Cheers mate!WOW your tanks all look amazing.
The ice bubble tips in the Redsea 130 and ones in your anenome tank all look insane.
I'd love any off them if your keen to ever sell one.
I love how your tanks all do auto water changes and if love to see more details on how its all set up so could look at doing it myself.
Sadly, my house config will never allow me to have a fully automated water change system like yours :( though could be a good thing given the slippery slope that has been mentioned earlier!hehehe yeah, it slips out of hand very easily :p
It's too easy when you have odds and ends sitting about that allow you to pop together another tank quickly/easily/cheaply. And of course, the water change system means it is not really anymore work for me
Thanks for all that info. Very helpful.Ok - firstly, tell me why your house configuration will not allow for an automated water change system? I've installed more than a dozen of these setups now and pretty much every person has a list of reasons why it won't work - only for me to explain why that isn't true. Sounds like you might be next? :p
SPS, speaking of slippery slopes..... LOL. Yes your plan sounds good. Water changes will keep things in control for a fair while. It isn't until you get some pretty decent growth that you will strip out alk/cal/mag quicker than your water changes are replenishing it. But yes, at that point you'll want to either go a doser, cal reactor or even a kalk reactor.
Whilst I love calcium reactors, I'd recommend starting off with dosing. Pickup a used doser and feed randy's through it. Cheap, easy and a good basis to get your head around it. When you get to the point of dosing a couple litres a day of each, it's time to setup a calcium reactor and you'll understand the how/why so much more than that it will be a much easier path.
To give you a comparisons, here is what I would estimate the costs to be:
Doser ($150), Containers ($20), chemicals ($50) - $220
Calcium reactor ($500), bottle ($150), Regulator ($150), Media ($60), ph controller and solenoid ($150), assorted plumbing ($40) - $1150
Big difference!
I’d need to see the layout, but you know these systems use 6mm flexible tubing with all assortment of fittings yeah? If a sparky can get electricity to your tank, we can get auto water changes to it. But yes, it’s not a cheap option (although I’d rate it about as or more vital than a skimmer, so would budget around the same cost if not some more for AWC.Maybe I am nrxy
Thanks for all that info. Very helpful.
Re: auto water change. Not impossible, but difficult and expensive enough to aim to spend our limited tank funds elsewhere. Happy to have my mind changed if there is a way to do it that I haven't considered.
* my house is on a narrow sloping block with a driveway we share with the neighbours. The fish tank is under an open staircase on the driveway wall, but running pipes through the wall is not possible as they would exit underneath the ground/driveway. To get them high enough up the internal wall would make them ugly and too visible from the lounge room and while walking up stairs.
* Only other option would be to plumb through the other wall into the laundry, but it is tiny with no room for any fish related equipment. :)
* if I somehow managed to get the pipework outside the run to the water has lots of obstacles. Also no room for IBC in backyard, so 3 x 220L barrels out back next to shed.
haha thanks mate, it's far from state of the art - but does the job.@Sam Parker what a state-of-the-art !
Question: where did you get the fan from? And if it's clipped to the tank, do you think the vibration might have an adverse effect on the glass?
The reason I asked is because 5 years ago, i got fan clipped on the tank and one night, it just shattered. Not sure if the vibration caused it to break.
Sam,I’d need to see the layout, but you know these systems use 6mm flexible tubing with all assortment of fittings yeah? If a sparky can get electricity to your tank, we can get auto water changes to it. But yes, it’s not a cheap option (although I’d rate it about as or more vital than a skimmer, so would budget around the same cost if not some more for AWC.
These litermeter setups do come up used on eBay America pretty often, I snapped up two sets in the last three weeks cheap :)