My DIY aquarium build, the good the bad and the ugly! (Anoxic Filtration)

Coral skeletons that make up crushed coral consist of calcium carbonate, which helps increase your aquarium's pH level up to 7.6 without the use of any chemicals.

Copied directly from google search result.
Yes, it is. African cichlids prefer high PH/GH/KH. My tap water is 8 PH so it all adds up 8.2 in the main tank. Excellent for them. PH is something one can't really fight against over time. Using chemicals makes it unstable : mores stress. Driftwood makes water brown. Almond leaves we need a lot of them to make any changes + they make the water brown that is hard to get rid of.

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Coral 2.jpg


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The founder of AFS talked about my substrate in the beginning of the video for a minute here lol

 
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:eek:Another one, Cool.....how do u get time to maintain ur tanks!!
I sold the second one. After this one I will have 2 max. What maintenance? I just do 25% water change every week. Sometimes 15 days. Last water change in my small tank was on Nov 7th, then I did one yesterday. Was testing how long can it go without one. Water was still clear not crystal clear. This is the power of AFS I believe. These tanks have not troubled me for any maintenance. I just kept on modding/tweaking things to make it better.
 
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Fantastic work man !!! Here I can't even imagine going your way to set up an aquarium.
Building one with corner clamps and injection method looks complicated but is way easier. If done right even a leak test is not needed. I don't do leak tests anymore. 10/12mm glass gaps between them has 2mmx10/12mm thick silicon injected in between them. Zero air bubbles, there is no way water can leak through it. The conventional method really sucks IMO. Silicon is all over the place. To make it leakproof you need to use a lot more and finger it out and hope it does not leak.


Check at 2:45.

Simple injection.
Very fine PVC mesh to be kept on ugf plates .. just delivered!
 

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I sold the second one. After this one I will have 2 max. What maintenance? I just do 25% water change every week. Sometimes 15 days. Last water change in my small tank was on Nov 7th, then I did one yesterday. Was testing how long can it go without one. Water was still clear not crystal clear. This is the power of AFS I believe. These tanks have not troubled me for any maintenance. I just kept on modding/tweaking things to make it better.
ooh, 2 is ok, i thought you have 3+...good work:)
 
Glass was not cut to perfection .. the way I wanted it .. so had to use 2mm tile spacers instead of 3mm (it is a task to carry 12mm glass to the grinder to fine tune edges) Bit of silicon wasted and not so smooth experience. Fine end result with a bit of forearm soreness. So much diff using 2mm VS 3mm gaps!

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Will add corner braces in the evening today. Looks great!
 
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Dismantled old SUMP to make it smaller, silicon was just cut through with old cutter. This is very hard if the glass panes are too close to each other.

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The most important brace:

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Prep 4.jpg
Silicon 2.jpg
 

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