wtf is that side supposed to be?
(sorry, @ijg3956 for the thread hijack, you would think that a Rookie Moderator would know better)
Tank Journal Archive
(sorry, @ijg3956 for the thread hijack, you would think that a Rookie Moderator would know better)
He does. On ebay I've seen him get $60. I don't mind making a buck but the way he initially went about it was very deceiving. Still he got so pissed off at me publishing his price that he gave some away to spite me. All it did though was make me really happy.
Stupid B has been on my ignore/foe list over there for ages but he still keeps sending me messages every week, not that I ever try to access them.
Anyhow I just think this should be more readily available so I'll try to do my little bit toward that goal. Hell I might sell some elsewhere too but at nowhere near that price.
That is SLICK! aqualeds.de not the site you mentioned, that was some dodgy shit haha.
When you have enough to share, I'll grow some out to distribute too. Macro in my sump under the PAR30 lamp grows like crazyHe does. On ebay I've seen him get $60. I don't mind making a buck but the way he initially went about it was very deceiving. Still he got so pissed off at me publishing his price that he gave some away to spite me. All it did though was make me really happy.
Stupid B has been on my ignore/foe list over there for ages but he still keeps sending me messages every week, not that I ever try to access them.
Anyhow I just think this should be more readily available so I'll try to do my little bit toward that goal. Hell I might sell some elsewhere too but at nowhere near that price.
Back on topic.:p
I installed the powerboards last night and put the sump in place:
Those saw marks are where the cladding had been sticking up. That may have been what caused the tank to fail. The RH board is the electronic timer board which controls the tank light, the moonlights & the sump light. The middle board (left in this photo) is a remote control board, it allows me to turn off individual powerheads & the return pump from a remote half the size of a playing card.
Since these pics were taken we've labelled each outlet & its purpose.
This LED clamp on light was $19.95 from Bunnings. I've put a wood screw straight through one of the suction cups where it mounts to the bracket as a fail safe and put a drip loop in the cord (all cords have drip loops).
The sump's wet. Running the return pump back to the first compartment to check for noise. Water fall is fine but I'll need to put something under the pump to cut vibration.
This is my space age, high tech, NASA approved DSB container! Ok it's an old Tupperware container about 9 inches high and 5 inches square. It has sufficient depth & can be repositioned or removed safely. It's filled with sand of about 1mm diameter to just below the top.
I installed the powerboards last night and put the sump in place:
Those saw marks are where the cladding had been sticking up. That may have been what caused the tank to fail. The RH board is the electronic timer board which controls the tank light, the moonlights & the sump light. The middle board (left in this photo) is a remote control board, it allows me to turn off individual powerheads & the return pump from a remote half the size of a playing card.
Since these pics were taken we've labelled each outlet & its purpose.
This LED clamp on light was $19.95 from Bunnings. I've put a wood screw straight through one of the suction cups where it mounts to the bracket as a fail safe and put a drip loop in the cord (all cords have drip loops).
The sump's wet. Running the return pump back to the first compartment to check for noise. Water fall is fine but I'll need to put something under the pump to cut vibration.
This is my space age, high tech, NASA approved DSB container! Ok it's an old Tupperware container about 9 inches high and 5 inches square. It has sufficient depth & can be repositioned or removed safely. It's filled with sand of about 1mm diameter to just below the top.
It turns out the sump has a small internal leak between the 1st & second chambers. It must be tiny as once the pump is turned off it takes about 20 minutes for the water height to equalise between the two cells, so I'm going to ignore it as it doesn't effect normal operation. Also the first baffle, which I thought too high and might cause noise, is totally silent when the the intake is correctly positioned. Not bad for a $25 second hand sump I picked up a year ago. Also I pinched a homebrand green scourer out of a new pack in the cupboard, placing this under the return pump has silenced it at a cost of about 30c. As an added bonus they are pretty good matrix for bacteria, better value than the horribly expensive jap matting which I've seen for as much as $220 per sq metre.:confused: .
This is definitely a budget build!
Time to fit the big condom. This was picked up online for $8.
200 micron filter sock.
This is definitely a budget build!
Time to fit the big condom. This was picked up online for $8.
200 micron filter sock.
I paid $65 through St Vincents hospital as they were hard to get back when.. Now 4 years later $30 delivered for the same model (by the look of it) on facebook.
Current link: Here They also have an "All OFF" button, great for feeding times.
