• Our Discus Aquarium Project •

[Twize]

Hello everyone,
I'm new to this forum but have enjoyed reading a lot of useful information on this site already. My wife and I are restarting our Aquarium project after putting it on standby last year due to a few bumps in the road that came our way. Anyway, time to get started...

Our orginal plans for this tank was to be a display of SW Fish and Coral. To make a long story short, this was no longer going to be the plan and we have decided to make this a Planted Discus tank.

Here's some pix of our 770-gallon Aquarium Setup so far.
(120"l x 36"w x 48"h)

The location before the teardown:
http://i.pbase.com/o4/10/18110/1/67007638.h8zk6Ktc.beforewall2.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/o4/10/18110/1/67009518.1aSGkqWi.beforewall3.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/o4/10/18110/1/67009555.PcPhrcuZ.beforewall4.jpg

Almost completed, I need to construct the woodword that will frame around the front of the tank:
http://i.pbase.com/o4/10/18110/1/67007628.dmHQQLKg.770TankPug.jpg


http://i.pbase.com/o4/10/18110/1/67010534.43tXfCFq.770Tank5.jpg

The maintenance room & 280-gallon sump (backside):
http://i.pbase.com/o4/10/18110/1/67011098.11o73Q4C.770Tank_bak6.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/o4/10/18110/1/67090303.RcOoZxse.770Tank_bak7.jpg


Still have a lot to do so I will post updates as this progresses.
Thanks

[Dee]

Hiya Twize,

WHAO :shock: :shock: :shock: Now that's an impressive rig you have in the works there mate !

Please be sure to keep us all updated with pics, would love to see the final set up. Well done and best of luck with it :D

Cheers,

Dee :D

[silkieboy]

WOAH.. That's very impressive :P

Great job Twize !!

Best of luck with it.

[Nathan]

wow thats unbelievable, cant wait to see how it goes!!! good luck an welcome to the forum! :D

[aquartos]

That is a JAW dropper!! Cant wait to see it when you have it all done...

[nicholas76]

U my friend are a legend :!: :!: :!:

[Twize]

Whew! Wife and I just got back from hiking up north this afternoon so were pretty tired. I think we got a pretty nice "diamond in the rough" for the center-piece. I also picked some extra long branch pieces in case I get an idea as i try an sculpt this thing. I'll be giving it a shape-down with my saw and dremel until i'm satisfied, but overall, i'm pretty happy in what we found. Hopefully i'll get to pressure spray it clean early this week.

As It stands "raw", it's about 6.5'-7' at the tallest point and about 3.5'-4' wide a t the base. I'll have to be a careful surgeon as I discect it to fit in the tank then place together again.

As seen in the first shot, my wife is a school teacher so she picked up a lot of loose piece for her students. I'm not exactly sure what kind of art craft she's preparing, but she was pretty excited hunting these pieces down. ;)

http://i.pbase.com/o5/10/18110/1/67456990.x7pq9ehI.Driftwood1.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/o5/10/18110/1/67456998.RSfxnEJf.Driftwood2.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/o5/10/18110/1/67457066.PrI7vJQE.Driftwood3.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/o5/10/18110/1/67457103.Mqzc9hrX.Driftwood4.jpg

Thanks

[dotcomguy]

thanks for that mate!! but could you please hurry up bcoz i can't wait to see your beautiful set up :wink: :D

[Merrilyn]

Stunning centre piece. That driftwood is going to look wonderful in your tank.

A very warm welcome to the forum.

What part of the world are you from?

Looking forward to seeing more pictures as the tank progresses. :P

[nicholas76]

ooooooooooh aaaaaaaaaaaah


are you going to have a over hanging branches as well as that lovely center piece?

[DR.V]

What a MAD setup !!!

Looks like you're from the US ?

Keep us posted, thanks for sharing with us.

[para]

WOoooooooooooWW

Looking at the photo section just make me more depress.

Yep from US as you can see the first photo from the second lots have a tiny US flag on the right (Grandma house).

Cheers

[Kaiser]

impressive!

[Ben]

Thats truly stunning!!!!

what a grand piece of wood aswell!

Keep us all posted for sure!!

Welcome to the forum,
regards
Ben

[Robdog]

That looks like genuine Nth American log-jam driftwood, not to mention the nice pickup with suicide rear doors.

Or it could be a Mazda Bravo but then who would really buy a Mazda Bravo :roll:

Welcome to the forum mate. I wish you'd started this project months ago so we could see the finished product already.

Can't wait to see some more pics

[nicholas76]

any updates by chance??

[Twize]

Hi everyone, sorry it's been awhile since I posted any updates. Been pretty hecktic at work and caught a flu-bug going around last week.
From this weekend, here are a few pix of the driftwood finally in the tank. Boy this thing was pretty hardheaded in working with, but we finally got it home.

Finally trimmed it down. Had to cut quite a bit to make her fit. We attempted our best jinga skills friday to see if it would fit...NOT! So off to cutting it in half it had to be. I was worried that the saw marks would be apparant an "unatural". So I thought first cuting 75% of the backside then prying/forcing the split to the front would creat a look more "natural". I first drilled a 3/8" hole all the way through the main trunk where I would re-attach it again in the tank using a stainless steel rod/washer and locking bolts.

http://i.pbase.com/o5/10/18110/1/68224348.84cOoY2Z.DriftwoodCutNPlace1.jpg

* Drill completed
http://i.pbase.com/o5/10/18110/1/68224360.ZD0I3TIq.DriftwoodCutNPlace2.jpg

* Sawing the beast in half... This was not fun, i'm going to be extra sore tommorrow!
http://i.pbase.com/o5/10/18110/1/68224379.cRvQPCRT.DriftwoodCutNPlace3.jpg

