How this set up got started.
I had purchased this aquarium in the summer of 2007. Dimensions of the tank are 72″ Long, 18″deep and 24″ high. When I bought it from craigslist it was the empty tank with glass lids and two 3 foot light covers that actually had 2 foot fluorescent light strips inside. Total 300 Dollars for that.

The tank was used for housing reptiles or snakes before so the guy also included bunch of dried sticks that were inside(guess he dint have space in his trash). After picking up the aquarium, I brought it home and cleaned it out of all the sticks and dirt.

From the very beginning I wanted to turn this into a planted aquarium set up. I have never kept live plants in the tank before and didn’t know a single thing about that. But I did have the Internet and a little bit of time to research available to me.

By this time in my life I have learned a thing or two about keeping fish, and thought I knew enough about the fish that I was ready to add plants to the scene. From my research I found that the main difference was the high powered light, substrate, CO2, and fertilizer. While the rest of the set up remained as it was in regular tank. I knew that adding those elements to the tank would make it that much harder to set up, maintain and keep in good shape and I wasn’t sure on how it would work out. But one thing I know about me is that I learn the best when I do something my self. All the reading will not matter if I don’t do it my self and learn my own lessons.

For CO2 injection I decided to build my own regulator, reactor, and bubble counter.  What I did is basically found a system online that I liked that way it worked and that had enough descriptions on how to put it together, and bought all the parts for it separately.  Because of some parts that could only be bought in bags of more then 1 item, and I thought about setting up a double injection unit I needed some stuff doubled.

The price for the regulator set up I put together was a little bit higher then the set offered on line but I like doing things my self and later on I was actually glad I had those extra parts to use as replacement when I had couple items break and wear out.

I bought an empty 10 gallon gas tank for CO2 versus a 5 gallon and others for the 10 gallon size was perfect to fit in the stand under the tank and the price was right and also because the place that exchanged empty for full ones was a couple blocks away from me and they only charged 18.50 for a new 10 gallon CO2 tank exchange.

The next thing I made was the bubble counter.  It was the easiest thing to make out of 1 inch interior diameter clear plastic tubing and couple of closed tubing caps.  At first I just made holes at top and bottom and glued in the tubing, that caused couple of issues one being that it was hard to put water into the bubble counter due to long tubes glued to both ends and later on as glue loosened up the CO2 leaked.  So to fix that by remaking another one where I used hose barb tips I had left over due to buying the regulator supplies.  I drilled and tapped in to the plastic caps and using some glue at the same time screwed in the hose barbs which were very secure and I never had a leaky situation after that.  That also allowed me to be able to refill the water into the counter with more ease, all I had to do is remove the hose from the barb and in went the water.

For mixing of CO2 into the aquarium water I made my own reactor using plans I found online, at first I made a reactor that I connected to my output of the XP2 filter that was made out of PVC piping.  That didn’t work as good as I thought it would and it blew out bubbles of CO2 into the tank with out mixing them 100% with water going through reactor and the bubbles went directly to the top and didn’t dissolve all the way in the water.  Another thing was that the output of the filters was all the way on the left side of the aquarium and all the way to the top so the CO2 flow was  limited across a 6 foot long aquarium.  After the first 4 month of running that and not having much success, I looked into making a different reactor and came up with a design I found allot of on the web and modified it to fit my own application using my equipment that I have laying around.

The new version of reactor consisted of a CO2 line going directly into the aquarium and ending up right under the inflow of a power jet.  Putting a bubble diffuser on end of the hose made CO2 bubbles brake down in size and the blades of the power jet intake propeller broke them down even more so what came out of the jet were tiny bubbles of CO2.

What I did next was cut a hole in the side of the plastic gravel cleaner tube near the end where the cap that has the hose attach to it that I closed down with a plug and inserted the tube onto the exit of the power jet.  So now those tiny bubbles came out of power jet and into the tube where they have even more time to mix in with the water by the time the flow of the jet pushes the water out.  This allowed me to get 100% dissolved of CO2 in the water and there where no bubbles escaping to the surface.

