Post by sdboers on Feb 23, 2015 8:22:31 GMT -5
Hey Folks,
Looks like I dropped off the scene there for a while. Sorry for that! Been busy plowing snow and taking care of the cornicopia of canines here! Took a look through the tang blogs - some nice stuff going on...
Got my son a 125g tank for Christmas and built him a custom stand and hood with wood I had left over in the workshop. Wired up the hood with built in lighting and we're good to go. He moved his Cichlids from his 35g to his 125g, and then spent Christmas money from various sources turning the 35g into a FOWLR marine tank. Way too many tanks running in this house! lol...
A few changes to my tanks since I was here last. I have moved the mature fish from the 67g to the 135g to hang out with the rest of the crowd. That Red Empress I picked up is coloring up quite nicely. Added a few Tropheus as well - one mature with the stripe, one younger with the spots. I also moved the holey rock to the 135g and put some more sparse decorations into the 67g.
The 67g is now my "grow-out" tank as I had planned. You'll see in the video below that it has about 50 Kenyi babies in it from a pairing in my 135g. I also had a white lab and yellow lab pair up in the 135g. I ended up with some white labs, some yellow labs, and what I'll call some "creamsicle" labs... Added some more juvies from a local hobbyist as well - 3 Johannis, 2 peacocks and a Borleyi. Hoping the Borleyi is male as I have a female in my main tank.
Here is the video:
So what's next? I'll post up in the DIY forum as I make my way through it, but I'm planning on building the following items:
Looks like I dropped off the scene there for a while. Sorry for that! Been busy plowing snow and taking care of the cornicopia of canines here! Took a look through the tang blogs - some nice stuff going on...
Got my son a 125g tank for Christmas and built him a custom stand and hood with wood I had left over in the workshop. Wired up the hood with built in lighting and we're good to go. He moved his Cichlids from his 35g to his 125g, and then spent Christmas money from various sources turning the 35g into a FOWLR marine tank. Way too many tanks running in this house! lol...
A few changes to my tanks since I was here last. I have moved the mature fish from the 67g to the 135g to hang out with the rest of the crowd. That Red Empress I picked up is coloring up quite nicely. Added a few Tropheus as well - one mature with the stripe, one younger with the spots. I also moved the holey rock to the 135g and put some more sparse decorations into the 67g.
The 67g is now my "grow-out" tank as I had planned. You'll see in the video below that it has about 50 Kenyi babies in it from a pairing in my 135g. I also had a white lab and yellow lab pair up in the 135g. I ended up with some white labs, some yellow labs, and what I'll call some "creamsicle" labs... Added some more juvies from a local hobbyist as well - 3 Johannis, 2 peacocks and a Borleyi. Hoping the Borleyi is male as I have a female in my main tank.
Here is the video:
So what's next? I'll post up in the DIY forum as I make my way through it, but I'm planning on building the following items:
- Continuous water change system: Ok - so this one should be fairly straight forward (for adding the water anyway). The biggest challenge is that I need to take the water before it goes through the water softener which is about 50 feet away. A 100ft roll of Pex is about $25, so I'll likely go that way.
- Overflow retrofit: With continuous water coming in - I gotta have a way to get it out! I'm really not interested in drilling my tank, so retrofit it is. I haven't decided whether or not I will build an overflow box or an overflow PVC standpipe. Feel free to chime in with your thoughts.
- Discharge removal system: Once the overflow system takes the water out of the tank, I don't have an easy gravity run anywhere for the discharge. As such, I'm looking for the discharge to go to a collection point and then be pumped up, through the ceiling and over to the laundry room. Given that the water quantity will be fairly small (less than a gallon per hour), I've been looking at a condensate pump - but I'm not decided yet. I'd rather make it myself, but by the time you add the cost of a pump and a float switch you're at about $100 already.
- Powered aquarium vacuum: Last on the list, but this may be the first one I build. With a continuous water change going, I still want a way to pull out debris from the bottom - but I don't really want to lower the water level while doing it. I figure if I build a filtered vacuum that recirculates back into the tank, then I should be good to go. I know there are some commercial versions available, but they are costly and I've heard mixed reviews on them. Happy to hear otherwise if anyone has experience. My basic idea for a DIY version is to hang one of those inline whole house filters on the side of the tank (removable when not in use). I'll use a pump to pull (not push) the water through it and hook up a gravel vacuum to the input. The output will simply drain back into the tank.
Stay tuned next week when Sean says - "well it seemed like a good idea at the time..."
Sean.