* Ta-da!
http://i.pbase.com/o5/10/18110/1/68224390.fn02pMWu.DriftwoodCutNPlace4.jpg

* Even cut in half, it still feels like a ton!
http://i.pbase.com/o5/10/18110/1/68224402.wePfZDdQ.DriftwoodCutNPlace5.jpg

* Brother-n-law giving me a very much needed hand.
http://i.pbase.com/o5/10/18110/1/68224481.4ie3xXrk.DriftwoodCutNPlace6.jpg

* Overall pretty happy with how it turned out. A lot of potential to compliment the planting/aquascaping... we'll see.
http://i.pbase.com/o5/10/18110/1/68224504.B3Ddb8xa.DriftwoodCutNPlace7.jpg

* Another angle
http://i.pbase.com/o5/10/18110/1/68224519.B6KVnSl9.DriftwoodCutNPlace8.jpg

I'm still waiting for my order of a few of my wood trim and wood corbel pieces to come in. so hopefully will have some updates soon on how this assembly and stain finish goes.

Thanks.

[nicholas76]

OMG
I CANT SEE THE PICS HELP!!!

[samir]

lucky you didnt see them i nearly fell off my chair :shock: :shock: :shock:
i cant see them down maybe the linked add is down, oh wait the're back. thats one big tank :shock: :shock: :shock: how thick is the glass ???

[marg]

Wow, that is absolutely unreal - I am truly envious!!

Can't wait to see it planted out and some Discus in it, it's going to be mind blowing :D .

What sort of Filtration setup will you be using?

marg.

[Mulisha]

Jee!!

What can i say it's very nice indeed i wish someday i could do something like that 8-) 8-)

Marg i think it's going to have a sump i saw it under the tank in a pic above i think..

I really like it LOL 8-)

[Mattzilla]

that is just awesome...keep the pics coming and well done

[shewey]

What an awesome project!! Any tank that you can stand in to place your driftwood is pretty big in my opinion. :-)

Looking forward to seeing the progress!!!!!!!

Mark.

[Robdog]

That's one big piece of driftwood and it doesn't look that big in the tank!

Awesome idea.

[dotcomguy]

c'mon Twize we can't wait to see it.... :wink: :blob

[Twize]

Thx everyone!


....how thick is the glass ???

Hi Samir, The plexi is 1.25 inches thick all around

[k0b0i]

What happened with the photos on this post?

can't see no pictures.. :cry:

how's the project going anyways twize? keep those pics coming and us updated!

[fish_r]

that is one serious piece of work :shock: only something i could dream of :)
cant wait to c it full....

[nicholas76]

ok now im going mad

i cant see the pics what could possibly be the reason

[wind54]

yes indeed nick, i cant see anything either!

[fish_r]

pics are working fine :)
maybe ur browser choice ? with firefox i can see em

[enigmatic]

pics are working fine :)
maybe ur browser choice ? with firefox i can see em

No - broken for me too and I'm using Firefox.

Odd thing is, the image is there if you take the image URL and view it in another tab/window.

Strange - I've seen these images in this thread before.

[fish_r]

screenshot 29-10-06 8.32pm

[nicholas76]

im using internet explorer 7


ill have this examined..

fishr i do see your post pics mate thanks

[enigmatic]

Something odd going on. I did a view image in a new tab then refreshed the forum page and saw the image within that page.

Did the same with the second image but didn't work this time - just showed the place holder with the dimensions of the image.

Have looked at this with the Safari activity window and this shows the images are forbidden so something is blocking :?:

[enigmatic]

Was meant to have an image in the last post - 2nd attempt

[enigmatic]

screenshot 29-10-06 8.32pm

I can see this too but then this was uploaded to the server - it's not a link to an external host.

Also, I've tried this in Firefox, Firefox 2.0 and Safari on a Mac and the IE 6 on XP and IE 6 on 2000 and in all cases, the images aren't there.

[Proteus]

Everything is there...

I have tried in both IE and FireFox, both perfect...

I did a ping test on the hosting server and it is perfect...

must be something with a specifc ISP or region

[Proteus]

test...


http://i.pbase.com/o4/10/18110/1/67007628.dmHQQLKg.770TankPug.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/o4/10/18110/1/67007628.dmHQQLKg.770TankPug.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/o4/10/18110/1/67007628.dmHQQLKg.770TankPug.jpg

[SandyLynne]

I could see the pics when I used IE6. Last week I upgraded to IE 7 and all I get now are red X :cry:

If you right click on the Red X and go to properties you can get the link for the pic. Enter that into the browser and you will be able to see the pic that way.

[nicholas76]

aah the wonders of microsoft.

i wont be jumping on vista to quickly when it comes out.

[Proteus]

There are a lot of issues with IE7, this looks like it may just be one of them....

[enigmatic]

test...


http://i.pbase.com/o4/10/18110/1/67007628.dmHQQLKg.770TankPug.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/o4/10/18110/1/67007628.dmHQQLKg.770TankPug.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/o4/10/18110/1/67007628.dmHQQLKg.770TankPug.jpg

Can't see the image in the first test.

Clicking the second link gives a 403:

"Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /o4/10/18110/1/67007628.dmHQQLKg.770TankPug.jpg on this server.
Apache/2.0.58 (Unix) Server at i.pbase.com Port 80"

I'm on Optus ADSL and on the Central Coast (Green Point)

[rachael]

possibly the site i.pbase.com doesnt allow people to link to them? I know some sites dont allow you to do that, they want you to view the pictures from pages on their site.

[Proteus]

well they are still all visible here, on 3 seperate terminals, using 2 different connections and 2 different browsers???

[Robdog]

Time for new pics me thinks!