Well this is the story of my attempt to make a 100 Gallon tank for £100. I'll tell you now I failed, but why and by how much makes the story.

You might think I set myself an absurd target in the first place but when I managed to pick up a 100gallon half inch glass tank for £10 I thought I was on a winner. Boy was that a struggle to get home. Eventually though we got it into the dining room and turned it so the opening faced the wall for fear of finding the kids playing inside otherwise.



Now at this point I had a little problem. Before I started my addiction to fish keeping I was very much into computers. So much so that I ended up working in computers and have now done so for the last 10 years. As a result of this I have over the years collected much in the way of computer equipment and even after a recent cull had 4 computer in the dining room, one upstairs and 2 laptops scattered around the house.



Its served the family well, I've got a good career out of it and my I used to work from home a lot. However now I usually use a laptop, so didn't object so much to having a single screen family pc in the dining room and one kids pc upstairs plus the laptops. This gave me room to start building my fish tank stand.



I did some research, inspected the lfs manufactured stands, asked on this forum and eventually decided on kitchen units with 50mm square support struts and a 38mm roll top kitchen work surface. The whole thing is bolted to the wall on both sides and sat on a solid wooden frame.

For the 100gallon tank I used 3x 400mm units and support struts at either end and along the back. I extended the roll top surface by 2 inches in depth to ensure the entire tank was evenly supported.

Next to that I built a 300mm wide larder unit, a 600mm wide cupboard unit and a 150mm wide wine rack. The few remaining cm where filled with a support strut matching that on the left. This 80cm gap was to be home to the new coldwater tank.

The 400mm units and 50mm square beams required for the 100mm tank came to £85, the work surface was scavenged however with the doors, handles and extra units to the side it was obvious my £100 limit was going to take some imaginative accounting when presenting it to my wife. I decided that we really wanted a sideboard style unit in the dining room and thus the fact it was a tank stand was just a bonus. So I was still at £10 in my budget. Phew!

Next came lifting the tank into place. I arranged several of my friends to come over and help me at the weekend. However my wife got impatient and insisted the two of us could manage it. I stuck 4mm of foam wallpaper underlay onto the work surface and tried to talk the wife out of it. She's a very determined woman though and wanted her dining area back so I wasn't going to win. Lack of communication very nearly lead to a dropped tank and severe injury at this point. Don't try this at home!

Rethinking, I placed wooden beams on top of the foam and we slid the tank over these on the second attempt we just about managed to hoist the tank into place and slide out the wooden beams.



At the weekend I went searching for a cold water tank for the goldfish. I'd been looking for a 2foot cube but sadly just couldn’t find one at a decent price. In fact I couldn't find one at any price unless I wanted to buy a load of second hand rubbish with it or get it custom made. Eventually I stumbled into Emsworth Aquatics, which for some reasons is in Cosham rather than Emsworth. There I spoke to a confused lad who really shouldn't have been allowed into a fish store unless he was to operate the fryer. Still after he told me they had nothing 2foot wife but quite deep and quite tall I asked him about the squarish looking tank by his foot. We measured it up and it was 24" x 18" x 15", 100liters. Not perfect but close. “how much then?â€� I enquired, “I don’t know its been here ages, we got it in made to order but the guy never collected itâ€�. At this point my eyes lit up and I suggested that I’d be able to take it off their hands for a very reasonable price. We settled on £30 and I left the store happy that my goldfish would have a much improved home from the tiny little cell they currently inhabit. Sadly they didn’t sell the right pumps, the right substrate or anything else that I asked for. I added to this a Fluval 3plus from my local maidenhead and started the cycling.

In the mean time I started producing RO water for the 100gallon tank, here it is with a full 25 litre canister emptied into it along with some leftover substrate.



As you can see I’ve attached a spray bar and filter intake at the top. At this point my plan was a tropical tank with angelfish and mollies however something was nagging the back of my mind and telling me it was all wrong. Anyway to that end I had purchased a Rena XP3 filter from eBay. This was for the bargain price of £30 however I’d forgotten to check it came with media, it didn’t! The minimum media for this filter was going to cost £40 however I decided to upgrade and buy some extra quality stuff and zorb packs spending £60. Oh no. How do I get lights for £20? Ah ha, I had also seen on eBay some 85W energy saver spiral daylight bulbs which in theory would be suitable for a tropical setup. However after post, packing and vat I was down £55 - funny how that adds up. Then after searching for the ES27 fittings they took and getting the cable, switch and plug I had spend nearly £70 on my 220W ‘cheap’ solution. At this point I needed to start on the hood to house the lighting. Sadly the case of the Rena broke during the build process costing my another £25 to replace. At this point it would have been only £10 more to have bought a new one.