The condom sits too low in the water so tomorrow I'll cut a small piece of glass & affix it to the end of the sump to lift the filter sock. I haven't cut glass for about a million years and certainly not since my left arm went on strike. Just as well I've got a few offcuts lying around.
Here's the sump in place and set up to cycle flow from one end to the other until I put the display tank on. I'll have to start looking for a skimmer that will fit my sump now but I've done research & there are a few options.
For now I'm going to run the DSB in the refuge area until I sort out the skimmer, then hopefully it will fit under and to the side of the condom (filter sock). The refugium area looks a bit haphazard but in fact it has been carefully thought out. Pods, particularly copepods, have an "ideal" breeding configuration, that is a very thin layer of fine sand where it merges with rubble. My rubble zone is made up of 2 sizes of rubble.
The far end of the rubble is mostly very small coral bones, tiny bits of rock rubble and the many baby trochus snail shells from my old DT. (I had them breeding but the hermits kept eating them). As these bits are so small I have some chunky stuff on top to protect the area as these tiny bits wash around easily in the sump overflow.
The closest end is bigger rubble and shells to provide a secondary refuge for the mysis shrimp I intend to source & breed. Again some heavier stuff to keep it in place, it doesn't look it but there are 3900 litres of flow through the sump every hour, that's almost 4 ibc's worth!
The main mysis refuge however will be in my DT weir. In the refuge area you can also see some Dragon's Tongue type macro I'm cultivating. Most is in the seed tank but I want to compare growth under different conditions, as well as nitrate & phosphate take up efficiency. This macro (if successful) will be used for nitrate & phosphate export from the sump as it's said to be a big phosphate user, I'll use some to feed weed eaters in my DT such as the planned blenny & foxface. Some will be given away & I'll sell enough to offset the cost of acquiring it if I'm lucky.
Still tidying up wiring in here and setting drip loops on everything.
Other macros destined for the sump are:
Tip: If you have unused power outlets in your sump, you can use child safety caps to keep water out. About $5 for 10 of these.
Here's the sump in place and set up to cycle flow from one end to the other until I put the display tank on. I'll have to start looking for a skimmer that will fit my sump now but I've done research & there are a few options.
For now I'm going to run the DSB in the refuge area until I sort out the skimmer, then hopefully it will fit under and to the side of the condom (filter sock). The refugium area looks a bit haphazard but in fact it has been carefully thought out. Pods, particularly copepods, have an "ideal" breeding configuration, that is a very thin layer of fine sand where it merges with rubble. My rubble zone is made up of 2 sizes of rubble.
The far end of the rubble is mostly very small coral bones, tiny bits of rock rubble and the many baby trochus snail shells from my old DT. (I had them breeding but the hermits kept eating them). As these bits are so small I have some chunky stuff on top to protect the area as these tiny bits wash around easily in the sump overflow.
The closest end is bigger rubble and shells to provide a secondary refuge for the mysis shrimp I intend to source & breed. Again some heavier stuff to keep it in place, it doesn't look it but there are 3900 litres of flow through the sump every hour, that's almost 4 ibc's worth!
The main mysis refuge however will be in my DT weir. In the refuge area you can also see some Dragon's Tongue type macro I'm cultivating. Most is in the seed tank but I want to compare growth under different conditions, as well as nitrate & phosphate take up efficiency. This macro (if successful) will be used for nitrate & phosphate export from the sump as it's said to be a big phosphate user, I'll use some to feed weed eaters in my DT such as the planned blenny & foxface. Some will be given away & I'll sell enough to offset the cost of acquiring it if I'm lucky.
Still tidying up wiring in here and setting drip loops on everything.
Other macros destined for the sump are:
- Chaetomropha peltata sp. - Possibly
- Chaetomorpha linumsp sp. - The one the yanks use!
- Caulerpa brachypus sp.
Tip: If you have unused power outlets in your sump, you can use child safety caps to keep water out. About $5 for 10 of these.
Mysis really just need a protected area with smallish rubble that predators can't get into. Mixing in some seashells is good because they can hide inside these. If breeding in the weir they will end up in your sump too (fine with me) but ideally you want them to be able to get back into the DT directly too so no weir combs, etc.
I'm still researching mysis and waiting on a couple of opinions from suppliers. Then I'll incorporate a "how to" for mysis in my TJ.
