richms
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Posts posted by richms
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RE Richms
The tank IS inside the house - in her bedroom
. It's just freakin' cold at her flat because it's not insulated. It's like an icebox some days - bring on summer!In that case I would be more worried about her health then that of the fish, that's insanely cold to be living in and IMO a place that is that cold is not fit for living in.
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If you are getting the 60 liter wheely storers from the warehouse, they aren't suitable for moving when there is 60 liters of water in them. They crap, spectacularly, leaving 55 liters of water on the floor and fish flopping around.
Apparently calling something 60 liters doesn't mean you should use it to hold liquid.
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Go to the warehouse and get a plug in watt meter for twenty bucks. Even if the watt readings are not accurate (which they are not) the runtime is so you can use that to work it out.
Bit of a worry if the tank gets to 7° - it may be cheaper to bring it into the house where it will benefit from the heating of the house then leave it outside or wherever it is.
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Have for many many other things, but they are not that sharp on price when you factor in the postage on other sites its often less then DX are - plus you are penalized for more then one thing in an order on DX, whereas on other sites the more you buy the cheaper it is since the shipping is a smaller portion of it.
DX is cool, but if your a true gadgetphile then you will quickly get annoyed at their postage included prices that quickly add up.
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I wouldnt not buy on ebay.
There are a few people that buy from there and resell on the unmentionable site, but they add heaps to the price when I looked at it when I wanted some sooner, and the reality with airmail from HK is its here in a week moreoften then not. $13 + $4.50 post on unmentionable site vs US$9.99 for 100 including airmail - no reason to buy locally.
Asiaengineer is who I have bought heaps off, without problem... Also auspicious.e, no problems at all. I have bought other stuff off sure electronics on a friends account, again, no problems at all.
I think in the bag of 200 blue leds I got (back when they were a lot more then the other colours) there was about 5 dead ones and a couple with the beam shooting out at a strange angle.
Between ebay and farnel there is no reason to go to dse/jaycar again IMO...
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You're being ripped at that price. Have you looked on ebay at the prices from the asians? You can get 100 for US$9.99 on there.
Seems the cost of the power ones has come back - TERRALUX was the ones I was looking at and the 1 watt is US$26 - I would expect better luck with one of those then several 5mm ones since the intensity will be so much greater at the point where it leaves the end of the led. I know that when I was looking at getting one I was going to have to send back a signed waiver of going blindness before getting them, whereas the 5mm ones are pretty benign.
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Are the leds you got grunty ones, or the pathetic 5mm type? There are 3 and 5 watt UV leds available, but last time I looked at the price they were close to $90 a piece in small quantities. I doubt that the 5mm ones would do anything towards killing crud in water since they are not even dangerous to look at...
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I think that not running a tank one is just setting Darwin's theory up for a test, but sadly most people with tanks have already bred so it will never be a true Darwin award.
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Just put it back in and watch for bubbles from the suspect area when its first heating up. What will happen is they will cool down and suck water in as the air contracts so if you see bubbles, its no good.
edit: and if you don't have it on an RCD, then you should be careful regardless of suspecting the heater, since they are liable to break anytime. So go and get yourself an RCD in any case. If you have one, and its tested OK then you have nothing to worry about since there will be enough leakage to trip it if there is any conductivity thru the heater, crack in the glass or a leak at the top seal.
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Ok, 3 questions.
Is there any limit to the number of tubes I can run in series off a single ballast - a pair of 2 foots is common off a 36 watt magnetic ballast, with their own starter on each, is there a reason I cant have 4 off an 80 watt one?
Secondly, When wiring an electronic ballast to endcaps, and one end of the pair of tubes is in series, is there any benefit in making the connection close to the tubes vs separate cables back to the box I have put the ballast in. (meaning no need to cut the cables shorter and join in the hood)
Thirdly, do you know a source of replacement ends for thorn fittings, I had something fall on my pile of ones I bought a few years back off trademe and smash the plastic at one end, lamp specs dont want to know about it.
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I would run the filter on a bucket and dose it heavily with dechorinator before even thinking about putting it near a tank.
Its not just the canister, its all the nooks and crannys in the pump, and they hoses too that need doing.
But really, the smell of chlorine is what you get when it has broken stuff down, so it may be all gone despite the smell, a pool that smells like that is usually underchlorinated, and when you add more it will finish the job and smell goes.