Doing that I was able to slow down my out put of the CO2 regulator from about 6 to 7 bubbles per second to abut 3 to 4.  Witch is a big difference considering first tank even with 6 to 7 lasted me about 5 month before I had to refill it, this time it should last even longer then that.  At the same time I was able to remove the bulky reactor from the output of my XP2 canister filter and free up that flow.

The designs and pictures of the regulator, bubble counter, reactor and the rest of the set up will be available soon.

Part 4, 125 gallon planted aquarium set up.

After doing some research I decided I needed to get minimum 3 watts per gallon.  Since my aquarium was 125 gallon, times that by 3 equals to 375 total watts for the set up.  I also needed it to be a kit that I could install inside my home made canopy once I get that done.  Looking around and reading about what others have done, I have decided to go with a kit by SunPack.  They offered kits in 1 or 2 lights per ballast.  I ordered 4 kits of single light ballasts, 96 Watt per ballasts that work with 3 foot long Compact Fluorescent lights.  Total of watts I got with that set is 384 which divides into 125 gallons 3.072 times.  I have reached my desired goal with that set which is sufficient for most of available fresh water plants.

The light bulbs I had to buy separately from the ballast kit so I got 2-10K and 2-6.5K,3 foot long Coralife Compact Fluorescent Square Pin Bulbs.  The light bulbs are good for about a year, and after reading info about them I decided next time to get all 6.5K light bulbs because I would like to lower the light intensity because of some of the fish I have in the tank that don’t like it too bright and the effect on the plants will not be noticeable anyways.

So far the ballasts have worked great and the lights performed very well so no regrets on getting that set up.  The lights are set up on a digital timer that turns them on at 12PM and turns them off at 10PM.  That gives the plants 10 hours of photo period per day, which I am actually thinking of lowering down to 8 and seeing how that will affect the growth of the plants.  With current set up of lights my plants grow very fast and every week I need to trim and replant quite a bit of plants.  If I let it go for couple of weeks between the trimmings I trow out about a 5 gallon bucket full of trimmings.  From what I have read, the lower photo period will slow down the growth which at the same time slows down the consumption of CO2 and fertilizers, and also that might allow me to go longer between trimming periods.

I will update when and if I get new light bulbs and also when I will lower the photo period down to 8 hours a day.

Part 3, 125 gallon planted aquarium set up.

Instead of just putting this tank on the floor, I decided to build the stand for it first, because I already had designed a stand for the 135 gallon I decided to copy the same design and build 2 identical stands at the same time, they where going to sit side by side in the office anyways.

The stand design I came up on my own after reading allot of information online and deciding to build a bullet proof version of one of the online designs.  I choose to go with 4×4′s for legs and 3/4 inch plywood to wrap around the front and 2 sides and the shelf that would hold the equipment on the inside, and leave the back exposed for hoses and wiring.  The 3 doors I marked up to go between legs and cut out using circular saw from the front piece so that each door had its own appropriate hole it went into and was flush with the front of the panel.

Like I said I went over board with the designing this 125 gallon stand, it has 8 legs connecting top and bottom sections, four in the front and four in the back, and 3/4 inch plywood just added to the weight and straight of the stand.  I have painted it with exterior latex paint, white on the inside and semi gloss black on the outside after covering the hole thing in primer first.  I did 2 cotes of white and 2 cotes of black paint.  It took a while to dry but to this day it did not chip or peel, and the dried water spots are pretty easy to wash off the front of the stand.

After both stands had dried I have put them in its place in the office next to each other the 125 gallon was on the right and the 135 gallon stand was on the left, after that I put the tanks on top with help of my friends.  Filled this aquarium with Seachem Flourite Black Sand planted tank substrate and that’s where I stopped with the progress and started acquiring other supplies for it.

I will be posting the design of the stand on this site after I will transfer my paper drawings into some digital format.

Part 2, 125 gallon planted aquarium set up.