Help With Aps 330L Tank

[Westcoaster]

New to the forum although not totally new to fish keeping,
I have recently bought a APS 330l tank( I know you get what you pay for ) the hood had a crack in it so has been been returned,
What I need to know if any has one is .... How far off the back wall does the the top tray power head sit?
I'm asking this because I'm in the process of building a 3d background and want to make space for it.
I have tried phoning and e-mailing APS & honestly I think I could get blood from a stone easier.
Hopefully someone on here can help.

 

[phishyphil]

Hi mate, I have one of these tanks (See 75G) and to be honest, the power head they have sucks! It says 900litre per houe (Which i worked out to be more like 450 litres mate. And the filter hoods are useless as there not tiered up, loads of particles get through. If i was you, i would ditch this power head and do the following:

1) Buy an external Filter (Definatly Reccomend the TetraTec EX1200)
2) Buy a power head of around 3000 lph (6000 if you are going to plant) and set this up to, you are going to need a lot of circulation in this tanks as its DEEP and needs water movement, Trust me.


Costs (£100 for the TT1200, £15 for the power head.

Its worth it mate. the hood filter will not cut it, simply put, i speak from experience

 

[Westcoaster]

Hi
I sort of guessed that the top tray filtration was going to be near to useless, i've got a EF1400 external filter that I'm going to run and wanted to use that powerhead to circulate water the plan is to block the top hole, what I need to know is how far off the back wall does the powerhead sit?
I'm having a go at building a 3d background and wanted to leave a bit of space for it , however its not easy considering APS has my hood.
One more thing how have you found the heater?

 

[phishyphil]

Its around1.5-2 inches,off mate, erm the heater works, however I have replaced it due to how short the wire is, only around 50cm, so switched in the interpret 250 watt.
I found that the heater was higher temp than what it says

 

[Westcoaster]

Cheers for that, I'm off to play with the background.

 

[phishyphil]

Cheers for that, I'm off to play with the background.

No probs. Would definatley recommend leaving room on BOTH sides of the tank for your external mate, if you decided to get one, then you can have the input at one side with the output at the opposite flowing towards the input to eliminate dead spots

Get some pictures up pof your tank. About to Recape Mine

 

[Westcoaster]

I'm having difficult uploading photos off my phone, I'll have to transfer onto the laptop(when the wife finally comes off Facebook).
External filters are a new one to me so I presume this is the right terms. Input = return to tank, Output = flow into filter, or is it the other way round.

When I can get some pictures up you can see what I'm trying to explain, Ive made a cut out in the back of the background in the corner for the water to go out to the filter( plastic meshed so fish can't get behind), then another one for the water to flow over the heater and into the tank(meshed again). There is another cut out to run some air pipe down the back as well.
That sounds daft but pictures speak a thousand words.
The external I've got is an EF1400 from APS, I got it secondhand but never been used for £25, I know someone locally that runs a couple of these and has had no problems and is willing to swap some mature media for my fresh, so that should speed up the cycling. I'm going to keep an eye on water and temperature flow in the tank during cycling.

 

[Westcoaster]

here's the front.






and the back

 

[phishyphil]

The APS one's seem to be a good filter. Heard the handles are a bit flimsy so be carefull. Im going to invest in the APS 2400 lph filter.

If you have mature filter media, then your tank will not need "Cycling" as the mature filter media is already cycled, as long as it has been kept moist and had a good supply of oxygenated water. would just be a case of adding it to your filter, with any new filter media you wanted and seeding this filter media with the mature one. Just run the tank for a day or two whilst your new filter media and you should be safe to add livestock

What are you going to look at for stocking mate?

 

[Westcoaster]

here is the list i would ideally like for it

1x False siamese algae eater (already own)
10x Panda corydoras (1 of a pair left)
6x Harlequin rasbora (2 of a trio left)
1x Rubbernose/Bulldog plec
1x Peckoltia Vittata
30x Assorted leopard/Zebra Danios (12 already owned)
2/3x Killifish (1 rescued fish) trying to identify see other post.

the fish i currently own are all happily living in a 64L tank

 

[phishyphil]

here is the list i would ideally like for it

1x False siamese algae eater (already own)
10x Panda corydoras (1 of a pair left)
6x Harlequin rasbora (2 of a trio left)
1x Rubbernose/Bulldog plec
1x Peckoltia Vittata
30x Assorted leopard/Zebra Danios (12 already owned)
2/3x Killifish (1 rescued fish) trying to identify see other post.

the fish i currently own are all happily living in a 64L tank

Your certainly in need for a new tank if you have all those Danios in that tank. They need a lot of room to swim, this 330litre should be ideal. However 30 might be a little too much I feel, They are top dwellers so this would make the top layer rather crowded.

I think you should maybe drop this number to around 15 Danios, then incorporate some larger feature fish in the middle layer. Bleeding heart tetras or Columbian Red Fin tetra are really nice i feel.

However this is just my opinion. Im sure others could offer an insight. Maybe post a topic asking others if this stocking is suitable mate

You going planted?

The Harlequins will look good in here,

 

[Westcoaster]

Yes to the planting as it not only helps with the nitrogen cycle but also the fish love playing in and eating them,
Regarding the danios these are my favorite fish and the reason I bought a bigger tank, the idea of about 30 was so I could have a 15 shoal of leopard and a 15 shoal of zebra or there abouts,
I have always worked on a formula of 1 cm of adult body size to 1 liter of water, using that I calculated that I'm going to have 280L of fish leaving 50L for plants,gravel etc.