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Some mid sized inverters designed for the RV and boating market have inbuilt chargers and changeover in them - effectivly making them a UPS when connected to a batterybank.
Have a look on ebay for inverters, the local market seems to only have the low power cigerette lighter ones at sane prices, anything grunty is stupid money.
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Check if the battery is isolated from the mains, its not on most small cheap UPS's, so you have high voltages on the terminals of the 12v battery with respect to earth.
Even some with external battery connectors are not isolated, as I found out when I let the sparks out of one spectacularly.
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Oh, I was using a seperate ballast with caps, I didn't go cutting down a light. The hours that would take to do and finish nicely would easily pay for a 3 foot fitting.
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Overdriving them will make the ends blacken really quickly - when I was feeding a 4 foot 36 watt tube off a 5 foot 58 watt ballast I got about 3 months on the tube, it was a lot hotter then one off the right ballast and not really that much brighter.
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Warehouse and bunnings are the cheapest - $20 - jaycar look to have sourced theirs separately and are much more expensive then the rest.
Keep in mind all the reviews about poor accuracy on non linear loads before panicking when you see what your PC and dvd etc take when on standby.
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Their advertising is pretty clear that you will get a warmer dryer home with the HRV - all mum got was a dryer house which needed more heating then before. I had no idea that they were charging that much for a heat recovery jobbie, they are pretty much the norm in the UK and noway near that expensive.
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Well I have just signed up to have HRV installed having read this thread. I will be interested to see how it goes. My house gets loads of sun but has big condensation/mould problems so it sounds like it will be a good candidate for it.
It will solve that, but ignore any claims they make about the place being warmer, because you have to re-heat the air to make up for the warm stuff you push out of the house.
The Mistubishi losnay looks to be a much better idea, and it is actually recovering the heat from the air you remove. Not heard of anyone getting a quote on it, but with the rip that HRV charge I cant see it being much more then that...
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I had issues with spraypaint where it was pulling back from various spots on the tank, and I had to really layer it on to get a solid coating. I think it took about 4 coats.
What I did was lie the tank down on its front and put a light in it, kept going till I could see no more light shining thru it.
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Thats a requirement for the plug in ones so that if some idiot puts a tool down after a power failure and doesnt turn it off, it wont restart when the power comes back.
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Hmm, good point on that one.
Since I was planning on the overflow being 2 bits of 40mm, and the closest it seems to be able to get is about 20mm with the combination I was thinking of I dont think it will be a problem.
I will prob go for 40mm for the inlets as well and just step it down on each side so I only have to get one drillbit for all the holes.
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The amendments that are either about to go thru or just have gone thru say that there is a max of 3 circuits per rcd, and the lighting circuits must be distributed across them all.
If I was to replace the board here, that would mean 5 or 6 RCDs upstream of the existing breakers, meaning a bigger panel (again, just got the last one in before the first rcd rules came in) and god knows what else.
Oh yeah, i would also have to upgrade the sub boards in the garage and the shed to have RCDs as well since they are not separate installations as far as they are concerned.
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I am _finally_ going to get around to putting an overflow and spraybar onto my big tank (vs the fluval filters intake and loud-as outlet)
Anyway, the big deal for me is distance from the wall. All the bulkheads I have seen have gone directly out of the tank, so the hose then has to have an elbow on it or bend downwards.
Is there some way to get a bulkhead that has the hose immediatly going downwards upon exiting the back of the tank? That would mean the tank could be one hose diameter away from the wall, which would make me happy since a tank miles from the wall looks pretty ghetto, and I am not really game to make holes in the wall at this stage just for an aquarium
Hole in the bottom installation.
in Technical
Posted
I bought a hansen tank fitting at miter10 (sftft25) - looking for a drillbit on trademe to make the hole.
Now when I put a ruler to the tank fitting (which says its 25mm) it looks about 32-33mm across the thread. The data at http://www.hansenproducts.co.nz/tech/thread/dimensions/sftft.htm#SFTF
says that for the sftft25 it is 25 across the thread. When I was at miter10 I tried threading it onto other things and the 32mm pipe adaptor seemed to fit onto it ok.
I am wondering if I actually got a 32mm tank fitting that was mislabled or if the 25mm refers to the inside or what.
Since 32mm is an actual drillsize, I was thinking that it would be the one to go for, but want conformation that I am not going to end up with a wrong sized hole that I cant use.
BTW, I will be drilling a crappy 3 foot tank first, not the good tank