Psst. Dale, you'll have to flip your display tank. Holds water better that way:lol:

But seriously, it sounds like you've already put in a lot of time & planning into this (ie. temp. measurements for a year) so that bodes well for the success of this project.

Like the others, I will be following this thread with great interest.

When do you want to go specimen collecting (ie. beachcombing)? That's one thing Irene & I love to do.

Anthony

Hey, I'm ready!

Actually, that is one of the motivators for the system. My wife, the kids and I also love poking around in tidal pools and I figure this is one way to create the whole "learning" experience with them.
That, and the fact I can stock my tank for free :mrgreen:

oh, and thanks for the tip. You should have heard me swearing when I discovered that someone had drilled holes in the bottom of the tank. What were they thinking??? Now I'm gonna have to plug them up with big rubber bathtub plugs :(

Does he really have to flip it? Wouldn't it be easier to remove the top panel and attach a panel onto the bottom? :lol: (Teeheehee.)

Anyhow, nifty project. Can't wait to see more! :cool:

I like the way you think Tony :mrgreen:

After having fixed a few grow ops in my time, I knew I wanted to vent my fishroom. A $20 bathroom fan and some 3" PVC did the trick. I've wired the fan to a plug (not hard wired) so that I could use a timer and because it was easier overall.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d1...r/100_2659.jpg

Yes, the wiring is exposed! Like a lot of this project I am roughing things in and then going back to finish and refine. I want to get it up and running so I can start cycling the tank. I plan to build a housing around the fan to cover the wiring and to add some rigid cable guard to cover the wiring to the outlet. The fan is controlled by a $5 timer I bought at IKEA and it is set to turn on for 5 minutes every hour. Here's a blurry pic

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d1...r/100_2660.jpg

Most of the flora and fauna I'm interested in keeping is non photosynthetic (not light dependant) so lighting is not as important as in a tropical reef. The main purpose of lighting in a coldwater tank is for viewing and effect.
With this in mind I went all out and installed a cheap IKEA pendant and a Coralife 50/50 screw in CF. (the PVC is a temporary return line for a pump I'm switching out).

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d1...r/100_2664.jpg

One plant that is photosynthetic is eel grass, which I plan to incorporate into the system. For this I will use better lighting but I haven't decided whether I'm planting it in the main display or a plumbed in auxiliary tank so I've left more lighting out for now.
I know that someone, somewhere is probably laughing right now but the measuring stick I am using for this project is not the cost, but the effect. Here's a video of the lighting (the video is pretty rough and doesn't totally capture the shimmer effect. I'll try to take a better one later).

http://s106.photobucket.com/albums/m...t=100_2625.flv

cool project. keep up the good work.

I wanted to give the tank a west coast look so using the usual coral based substrate was out. Here's what I did.

Experiment #1:
I thought I'd try washed and screened playsand from H.D. (ha ha). I rinsed and rinsed for an hour and figured that had to be good enough so into the tank it went... oops!
The water turned into a solid chocolate cloud. I mixed in some salt with hopes that the skimmer would take out the silt and I hoped it would settle. Three days later it was a little less cloudy but my wife pointed out that as soon as a future fish stirred the bottom it would cloud up again. Dang.
I wound up siphoning the tank and removing all the playsand. Experiment #1 = disaster.
I then thought "the hell with it" and decided to go with plain old white silica sand. Lordco was out so they offered to ship some in from another store. When I returned they had shipped the wrong stuff. It turned out to be a Target product called Blue diamond 20-50 grit and I took it anyways.

Experiment #2:
Washed the 20-50 grit and only a little dust came out. In the tank it went. No cloudiness and the bottom closely resembles the ocean floor off our coast. Yahoo.

Experiment #3:
I must have been working a little too much with the PVC cement because I decided that I needed to run some carbon on my new set up. That wasn't so bad but I decided to utilize the flow from my display drainline. I loaded a sock with carbon and secured it to the drainpipe... oops!
The flow pulverized the carbon and my tank was back to a smoky cloud again.
This time the fix was less drastic than draining the tank. I ran an AC500 with some filter floss for a couple of days and the water cleared up.

No more experiments for me.:redface:

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d1...r/100_2662.jpg

Very "cool" (gag on the pun) thread and I look forward to tagging along. I remember reading about this on the Steve Weast site when he set up his coldwater tank and it was so interesting. I also think someone else on this board tried it a year or more ago and may have some interesting information to share.

this is turning out really cool. good job so far

what do you put in a coldwater tank btw?

very very cool. keep up the great work!