From: mstephens.520@postman.gsfc.nasa.gov (mark stephens)
Subject: (F) Stephens fish system
Organization: nasa/gsfc
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 92 17:48:40 GMT

I'm starting on my next great aquarium endeavor... a fish rack.  The 75 
gallon "Stephens" plant tank is doing fine.  The algae is under control, 
plants seem to be doing fine and maintenance is routine.  The fish 
population is increasing!!!   Time for something new to spend my 
resources on.

A fish rack.  Yes, I want to get back into breeding fish.  So I'm 
looking to setup an area in my basement for such a beast.  I've visited 
two fish rooms: one for discus and the other for killies.  I hope to 
cajole my way into a house that breeds dwarf cichlids.  We'll see.  If 
anybody is thinking along similar lines, visiting setups is very, very 
helpful.

Currently, the set up as designed is one rack, eight feet long with 
three tiers. The tanks are a mixture of 15's, 20's and 10's.  The target 
fish are killies, dwarf cichlids and tetras (actually, any small fish).  
And yes, I'm aware that killies and cichlids have different temperature 
needs and others as well... that's part of the challenge and fun.  If 
some fish decline to breed "on the rack", I won't breed 'em.  So there.

This is all on a Mac computer, in design, so nothing is final and it's 
gona take me a few months to pull it all together.  Currently the target 
specs are:

+  210 gallons total capacity: each tier has :   20L, 3 10s, 20L   The 
10s are viewed length wise.
+  Bio filter a la Rubbermade and trash can
+  Plant scrubber with water hyacinth, also servers as water changing 
sump (see below).
+  Water change via valve and switch throw, system tied to house 
plumbing
+  Temperature of 75F
+  Tap water for water change pre-filtered thru charcoal (currently the 
tap water has 4ppm N-Nitrate & 4 dH general hardness, no chloramines)
+  Tanks will be drilled out from the bottom with water taken from the 
top.
+  Filtered water is squirted across the top of each tank, but I may 
have a vertical spray bar to encourage the mulm from the bottom to leave.


The idea for the filter is to make it effective, of course, but also to 
make a water change in as little as 10 minutes or less.  The idea is to 
have a water container large enough to hold all of the water needed to 
make the change.  System water pours into that container from the 
drilled tanks, and a pipe, located a few inches below the top of the 
container, leads the water to the top of the bio-filter.  Easily changed 
floss continuing pre-filters are placed on top of each container.   See 
the silly, ASCII I don't know why I bother, drawing below.

from return
  *
  *
  *********0*********************
    |      *      |             *
    |      *      ***************
    |             |         |   *        |               *
    |             |         |            |               *
    |             |         |            |               *
 *0**             |         |            ******** pump ***
    |_____________|         |____________|
      40-50 gallon           bio-filter
    water change sump         

To make a water change you divert the dirty water from the water change 
sump by turning a valve (the "0"), causing water to flow directly into 
the bio-filter.  Open the valve at the bottom of the sump and water goes 
down the drain (or elsewhere).  Not shown is the connection to the house 
plumbing going into the water change sump.  Close the bottom valve, fill 
the container with tap, condition if needed, and open the top valve and 
presto... water has been changed.  (Right?)

To some, this may seem like overkill.  I have difficulty in dealing with 
events where you have to time yourself.  The killifish room used the 
meridian water changers.  He did report one event where he forgot them 
and left them on for an extended time and the fish started to feel the 
effects of chlorine!  Knowing me, I would do this all the time. And I do 
with the de-ionizer setup I currently have.

Comments are most welcome.  Reports of any experiences folks have had 
with systems of this type are also welcome.  A few questions:

How much bio-media do I need?  Both for in and out of water "wet/dry" 
filter.  I know, it depends on several factors, but even a rough idea 
would be helpful.  The discus system had 10 gallons of Bio-pack for 225 
gallons of tank water.  Overkill or under?  Or right on?

The current rack design has 20L tanks being supported length wise only, 
there is no support for the ends.  Is this OK?  The tens are 
perpendicular to the 20s and are supported by the same two beams as the 
20s.  The killifish room had this arrangement and it seem to work well.  


                mark

Xref: sparky alt.aquaria:2968 rec.aquaria:3729