Geo tank setup

[ILLUSN]

G'day all, I'm after inspiration for setting up a geo tank, I'm looking to make it biotype correct.

I have 9 Altifrons Tocantins Aust var. 1 that I'll be housing (Matzilla's fish have grown up :D ).
I have heaps of pool filter sand for substrate, and some nice branching driftwood.
Filtration: aquaclear 110 with biomedia only(4L), a large sponge filter, possibly a fluid bed filter full of purigen run of an eheim compact 300 pump.

Tank size will be 4x2 (have stand) the height is negotiable (was thinking 16-20 inch tall).

I'd appreciate your comments on
tank height
suitable biotype correct species (tetras and plecos)
plants (if any)
thanks all.

[ILLUSN]

been tearing my hair out all night info on the web seems sparse, can any geo nut please tell me what part of the rio tocantins drainage altifrons come from?

so far the shortlist is rosy tetras, lemon tetras, glowlite tetras.

still no idea on a clean up fish (thinking a cory or small pleco sp)

on the plus side a beutiful 4x20x20 tank has been donated to the project :D

[taksan]

Middle to lower ..... widely dispersed. Concentrates particularity on bends and lagoons created by permanent backwaters. A gentle flow rather then stronger flow.

[ILLUSN]

legand mate!!!!!

[ILLUSN]

starting to come together.

still need to cleanup and re do the top sump, add the fbf purigen reactor, add sand to the fbf, reglue the corner strip, clue in the latex background, cut some lids (will have to use eggcreate for the filterside I think) and clean but everything seems like it will fit.

bit of luck it will be cycling by new year.

[ILLUSN]

sitting at work at 3:30 and relised all the bosses had gone home, so I thought I'd do the same. got back and made some headway on the tank, latex background is cut and fitted, top filter is clean and ready.

[ILLUSN]

next up was the glue the bloke at the LFS said "dont be tight" so I wasn't :) 3 tubes of silicone later i think i did a decent job :twisted:

also said i should have afew phonebooks on hand to weigh it down so it dries flat, unfortunately I dont own a land line or phone books, however I think i improvised pretty well.

I also took the extra time as an oppertunity to get started on the topfilter/denitrator.

[ILLUSN]

after a good clean and a treatment with bleach and HCl it came up like new, now i just have to wait for the glue to dry (2 days) before i can do anymore.

[Mattzilla]

looking really good mate

can't wait to see the finished product

cheers

[ILLUSN]

Thanks Matt, the rain has thrown a monkey wrench in the timing but I've moved the tank into the fishroom to finish the black silicone and start the setup. As the fish room has 100% humidity day and night it's going to take a week to dry so i wont have water in it till next weekend at the earliest.

[AHC]

Sounds exciting mate. Can't wait to see it. I know what you mean by the sparse info on the net. Geo's as a whole seems that way.

[LEG-IT]

awesome, any more updates?

[ILLUSN]

comming up watch this space later tonight.

[LEG-IT]

any updates? what driftwood will you be using?

[ILLUSN]

Yeah sorry slight mis calculation the light doesnt fit over the tank so photos are imposible, should have something fixed up by australia day.

i'll be using some mangrove root as drift wood just 2 pices or so i want to leave room for the fish to swim.

[LEG-IT]

updates 8-)

[ILLUSN]

still no light photos look crap

[LEG-IT]

:D maybe use flash for photos or put another light on the tank lol, i just want to see something lol, cant wait

[ILLUSN]

dont have a light that fits, matzilla's seen the new light just need more time to wire it up, flash wont help tank way too dark heres some photos of the new light in progress to tie you over.

basicly its a 60w 24 high power led light using 12 midday white (5000-6500k), 4 440-450nm blue LED\s and 8 660nm Red LED's
the blues and reds are optomised for the photosyntheic peaks (430-450nm and 650-660nm) the whites are there to make it all look nice, I'm hopefull that this sytem will give similar PAR reading to a 108w (2x54w) t5HO system with sylvania growlux tubes.

still waiting on the blues to arrive from the manufacturer but i should be able to get it running with just the red/whites and add the blues in later.

unfortunately it means that Matzillas Geos are living in the dark till i get it finished (or they move on the the western LFS's)

[Mattzilla]

looks SERIOUSLY awesome guys

can't wait to see it fired up

[LEG-IT]

WOW, thats good enough for me lol.
seems quite high tech lol, might get some aquarelle phillip bulbs, or get a whole new light unit (T5) and get some t5 aquarelle and gro lux, or some other form of full spectrum bulbs

Dont sell the geos :P im always here lol, getting 3x altifrons manaus last know specimens in the country that we know of, still trying to confirm if a member from qld still has his pair

[ILLUSN]

got a little bit more done on the light tonight, shock horror it works, damn its bright too I'm still seeing spots when i blink.

dont get too excited i still need to mount the fans and their driver, splice in the 440nm blues to balance the spectrum and get the perspex cut for the splashguard before i put the lot together.

[ILLUSN]

sorry for the lack of updates I've been busy working on the light. have a read here,

http://www.discusforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22222&highlight=

I've recycled some of the photos from this thread.

as soon as i get the lexan (or glass) to finish this build I'll post pics of the tank.