these are built with easily to find supplies, like PVC pipe, rubbermaid storage containers, and pot scrubbers. There are some nice economical designs for these at other fish websites, such as. You can spend a fortune on them with electronics or you can go cheap and simple, yet just as effective. I've seen hundreds of ways to build wet/dry filters and sumps. Much matters on your own DIY and repair skills. If you build something you don't like, sometimes you end up spending more money and effort just trying to replace it. DIY projects aren't always the most economical though. If you're looking for a DIY filter project you could build a wet/dry trickle filter with a sump. I really don't know much about them though. The engineering that has went into the newest model canisters is amazing.įluidized bed filters usually aren't used in freshwater tanks. The only real drawback is that they are quite expensive, but IMO they are worth every penny spent. They are usually easy to set-up and are very reliable. There is absolutely nothing wrong with just using canister filters, like the FX5's. I also love seeing how other people set-up there loach tanks. They are a wonderful fish to design an aquarium around. It makes me very happy to see clown loaches getting treated like royalty. Oh, and I will be documenting the build as a journal here at LOL for more feedback & guidance.ġst congrats on the new tank. That will also buy me more time (to save some money for the equipments). It's going to be a long project, since I'm going to refinish the tank stand and probably have to polish the tank (acrylic). I'd love to hear personal experiences with a tank this size, especially when it comes to which equipments/setup to go - in terms of cost vs maintenance. Please kindly give me your feedback and advice. Please let me know if you know a better (and not too pricey) water pump. For some reason, it would always leaked on my no matter how I position it. My experience with running ViaAqua pumps externally (in-line) outside the tank had been a mixed between success (for UV) and failure (for FB). This directional flow is to match that of the powerhead/pumps placed inside the tank. The intention is to set all intakes (for filter and powerheads) on one side of the tank, and all exhaust on the other side.
I want to keep it simple and low maintenance if possible. I would love to have some sort of intake or exhaust manifold design, so that it would only have 1 (large) intake and 1 (large) exhaust. So I'll have to run the conventional ways of intake and exhaust pipes/hoses into the tank. The tank doesn't have any overflow or holes drilled. Please let me know if I could get away with soft-plumbing, since I'd be more comfortable with that.Ģx ViaAqua 3600 pumps, 1 for the UV, 1 for the FBĢx ViaAqua 3600 pumps + pre-filters + venturi, across the tank I know nothing about hard plumbing and I would really like to learn more about it since I believe this is the only viable option for running a tank this size. But life got better, and now I want to keep my promise to these fish and give them a proper place. I kept postponing this build due to life circumstances, in fact, at some point I almost gave them up. This tank is a long overdue tank for my clown loaches, 8 of them have been with me for the last 5 years inside a 55g (too small, I know).
I've never had to do hard plumbing on any of my previous builds. Or any direct feedback, are certainly appreciate as well. If you could point me to specific posts with similar topics, I'd appreciate that. This is my grail tank, 8x2x2 ft, acrylic - found locally (dream came true). I'm going to start a build on a 240g loach only tank. I tried my best searching for "large loach tank", "240gallon tank", "8ft tank" and only found a handful posts. First of all, my apologies for posting a new topic on a subject that's probably been discussed a thousand times here at LOL.