Visited an impressive tank, Basso System
by
, 11-02-2013 at 05:43 PM (4548 Views)
Yesterday I visited a famous Brazilian veteran aquarist, Mr Joao Basso, he's been in the hobby for some 40 years now (much like Paul B), and in his recent years has experimented a lot with new tank formats and other DIY projects.
One of his recent inventions, about 2 to 3 years ago, is a tank system that has no visible overflow nor return, no visible pumps, uses a small return pump (aquarium volume turnover once per hour), looks super hyper clean and has incredible flow using a closed loop pointed upwards.
This is what I intend, Lord willing, to change my system into in the future.
It is very hard to describe how it works, but once you understand it is a masterpiece in design and ease of maintenance. He only has a skimmer and an horizontal algae acrubber in the sump, no baffles, no fancy compartments, etc. Water is changed 10% every 2 months, and quality is maintained with Balling with a doser.
It is a 70cm x 70cm x 45cm acrylic display tank (that's 27.5in x 27.5in x 18in for the metric challenged LOL), visible from all sides.
Enough talking, here are the pictures.... It was "at night" in the tank when I visited so you'll see flash pictures and blue LED pictures. The real thing is 1000% more colorful and beautiful than the pictures, believe me....
In side 3/blue, the bearded man behind the tank is Mr Basso.
Do you see any tubes or pumps? No, right? The overflows and return are at the tank corners, small and discrete. Can't see the closed loop either, but it is right in the middle, pointed upwards. Can you believe the system has great random flow, it even seems like a wavemaker is running (and there is none).
I was much impressed by what I saw, and hope one day to convert my tank into that format.
Snorkeler