Found a 180g acrylic tank on craigslist and now i can finally get back into fishkeeping!

DIY 1.5" PVC overflows

Beginning of the wet/dry

Just getting started!

lookin like a pretty sweet setup so far mike. figure out what ur keeping for sure yet? i'd say go with the rays you've been talkin about forever lol.

I plan on using this as a growout tank for the next 2 years for the following stock list(after about 2-3 years, most of these fish will outgrow this tank, then it will be time to upgrade): 1x silver arowana, 1-2 florida/spotted gars, 1-3 lima shovelnose or 1 jurenese catfish, 1-3 motoro rays, maybe an sp peru ray, and several bichirs of various sorts (i like em all!)

That looks like a nice tank, are the dimensions different from a standard 72x24x24 180g? it looks wider to me.

Thanks!  It's a standard 72x24x24.  I wish it would wider, I wouldn't have to upgrade as soon! 

Picked it up used from a gentleman in Frankenmuth who took really good care of it.  It has the standard wear and tear light small scratches from gravel and decorations, but no gouges, large/deep scratches, or defects. 

It came with a custom black acrylic canopy.  I'll have pics of that with the next update.

sweet.  thanks for sharing your build.   looks great!

ditch the limas and go with the jurense for sure. the limas will be fish food real quick other wise. sounds like and awesome, yet somewhat familiar , stock list.

Haha! Yeah, pretty much the same I had in my 90 before I had to get rid of it (I did'nt want to get rid of it, so I figured I'll pick up where I left off, and add those rays I talked about forever )  I would like to put a clown knife in there too, but not sure, my last one got along well enough with the rest, but I didn't hve the chance for him to get big enough to really tell how it'll work out in the end. 

Why do you say the limas will become chow?  They get large enough.  Are they very slow growers?  What if I do the limas AND the jur?!

limas max out at around 2'and in my experiences in the past it takes them a good long time to get that large if they ever do ( they're easily stunted). so by the time a lot of your fish are hitting 2'-2.5' the limas would just be getting 12-15".

Got some more work done on getting the tank ready.  Most of the PVC is cemented.  The ceramic tile that is going in the tank as "substrate" is all cut and ready to go.  Decided to go with a spraybar type design for the return to avoid having too much flow/current in the tank from a overpowered return.  Tested out the overflows and the wet/dry.  Everything went great!.  At the rate that the pump is going with the head on it, its pumping just under 1700 gph, which gives me about an 8-9x turnover rate.  There's plenty more to be done before I put in it's permanent location, but I'm hoping to have it done and ready this week. 

And 300 holes later..... a drip plate!

looks good is the pvc for a closed loop?

Yeah, pretty much.  The return runs the entire length between both overflows.  It has 2 lines of holes drilled in it and it setup like a spraybar, but is below the water level.  One of the lines of holes points directly down, and the other at a slight angle towards the front of the tank.  It creates enough of a current/flow to keep all the water in the tank in constant motion (only 2 small dead spots) without it being too strong for fish from low current locations.  I "tested" this with all the flakes of acrylic left over from routing the access holes in the top to allow the 1.5" PVC to fit though.  I figured I was going to test out the filtration anyway, so why not leave the plastic flecks in there, and let it filter them out.  Kinda how I've seen on Discovery when they use oatmeal in a fish tank to show water currents.  There was A LOT of acrylic flecks in the tank at first, basicly looked like a white cloud.  I put a piece of filter pad in the wet/dry, and let it run.  After 3 hrs the tank was 100% clear.  Turned out to be a great way to "clean" the tank out!

Bad pic of the acrylic flecks right after routing the access holes in the empty tank:

sweet like that idea as im not to crazy about drilling all those holes cant wait to see it full

Looks nice. That sure is a colorful filter.  I see you're getting a tigrinus cat, they are a really nice catfish not too big and not too small. We had one for several years.

I don't mean to hi-jack but I like the overflows you made. I'd like to do something like this on a smaller scale for a 29 gallon for my wife's Sea Horses. Would it be possible to see yours in action sometime?

haxjester said :

And 300 holes later...

DID YOU DRILL IN THE SHADE?????????

Great looking build!

Really nice livestock ideas!

AJ :)