800 gallon planted community

[Evan Jamison]

I like planted tanks almost as much as I like live reef tanks, so this tank is kinda my current "baby". I was handed a big plastic box, 4'x8' footprint (same as the big reef) and 36" deep, a good equipment budget, and a theme - "Flooded Forest" - with cardinal tetras, corys, and Discus, as well as a large assortment of other tetras and S.A. community fish, not to forget lots of sword plants.

We found some molded backgrounds that we ended up using for quite a few tanks in the new hall, though I did have to cut and paste the pieces to fit our custom tanks using expanding foam and color matching 2-part epoxy on the seams. I used the backgrounds to hide all plumbing in the tanks, and 1/8" mesh that allows the water to flow behind the background on the sides of the tank where the skimmer boxes are. This also makes a refugium of sorts on the sides that we have found quite a few fry hanging out in.
Here is a back of house shot of one of the sides and some of the plumbing. You can also see the Solaris I-5 72" LED light fixture. I know it's for coral, but with all those bells and whistles, how can one resist Adjustable from 6,500K to 20,000K, simulated cloud cover programming, simulated solar and lunar cycle, and ballasts that don't weigh as much as a small horse.


Here's the heater controller, running a 3500 watt drop-in L-heater, the pH controller for the main CO2 reactor, a high capacity pleated cartridge filter, and the 160 watt UV.


You can also see the mazzei injector that injects CO2 either into the tank or back to the sump on a dedicated line. (That's what all those extra valves are for). The mazzei creates a CO2 mist that keeps plants happy, and algae away.

Here's a shot of custom in-line 4" clear CO reaction chamber I built. It has a by pass, so I can adjust the flow rate through the chamber to ensure the CO2 is dissolved without reducing the overall flow entering the tank. This is the main input of CO2 into the tank, and between this chamber and the mazzei, I can get a pH drop from 7.3 to 6.3 in about 40 minutes. Not bad for an 800 gallon tank with overflows and sumps.


The CO regulator in that shot is an electronic reg, and now runs the mazzei injector at about 2 bubbles/sec anytime the lights are on. The 4" chamber dumps CO2 in a pretty constant stream, and is on the pH controller with a needle-valve regulator. I had an electronic reg on there at first, but I couldn't get enough CO2 out of it turned all the way up.

The main pump is a Reeflo Hammerhead gold, and the dedicated mazzei line is running with a Reeflo dart. I LOVE these pumps! A lot of turnover, and almost silent running. I think the turnover is about 5000 gallons/hr with both running, and you wouldn't even know they were on if the water wasn't moving.

After finishing the backgrounds, and plumbing four different returns through them, I used expanding foam to secure 5 huge pieces of driftwood to the bottom of the tank, creating a terrace to create more depth in the exhibit. After washing about 1000 lbs of Flourite black and Flourite sand (less fun than washing aragonite, good thing for interns ) this is how the hardscape looked.


..and after planting about three months ago.


Shots from a couple weeks ago.






It has grown in nicely. I love seeing the big sword plants really take over, and send flowering stalks up. The microsword carpet wasn't happy, and some was pulled and is being replaced with tenellus as I pull it out of the planted piranha tank.

I have a 2500 GPD RO unit that fills a 1400 gallon reservoir, and has a recirculation line that runs through the ceiling with drop-downs that I can pull from anywhere in the new hall. I just wish it was heated, but ya can't have everything, right? I do a 20-30% change on the tank each week, and dose dry chemicals to maintain the correct parameters.



Parameters are kept at:
Temp: 82 degrees
KH: 40-50 mg/L
GH: over 150 mg/L
pH: 6.3 with CO2 injection
NO3: 10-20 mg/L
PO4: 1-2 mg/L
K: over 25 mg/L
All-in-all, it has been a very fun tank to build and tweak, and we see a lot of spawning activity from many of the tetras in there. I hope there are at least a couple planted tank people on the forums!

Thanks for looking!!

-Evan