ADA 120P Santarem Blue Discus Tank

[landmines]

First heres a little background about me! Im 24 yo and Ive been keeping fish tanks for about 5 years now and first got introduced into the hobby by seeing some of Takashi Amano's aqua scapes, ever since then ive accumulated tanks and scaped many many different planted tanks. I know/think most discus keepers dont like planted tanks but I believe they are beautiful work of art and the challenge of keeping a planted tank has been a very fun experience. While keeping planted tanks, I also got into the hobby of shrimp keeping which in itself is a whole nother learning experience and challenge. Even though my passion has been in aquascaping/planted tanks/shrimp keeping, it has also been a dream of mine since I first started keeping fish tanks to have a discus display tank and finally after buying a house a few months ago Im able to set up my dream tank! Since I wanted to have a discus tank which reflected their natural habitat the most, I decided not to have plants in the tank. Now enough about me, heres the build/creation of the ADA 120P Discus Display Tank!

Started off my building a stand for the tank and decided to go to a ADA style stand. First time working with power tools but I think the stand turned out great!
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t167/lamiskool3/Aquariums/IMG_1637_zpsyvqodnjy.jpg (http://s160.photobucket.com/user/lamiskool3/media/Aquariums/IMG_1637_zpsyvqodnjy.jpg.html)

Next up was to stain it! Boy was this messy.
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t167/lamiskool3/Aquariums/IMG_1651_zps3dazihuc.jpg (http://s160.photobucket.com/user/lamiskool3/media/Aquariums/IMG_1651_zps3dazihuc.jpg.html)

Next I tested if it held the tank! Pic doesnt show that but I filled the tank and had it sitting in the garage for a few weeks to make sure/water test lol
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t167/lamiskool3/Aquariums/IMG_1652_zpsftbrn60i.jpg (http://s160.photobucket.com/user/lamiskool3/media/Aquariums/IMG_1652_zpsftbrn60i.jpg.html)


The nest step was actually a really great learning experience for me. Ive never had a tank with a sump and wanted to have a sump for this tank to make sure the tank had great filtration. I went with a CPR-CS102 overflow system and learning how to plumb it to the overflow was a challenge but I learned a LOT during this time such as how an overflow system even works, how a sump operates and to to use pvc lol

Forgot to take pics when I was actually building the overflow box but heres a pic of the finished project. (I should have spray painted the pvc...oh well lol)
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t167/lamiskool3/Aquariums/IMG_9097_zps1hbjqgms.jpg (http://s160.photobucket.com/user/lamiskool3/media/Aquariums/IMG_9097_zps1hbjqgms.jpg.html)
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t167/lamiskool3/Aquariums/IMG_9099_zpsajbfkt5s.jpg (http://s160.photobucket.com/user/lamiskool3/media/Aquariums/IMG_9099_zpsajbfkt5s.jpg.html)
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t167/lamiskool3/Aquariums/IMG_9100_zpsurit1are.jpg (http://s160.photobucket.com/user/lamiskool3/media/Aquariums/IMG_9100_zpsurit1are.jpg.html)

Heres a pic of the sump itself. Its a wet/dry system and I plan on adding some plants to the "third section" to help keep the water quality good.
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t167/lamiskool3/IMG_9095_zpsyfxl9rd4.jpg (http://s160.photobucket.com/user/lamiskool3/media/IMG_9095_zpsyfxl9rd4.jpg.html)

After testing the filter system some more in the garage, I finally felt comfortable moving the tank into the house and start the fun part! "Scapeing" the tank! Took a very long time to waterlog the drift wood/leech all the tannins out of em lol
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t167/lamiskool3/Aquariums/IMG_1670_zpsdwxcrs8j.jpg (http://s160.photobucket.com/user/lamiskool3/media/Aquariums/IMG_1670_zpsdwxcrs8j.jpg.html)

And last but not least the finished product with the addition of the discus!!!!
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t167/lamiskool3/Aquariums/IMG_9087_zpsp45rmxqt.jpg (http://s160.photobucket.com/user/lamiskool3/media/Aquariums/IMG_9087_zpsp45rmxqt.jpg.html)



If anyone is interested in seeing more about planted tanks, you guys can check out my planted tank journal here (http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=404649&highlight=)

Heres a picture of my garage/collection of planted tanks
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t167/lamiskool3/Aquariums/IMG_9038_zpsvt2yhhch.jpg (http://s160.photobucket.com/user/lamiskool3/media/Aquariums/IMG_9038_zpsvt2yhhch.jpg.html)

[rickztahone]

Very nice. Your journey sounds a lot like mine through the years. I have been keeping discus for a long time and at one point got in to planted tanks. I also bred shrimp, as high as SSS sakura CRS and making a good buck breeding. My ultimate goal was/is to make a dream 240g fully planted tank. However, the difference in the way I want to approach that project is probably not the most common approach. I plan to establish a fully planted tank for a couple of years and have some grow outs in 2 smaller tanks and finally introduce the discus when they are roughly 1.5yrs old. 1 strain of discus and hopefully 18 of them. Fully planted with full co2 and the works. With a sump, it makes co2 distribution a lot more difficult, but still doable.