The was a simple frame out of laminated chipboard however in the mean time I had filled the tank and discovered to my disgust that the Rena filter didn’t work properly. The seals in the motor housing had gone and it was sucking in air so I needed an alternate. Sure I could have got it fixed but at some point you have to call it a day.

The sump had to go above. Good news is the Rena XP3 was no longer part of the 100gallon tank build and instead it was spares for my other Rena so I wrote off the expense and my executive accounting skills totalled the build to £80 so far. Then I realised the lights where not suitable for marine but I had since then bought a 4x39W T5 lumierre from eBay for £50. While this wasn’t going to be enough for a reef aquarium I was looking at fish only for a puffer so I fitted this and wrote off the ‘cheap’ alternatives and redeployed them as ‘garage lighting’. So far so good, and I’ve only spent £60 (no honest love).

Over the weeks I had also decided that I wanted to go marine with this tank rather than tropical and thus a sump was the right way to go. However the 400mm units below didn’t offer me much room for something suitable.

At this point and especially after the last tank my bank balance is looking rather unhealthy even by my standards so building had to slow. However I was able to build the hood with 15mm laminated chipboard with a simple cross braced design and 38mm work surface that I found in the off cuts bin. This would provide support for the overhead sump.

To avoid condensation ruining the underside of the work surface I soaked it in PVA and coated it with kitchen foil. Not only water proofed but also reflective to make the most of the lights. As the tank was now full of RO water I added a 300W heater and bought a 3000lph inline pump for the sump.



Finally B&Q had a sale on their kitchen components last weekend so the doors got bought and fitted (with the exception of the larder cabinet doors which are on order).

So at the end of stage one I have spent a mere £105 *cough* and have come fairly far and now I just need to sort out filtration.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this and maybe even found it helpful in some aspect.

Stage 2 will be the design, build and fitting of the overhead sump. Coming soon.

This is the last of the tropical set up blogs in this series. Before you celebrate too much I'm going to re-cap on the progress so far and also I'd like to point out that I dont think any tank is ever 'finished' until the day the last fish passes away and the water is drained out. for now though the setup of the tank is complete all the inhabitants are in, all the plants growing, the water stable, the balance and harmony of the tank has been acheived and I as a result am a very, very happy fishkeeper.

So here is a summary of the highlights during the setup.
Day1
Tank delivered, built and installed equipment
Day 2
Sand and ornaments cleaned and placed in tank
RO Unit fitted under sink
Day 3
CO2 System and substrate heater Added
Began Ro Water Production
Day 5
Laterite rinsed and substrate completed
Tank filled and plants added
Day 8
Water cleared up. Cycling started
Day 9
Additional Food added (mistake!)
Day 10
tank clouded and stinky, white scum on tank.
Day 12
Spray bar added to increase water surface movement and break scum.
Day 13
Heaters replaced, substrate heater set on timer.
Day 15
Ammonia too high, food removed
Day 16
Tank cleared, 30l water change
Day 17
65l water change, ammonia down.
Day 18
Nitrite and Nitrate readings
Day 19
30L water change
Day 21
Ammonia gone, nitrite and nitrate readings
Day 22
More plants added
Iron and Pottasium added
Day 25
Filter maintenance required, nitrites down. Water ready for fish
Day 27[/b]
14 Neon Tetras Added.
Day 30
Corys added
Day 35
Fish from old tank transfered. Fluval 2plus added to increase flow and filtration capacity.
Day 42
Filter clogged, complete clean up required.
Day 43
2 Female Pearl Gouramis added
Day 48
Male Pearl Gourami Added and 3 Nerite Snails.

Costs for the complete setup are really difficult to estimate as I've also been buying for the other tank, however the digital pH and TDS meter came to £40. The fish probably cost me £30- £40 and the plants and food another £50 so I'm thinking its on the kind side of £1500.

Was it worth it? Yup, every penny :)


I'm still left with a few imperfections that I'm working on. First off there is Black Hair Algae growing. I'm hoping the Nerite Snails will have a bit of a go at this. Even if they dont my plan is to add more CO2 as generally the plants out use the production. This time however I am going to use a DIY system

DIY Co2 now seems quite simple after having used a bought yeast based system and realised the price difference. A refill of 250g of sugar and 1g of dried yeast cost £6.99 from the lfs and lasts me 3 weeks. The yeast I can buy at 99p for 125g and the sugar is also fairly cheap (but the wife does the shopping so I dont know how cheap).

