# your freshwater dream tank.



## Clownloachlover (Apr 21, 2010)

you have a 6 foot by 2 foot footprint tank..220-230 gallons...maybe larger say up to 300 gallons. you plan to keep a freshwater community tank. how would you set it up...what equipment would you use? Filtration...HOB...Canisters...Sump...what would you chose...tank drilled for filtration??? if so where? obviously a cabinet style stand to hide all your equipment...describe how you would set it up and what you would use...post a picture if you have one.


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## MEDHBSI (Sep 4, 2011)

Mine is 6'x4'x2'. 360g I have no substrate because it's acrylic and my stingrays would scratch it up so bad. I use a fluidized K1 filter that's home made and a pool sand filter with 100lb of sand in it. I have a 6 gallon per hour drip line running to the tank with a bulkhead drilled to a drain for the extra water leaving the tank.


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

MEDHBSI already has my dream jumbo fw tank 6x4x2 or 8x4x2 if I had the space for stingrays & arro. I would use a sump, with filter pads in the first section for mechanical filtration but set up for easy, low-mess (if possible) removal and replacement. The second section would have large flow-through containers of hydroton (my favourite biomedia) to eliminate Ammonia, nitrites and nitrates, a good return pump. I would also have a continuous water feed system like the tank above (my dad had this in Malaysia) rather than do water changes. The tank would have two outflow lines. One goes to the sump for "traditional" filtration. A second would be dedicated to feeding my aquaponics system so I can grow vegetables and herbs using fish poop. This would be located next to my tank system. The sump would also grow vegetables in the big hydroton section so the water will be cleaned and provide me with fresh organic vegetables for my family. 

I plan to build a version of this next month using my koi pond outside (180g) and a large cube tank filled with hydroton.


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## deepRED (May 22, 2010)

My 96"x30"x24" - 300 gallon. Would have loved to go wider but my house is small. When I was still living at home I had multiple eight foot tanks including 180, 240, 400 and 550 gallons. 
All used sump systems or multiple large canisters.

In this tank, I've cycled through arowana, to wild angels, to peacock bass, to tetras, to geos, to rainbows and now to discus and small schooling fish. 22 discus ranging from 4"-7", 100 cardinals, 75 lemon tetras, 75 black neons, and some randoms from my other planted tank.

Homemade trickle filter for bio, using nylon scrubbies, jap mat, hytroton and filter floss. I run an aquaclear 500 on it once in a while for mechanical only.

24/7 drip with 30 gallons per day changeover. Tank is drilled for overflow drain and waste water feeds into my garden. New water is filtered through a carbon block and sprayed into the tank with an irrigation nozzle.

Mainly Java ferns, moss, anubias and peace lilies (grown out of tank). I dose macros, especially nitrate.

As others have said, if you can do an auto drip, do it. No more water changes. Just feed, prune, and do a vacuum every couple of weeks and you're golden.










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## Rogo (Mar 1, 2015)

It doesn't matter what's in it or how it's arranged...it would just have a futuristic device that does all the water changes


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## dino (Aug 29, 2011)

Let me know if this link works. By no means is this my dream tank but its alright


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## vince82 (Feb 11, 2016)

My dream tank would be 2m long, 80cm wide, 70cm tall.. Would be visible from all sides, so tank drilled for filtration and everything hidden underneath it, with a very low cabinet. I would like the top egde of the glass to be no taller than my armpit, for easy maintenance.
Open tank, it would house some huge driftwood, lots of plants, an I would start populating with lots of red cherry shrimp, and a shoal of tetras, and then after a few months, when the shrimp will have become a very impressive colony, I'll add 2 trios of Ramirezi and a bunch of young Discus.

All filtration in canisters (2, very big), external heaters, UV lamp to be used when needed, led lights with programmed sunrise/sunset.
I am not well paid enough for all this, though.

For reference:


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## shrimpaholich (Sep 1, 2015)

6' x 2' x 15" high with schools of pygmy corys, pristella tetras, and ghost shrimp. river type setup with lots of drift wood and a sand bottom. led flood lights probably 4 x 100w warm white. plants i cant list, id need time to properly put a list together. drilled at both ends for a flow like a stream/river with a sump full of lava rock


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