Hi! We are George and Karla Booth. We have been aquarium hobbyists in Ft. Collins since 1986 and we have always specialized in planted freshwater aquaria.
We were members of the CAS in the 1980s and presented a couple of programs on planted tanks. We also participated in some of the CAS auctions by bringing down mass quantities of aquatic plants. However, we eventually dropped out due to the long drive to monthly meetings.
We have been proponents of high-tech tanks since we discovered Dupla's Optimum Aquarium book in 1986. We adapted their style to our own needs and have been very successful. We have a widely-read website detailing our methods and techniques: Aquatic Concepts
However, now it's time to retire and move to a warmer climate. We have been slowly selling off our aquariums and are down to our last one. It's time to close this chapter of our lives. If someone is interested in a high tech aquarium (or an aquarium and high tech equipment that can be sold off), the time is right for The Deal of the Century.
A diligent buyer could probably auction off the spares and recover the cost of the whole setup.
Please contact us at "gbooth at frii.com" (please substitute @ for " at ") or (970) 669-3478.
The aquarium to be sold is a 100 gallon acrylic tank by Amiracle with custom openings in the top plate to accommodate the high tech equipment. The tank is 60" long by 18" wide by 22" deep. The front and sides are a single piece of acrylic using bent corners (no ugly seams). We've always loved this no-seam look.
The stand and hood are custom-made out of plywood and oak veneer. It was made by The Woodworker in Loveland to our
specifications. There are two pairs of doors in the front giving full access to the interior.
The hood is split down the middle length-wise such that the front part flips up over the rear for easy access to the interior of the aquarium. The stand is furniture-quality and has been part of our living room since the late 1980s.
The stand has a power strip inside for connecting the equipment as well as one on the back for light timers. The
interior of the stand has its own light.
The aquarium has been set up snd running in its current form since 1996. There is no break-in period to deal with! A friend has adopted most of the fish and plants but there are still some plants and dwarf plecos in the tank. The substrate is about 200 pounds of Tex-Blast quartz gravel with Dupla laterite mixed in. It is well aged.
I have a video that shows all of our tanks "in their prime" (included).
The aquarium is lit by four 55 watt compact fluorescent bulbs using Aquarium Hobbyist Supply (AHS) Brite-Kits. Cool running electronic ballasts are employed to keep heat to a minimum. There are switches inside the hood to control the front and rear pairs so it is easy to turn off the front bulbs when the hood is flipped up for maintenance.
Separate timers are used for the front and rear pairs so they can be timed independently.
A 13 W "Moon Light" is also mounted in the hood to act as an accent light when the main lights are off. This light
is controlled manually.
An Amiracle trickle filter is used for biological filtering. It uses an outside overflow box that is fully silenced. It is driven by a Quiet-One pump through a custom built dual outlet PVC manifold. Ball valves control the water flow. The manifold is connected to the sump by a quick-disconnect filtting. A third outlet provides water for a CO2 reactor. I have a video that details the construction of the PVC manifold and setting up the filter (included).
The trickle filter uses 4 gallons of Dupla BioKascade bio-balls. It has a sponge prefilter in the overflow
box and a fabric filter in the drip tray.
Heating is provided by Dupla substrate heating coils with an Ebo-Jaeger 100 watt heater as a supplemment. The 200 watt coils are powered by a 24 volt 12 amp Duplamat transformer (good for 300 watts) An Aqua-Logic digital heat control unit maintains the temperature within 2 degrees F.
The Dupla cables are installed with Dupla cable anchors to maintain the correct spacing. I have a video that shows how the heating coils are installed (included).
(photo from a different aquarium)
Plants are fertilized with an automatic CO2 system. The system uses a 10 pound CO2 bottle mounted with Velco straps in the stand. The bottle is aluminum (light weight) and was last pressure tested in October 2007 (good for 5 years). The bottle can be refilled at Air Gas Products for about $20. Depending on the setup, a refill lasts from 3 months to a year.
An Air Products two-stage regulator reduces the bottle pressure from 850 PSI to 40 PSI. A two stage regulator prevents the CO2 from dumping when the bottle is about to run out (a problem seen with single stage regulators). The regulator has high and low pressure gauges.
A 110 volt solenoid controls the on-off cycle of the CO2. it is controlled by the pH controller. An ARO Model NO1 fine control controls the flow of CO2 to the reactor. This allows very fine control of the amount of CO2 going into the reactor. A Dupla bubble counter gives visual indication of the amount of CO2 reaching the reactor and acts as a check valve to prevent water from backing up into the needle valve and regulator.
A Dupla Reactor S mixes the CO2 into the water and has its outlet in the trickle filter sump (see the filter photo). The Reactor S is a very efficient reactor. Dupla printed instructions are available for the Dupla equipmnent.
A Sandpoint II dual controller is used to control the on/off cycles of the CO2. A Bradley-James "Silver series" pH probe monitors the aquarium pH and the controller turns the CO2 on when the pH reaches 7.05. It turns the CO2 off when the pH reaches 6.95. An ORP (oxidation reduction potential) probe is the other channel of the controller and is used as a indication of water quality. It is mostly for show in a freshwater aquarium but can be used to control ozone in a saltwater setup.
Since most of the high tech stuff is no longer available, we kept a second set of equipment for spares when we tore down the previous identical 100 gallon aquarium. Depending on how fast you act, duplicates of all the equipment is still available.