Your overflow looks nice. How do you like the Herbie style plumbing? Why did you not route your plumbing through the stand in the side rather than back and adding 90 elbows? Some oval grommets would have looked killer on this setup and it would have been a little more traditional to the ADA style.

I really love the simplicity of your tank though. It is actually my favorite type of tank. I like DW and rocks and low light :).

Welcome to the forum and thank you for sharing with us.

[landmines]

Very nice. Your journey sounds a lot like mine through the years. I have been keeping discus for a long time and at one point got in to planted tanks. I also bred shrimp, as high as SSS sakura CRS and making a good buck breeding. My ultimate goal was/is to make a dream 240g fully planted tank. However, the difference in the way I want to approach that project is probably not the most common approach. I plan to establish a fully planted tank for a couple of years and have some grow outs in 2 smaller tanks and finally introduce the discus when they are roughly 1.5yrs old. 1 strain of discus and hopefully 18 of them. Fully planted with full co2 and the works. With a sump, it makes co2 distribution a lot more difficult, but still doable.

Your overflow looks nice. How do you like the Herbie style plumbing? Why did you not route your plumbing through the stand in the side rather than back and adding 90 elbows? Some oval grommets would have looked killer on this setup and it would have been a little more traditional to the ADA style.

I really love the simplicity of your tank though. It is actually my favorite type of tank. I like DW and rocks and low light :).

Welcome to the forum and thank you for sharing with us.

Thanks! Glad to see a fellow planted tank/shrimp enthusiast on here! Co2 with a sump is very doable, not sure if you know Tom Barr but google him/co2 and sump and hes shown you can have a tank with a sump and limited loss/no loss of Co2 compared to running a canister (basically just make sure to seal the sump). The way I set up the sump give me the possibility to go planted in the future and add Co2 if I wanted. And yes I love shrimp, my favorite that I am keeping right now are my Sulawesi Cardinal Shrimp and my Red Tiger Shrimp. I like the herbie style a lot and wish I had a bit more space to do a full bean animal style (still might by drilling a hole on the side of the overflow near the top as the emergency line) I didnt route the plumbing through the stand as this was the first time ive worked with power tools and didnt have/know how to cut the hole on the sides. So basically I was lazy lol! Might do it sometime in the future though.

[rickztahone]

On my last project I did something like what I described to you with the grommets:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b284/rickztahone/FishTank_78_zpsa1830adf.jpg (http://s21.photobucket.com/user/rickztahone/media/FishTank_78_zpsa1830adf.jpg.html)

Of course for large PVC pipe you would need something larger. To be more in line with the traditional ADA style stands, you would need something like this:
http://www.ergo2work.co.uk/item/226-747/long-oval-desk-grommet-white.html

You can always modify it of course. It would give you an even cleaner look imho.

I did (am doing) a bean animal overflow on my 75g tank currently, you can see it in my signature. The inner overflow skims across 38".

[landmines]

On my last project I did something like what I described to you with the grommets:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b284/rickztahone/FishTank_78_zpsa1830adf.jpg (http://s21.photobucket.com/user/rickztahone/media/FishTank_78_zpsa1830adf.jpg.html)

Of course for large PVC pipe you would need something larger. To be more in line with the traditional ADA style stands, you would need something like this:
http://www.ergo2work.co.uk/item/226-747/long-oval-desk-grommet-white.html

You can always modify it of course. It would give you an even cleaner look imho.

I did (am doing) a bean animal overflow on my 75g tank currently, you can see it in my signature. The inner overflow skims across 38".


That tank looks familiar but I dont exactly remember from where! Are you a member of SCAPE by any chance?

[landmines]

On my last project I did something like what I described to you with the grommets:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b284/rickztahone/FishTank_78_zpsa1830adf.jpg (http://s21.photobucket.com/user/rickztahone/media/FishTank_78_zpsa1830adf.jpg.html)

Of course for large PVC pipe you would need something larger. To be more in line with the traditional ADA style stands, you would need something like this:
http://www.ergo2work.co.uk/item/226-747/long-oval-desk-grommet-white.html

You can always modify it of course. It would give you an even cleaner look imho.

I did (am doing) a bean animal overflow on my 75g tank currently, you can see it in my signature. The inner overflow skims across 38".

That tank looks familiar but I cant exactly remember where! Are you a part of SCAPE? Not exactly sure but noticed you were in SoCal and I might have seen in on their forum. And tanks for the advice!

[rickztahone]

Yeah, I'm on scape. I actually have that tank for sale currently which is why it may look familiar :)