The first thing I did was drink 2litres of coke... then I washed the bottle out with freshly boiled water. I can tell you now that this was a mistake. Spot the difference:-


Yeah, ok it was amusing to see the bottle shrink but now I need another one and I cant start building today.

The other problem I has is far too much Riccia Fluitans, its started to cut the light out to the rest of the tank!

I checked with the lfs and they said they can probably exchange/trade for it but wont buy it. However they where interested because it was "so hard to grow"! ???

As stated at the start this is the last entry of the Tropical setup blog. If you have read the blogs, or if you have any questions or suggestions please post a comment.

The End of the Beginning.

Water readings are all still good and stable. 0 Ammonia and Nitrate, 5-10 nitrate and ph 7.2.

What I have noticed is that the pH shifts depending on the time of day. It's at its highest around 1pm just before the lights and CO2 systems kick in. Generally I cant seem to get the CO2 production to keep up with the plants.

I came back from Bristol yesterday to find the pump had nearly stopped. It seems I hadn't been thorough enough cleaning the microfilter pad. Sorted that fairly quickly and the fluval 2+ probably helped keep everything in check while I was away. No harm done but I did notice a large build up of crud in the transulcent pipes so I gave them a few squeezes to break that up too. The result was a tank full of floating crud - looks awful but not likely to cause any harm. After the crud settled I did a water change today making good use of the gravel cleaner to get most of the crud out.

Today I was hoping to annouce the addition of some pearl gourami, the final touch to complete my tank setup. Sadly I went to Maidenhead Chichester and they had a dead one in the tank, I never buy from a tank with a dead fish in it so that was out. I let them know, they where very busy. I also visited the Havant store but they only had 3 that all looked like adolescent males. I decided as this wasn't what I wanted it was best to wait... took a lot of will power though and I almost bough kissing gouramis instead!

Day 35 and we are just about at the end of the setup. Since the last blog post I have transfered the fish from the 40l tank upstairs. They all seem happy enough now but they where rather tricky to catch. I was getting quite worried about how stressed they must be getting.

The mollies where easy to catch as where a few of the tetras, but the last 2 tetras and the Bronze Corys really showed quite tenacity.

After a bit of a false start I decided the best way was to remove the water and all ornaments first, at least down to about 2 inches. After that I manouvered a perspex sheet in vertically so that the fish where actually in a very small quantity of water. After that I lay a jug in the water and swept the fish with the net towards the jug.

Today in pfk I read that the pectoral defensive spine on the Bronze cory is actually covered in toxin so I was quite lucky not to get stung.

Sadly the fish where quite stressed by the time I had them bagged and downstairs. I'm not sure if it was the right thing to do but I made acclimitisation quite short as they where thrashing about in the bag more than I was comfortable with. Still, however incompetant my fish moving was the end result is that they are all alive and fully recovered from their ordeal.

Yesterday I visited a car boot sale in which I managed to get a Fluval 2plus for £1. I've placed this at the bottom right of the tank to increase the water movement. This has visably improved the plant and water quality. I placed an amazon sword plant in front to hide it a bit



The final addition to the tank will be a pair of Pearl Gouramis all going well I'll start looking for these on Friday.

The tank is all stable and settled now, I've had to fiddle a little with the thermostats a little. Although 2x100W heaters may be better once they're set up setting them up is a little like balancing a dual carb motorcycle by ear.... er.. ok for those of you that haven't tried that - its tricky. Any change to one alters the other so you have to calibrate them both individually and at the same time. Once right things go very smoothly.


Anyway thats sorted now. I have the 18" fan running all day and night. It's silent and low power use but keeps just enough breeze over the tank that evaporation takes enough of the excess heat away to keep the tank under 27C.





I've added 2 Albino Bronze Cory and 4 Peppered Cory. I'll add some more Bronze Cory next week after the lfs has a delivery.
I've also gained a fair ammount of algae so plant feeding has been reduced.
I'm not going to add anything more until the weekend at the earliest, then I'm not sure if it should be a bristlenose plec or some algae eating shrimp...

Todays Water Test Results
Temperature : 26.2C
Ammonia : 0
Nitrite : 0
Nitrate : 5
pH : 7.0
FE : 0.2
CO2 : low

YAY!

I've added 14 small neon tetras to my tank and they are swimming about happily exploring and feasting on the algae and microworms that snuck in during the cycle. I drove to Eastleigh Maidenhead to get them as they have more range. Plus the wife wanted to visit the craft store there. They had 3 tanks of neons; small, medium and large. There weren't so many large ones and I had no idea of their age, the medium sized ones where in a tank with a dead cory. The staff cleaned it up as soon as they saw but that made me decide to get the small ones which all looked active and health.