Thanks:D
My tank journal is a record of the journey as well as a sort of "how to" (or how I did) but with warts and all. So when I stuff up I put that in too to help others avoid the same mistakes. Writing it is having a side benefit too.It helps keep my thoughts in order & keeps me on track (mostly) to my original plan, besides I have lots of spare time. I also try to use both hands when typing this up and it seems to be helping with learning to use my right arm better.*
It's encouraging to see that it actually gets read by a few people too.
*As previously mentioned I've been having an ongoing disagreement with a squatter that thinks it has a right of residence in my ugly head (one I may be winning).
A couple of planned DIY/HowTo projects coming up that I'll photograph & detail.
- DIY brine shrimp hatchery options, sourcing, storing, raising & enriching brine shrimp.
- Mysis shrimp, sourcing, breeding & benefits.
- The ultimate cleanup crew.
- Installing 12v & 24v extraction fans.
- Freshwater fish for marine tanks.
- Fragging different corals.
DIY Brine Shrimp Hatcheries
DRAFT & INCOMPLETE UNTIL THIS LINE REMOVED
There are a bunch of reasons for wanting to hatch your own brine shrimp. I'll deal with the "why" later, this is the "how". You can of course buy commercial brine hatcheries online but if you want to do it on a budget or just dip your toe in the water then this might help. This will eventually cover 3 or four different hatchery types & I'll add each one as I build it - yes I'll build them all. :eek
Floating Soft Drink Bottle Hatchery
Possibly the cheapest & most unsightly method of all, but its also the cheapest, easiest AND most effective for getting maximum hatch rates - and it can be floated in your sump out of site. This gives them light and heat although believe it or not, you don't really need light or heat as a rule. I successfully hatch brine in a jar on the kitchen window sill just letting the ambient room temperature take care of things & I'm in country Vic near the coast.. Doing this does reduce the hatch rate a bit but not by enough for me to worry about.
You'll need:
- A 1.25lt or 2lt (or any size really) plastic soft drink bottle with its cap. Remove the label first.
- A sharp razor knife
- An air pump (cheap and nasty is perfect)
- Some polystyrene slightly larger than your bottle's circumference.
- Airline
- One way airline valve
- An air stone (optional)
- Silicon (optional)
- Freeze dried brine shrimp eggs
Drill a hole through the middle of the bottle cap. You want the hole to be slightly smaller than the air stone's shaft or, if not using an air stone, drill slightly smaller than the diameter of you air line
Push your air stone through the cap from the underside, making sure you push it all the way home. If using just airline then just push a cm of line through from the top so that the airline is just poking into the bottle through the cap. Optionally you can silicon the line/stone in place. It's really not necessary for the floating hatchery however, if you want this to double as a standard hatchery you need to silicon. (I'll demonstrate silicon application in the standard hatchery section).
Press the cut surface of the bottle into your foam to create a cutting mark (or trace around it with pen).
Cut out a hole about 2mm SMALLER than the bottle.
Poke the cap end of the bottle through the hole so it fits snugly about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way up.
Thread your airline on, making sure it won't fall off. Please excuse the fuzzy pic.
So here's the whole setup.
This pump was $10 at the LFS. You don't want too powerful a pump for this or you'll get spray & salt creep, you only want enough air to keep the brine eggs suspended in the water column.
Fill your bottle with tank water to where your foam is sitting and float it in your tank or sump.
Attachments
Tank is back where it belongs.
Lee from Australian Aquariums did a great job, quickly and for a good price. Very happy.
New front glass, new weir, new braces and re-siliconed. I actually did not want a full height weir but I failed to explain that to Lee & I like it now that I have it, it will become a multipurpose refuge and breeding area for pods, mysis shrimp and my red macro algae. I will also be putting a magnetic frag rack inside the weir. I'm going to partly/fully cover the weir with black perspex too.
The weir is full of fresh water to test the bulkhead seals, all good. Tomorrow I'll test the whole tank.
Lee from Australian Aquariums did a great job, quickly and for a good price. Very happy.
New front glass, new weir, new braces and re-siliconed. I actually did not want a full height weir but I failed to explain that to Lee & I like it now that I have it, it will become a multipurpose refuge and breeding area for pods, mysis shrimp and my red macro algae. I will also be putting a magnetic frag rack inside the weir. I'm going to partly/fully cover the weir with black perspex too.
The weir is full of fresh water to test the bulkhead seals, all good. Tomorrow I'll test the whole tank.
