BryceM

As many of you know, I've been wanting to do a big tank for many years now. I've pestered many of you endlessly about ideas and finally things are starting to come together. This thread will hopefully be a running journal of the adventure, misadventures, algae attacks, etc, etc.

We recently moved to Idaho from Massachusetts and went through all the pains of moving fish and plants. So far, 24 or 25 fish made it and the plants seem like they'll eventually recover. Learning the new water chemistry is going to be interesting. I'm going from New England water with a GH of 3 and a KH <1 to well water with a GH of 21! and KH of 5.

We moved into a bigger house with a perfect space for a big tank in the basement. It will be directly on a concrete floor, with plumbing available in the utility room right behind the family room. I'll be pulling up some carpet to create a tile area since I've learned my lessons about splashing on the carpet. I need to do a little plumbing to bypass the water softener and verify that the floor drain will handle 100 gallons at a time, but it looks like it will work out ok.

I ordered the tank a week ago from "The Aquarium" in Salt Lake City. I spent hours looking for an Oceanic tank, but had to settle for an All-Glass 180 due to availability issues. To cover up the trim, "The Aquarium" has a cabinet maker who is putting together a custom stand and hood that should match the cabinets in the house.

The tank will be 72"x24"x24". I'm still bouncing between using 150W metal halide HQIs versus AH-Supply's 55W kits with 9,325K and 6,500K bulbs. I might settle on CF's due to the cost and my lack of experience with HQI's.

For filtration I'm trying to decide between 2 Eheim 2128 thermofilters, or a single Eheim Pro III (rated for up to 320 gallons). The single Eheim Pro III would probably be cheaper, but wouldn't be as redundant. I'm starting to realize that expenses scale up very quickly with big tanks, so trying to contain costs is probably pointless, but it deserves at least a some consideration.

I'll probably use an additional in-line pump to provide some extra circulation through a spraybar and to run a 3" PVC CO2 reactor and UV if I ever need it. I'm still trying to decide between a Milwaukee and a Pinpoint CO2 controller.

Fish will be a big school of congo tetras, a school of rummies, a school of corries, some otos, maybe some shrimp if the congoes will leave them alone, a few rams, and maybe a few threadfin 'bows or marble hatchetfish.

Substrate will be Soilmaster Select - Charcoal, since I happen to have 200 lbs of it in my garage. Plants will be mostly slow growing species including Crinium calamistratum, Blyxa auberti, Blyxa japonicum, various Crypts, Cyperus, Anubias, Lobelias, Lysimachia, Java fern, hopefully an HC foreground, and a few strategic clumps of stemmies to round it out and consume all my free time. It will be interesting to see what will survive in this hard water.

I guess I need to get a call into Manzanita to see what they can come up with for wood. I'd like to soak it for a while before it goes in the tank.

Pictures will follow as soon as the tank and cabinet are done. I'll show some of the plumbing and tile work so you can laugh and cry along with me.

Also, any advice regarding equipment would be appreciated. Mistakes at this scale can be costly.........