I did notice after getting them home that one appears to have a fairly serious wound on its left gill. It seems happy enough but I went to the lfs again to look at getting an anti-bacterial treatment. Melafix stuff seemed to be right but it was £7 per 118ml and I'd need to dose the tank 60ml per day for 7 days. So in order to improve Gill's chances of survival it would cost £28. As I dont know it will help and it might cause other issues with the healthy fish I've decided to keep an eye on him and see how nature decides to deal with it.

I've been trying for some time to get a decent photo of them... but its not happening right now. Maybe I'll be able to add one later.

Todays Water Test Results
Temperature : 26.8C
Ammonia : 0
Nitrite : 0.25
Nitrate : 5
pH : 7.0
FE : 0.1
CO2 : low

Plants really seem to be doing well now, I've added more Iron and Pottasium after reading the results above.
As for the temperature I have linked a fan to the lights timer and left the lid up. When the lights come on the addition of the fan keeps the water cool enough. Obviously when the temperatures drop a little this wont be required but with the temperature control sorted out and the drop in nitrite I'm planning to add the first fish tomorrow!

Todays Water Test Results
Temperature : 26.2C
Ammonia : 0
Nitrite : 2
Nitrate : 20
pH : 7.0
FE : 0.2
CO2 : ok

This is taking forever! Yesterday after I wrote the blog I suddenly realised that even if the tank does finish its cycle its still not ready for fish. Not until I get the temperature right. One of the problems seems to be that the room temperature at the moment is 25C. The substrate heater is now completely unplugged and this afternoon I opened the tank lid and aimed an 18" floor fan at the water surface.

I also noticed that the flow from the pump had slowed so I gave the sponges a quick rinse in tank water and ditched the cotton pad from the mature filter as this was nearly completely mush now.

So the filter clean used about 8L of water which I replaced with room temperature and the fan helped too so I finally got the temperature below 26C. At this point with the lid open but the fan off I was able to tune the heaters to hold the tank at about 26C. On closing the lid the temperature rose slightly from the lights over the following couple of house. I might have to rip apart one of my pc cases and steal the 9" fans from them to power tank cooling!

What else did I do? I changed the food bag and this time put gravel in with it to keep the food weighted down. Then I added more Formula F, K and T. It seems with these minerals the plants have a growth spurt and use the nitrates. When the iron and pottasium runs low the plant growth slows and so the nitrates go up again. If it runs lower then the leaves turn yellow, thin, get holes and finally the plant dies.

As I have only got an iron test kit I'm using the ammount of iron the plants use as a guide to how much of the other products to add, by means of percentage of the 'normal' weekly dose. If I have to put in 50% more iron then I also add 50% more pottasium and trace element mix.

Thanks for reading, I feel we are coming close to the end of the beginning here. Maybe by Sunday I'll be able to add some fish?

Todays Water Test Results
Temperature : 27C / 27.9C
Ammonia : 0
Nitrite : 2
Nitrate : 40
pH : 7.0
FE : 0.2
CO2 : ok

Some more toys today but still no fish and no reduction in nitrite

The plants are doing very well and the cabomba will need trimming again before the end of the week.

My first toy today is an electronic tank monitor for £9.99 from maindenhead aquatics in Chichester. This has three intermitent alarm settings for water change, filter maintenance and systems maintenance but also an electronic thermometer and high/low alarms that you can set. This is now set up so if my tank temperature should wander from the range set I will be alerted when I next enter the room.
This is the reason there are two temperature readings today. The first is the thermometer on the front of the tank and the second is the reading from the electronic thermometer. Which is right? I dont think it matters so long as the temperature is fairly constant but I do want to drop the temperature at least 1C before I get any fish in the tank.

My second 'toy' is an iron test kit. I got the Red Sea test kit for iron and co2 because that was the only one they had in stock today. Using this I can monitor the iron in the water and maintain it at 0.2-0.5 to keep the plants healthy without encouraging algae growth.

I also noticed this little guy on the glass. I dont know what it is - some sort of snail - but I think he came in on the Ricca. He's about 3mm across and I found him three quarters of the way up the glass.

So at last my tank has animal life in it!

Todays Water Test Results
Temperature : 27C
Ammonia : 0
Nitrite : 2
Nitrate : 40
pH : 7.0
CO2 : ok

Well, as you can see I'm still not ready for fish. The good news is that the Formula K, F and T additives do seem to have helped. You may have noticed in yesterdays photo that a few of the leaves looked decidedly yellow. Well tonight co-incidence or not they are looking a lot healthier.

Just got to get rid of that nitrite now.