WEKA

Hi Everyone. I am about to silicon in the glass sides of my weir to the walls of my main tank. The weir dimensions are 290Lx150Wx580H. My question is what is the ideal thickness of silicon between the edges of the weir glass and the tank wall. I am asuming you do not have the glasses butted hard up to each other. I would really appreciate your comments. Cheers

Thats a great site Feelers - Thanks

Thanks Ira I bought a couple of metres of it to try. Even if it gets a few ripples in it should still give a good effect. Might use silicon to hold it in place - the double sided tape might let go after a while with the heat from the lites.

Anyone used that reflective film that they sell in the hydoponics shops. It looks real shiny and you could line the inside of the lite hood with it?

Do these have to run in a sump. What sort of cost.

The coolroom unit did not cost me anything as I rescued it from in front of a front end loader just before it went to the dump. It was one of those things you put in the back of the garage for ten years thinking it may come in usefull one day. I did not even know if it worked so gave it a test run prior to building the heat exchanger. My thoughts are that a water cooler would probably only have enough grunt for a small tank ie 100L. Problem with any marine tank is keeping the salt away from metal pipes. Even stainless does not survive long under these conditions. I will post some pics of my setup to date when I work out how to post them on this site.

I have built a chiller for my 600L cold marine using a unit I salvaged from a small walkin coolroom. The evapourator from inside the coolroom fitted into a section of 250mm pvc pipe with enough room for forty metres of 12mm garden irrigation pipe to be coiled around inside the lenght of it. It stands about 900mm high. Amazing how much pipe you can fit in! The 12mm pipe is split into two parallel circuits to reduce the head on the supply pump. The saltwater runs thru the irrigation pipe which is submerged in freshwater inside the pvc pipe alongwith the fridge evapourator. I have a small pump which circulates the freshwater around inside of the pvc pipe and helps with the heat transfer from the saltwater pipe to the freshwater and then into the fridge piping. I have not finished my set up yet but have had the chiller running thru my sump and it works real well. Had the sump down from 22 to 10deg in about half an hour. The fridge compressor is rated at about 1Kw. Have insulated the outside of the pvc pipe with 25mm foam. Hope you can make sense from all of this. Be happy to pass on the raft of experience I have gained from this part of my project if you are interested.

Thanks Suphew I was planning on using 5ft tubes but I guess there is a difference in length there as well. Where do you get these T5 tubes I have not seen them around.

Thanks Chimera I guess the control gear is the same for T5 & T8 so I can do a bit of experimenting once I get things going. Mine is starting off as cold marine so T8 may be OK I am just about to start on the construction of the light box so may try and design to allow for MH lights in future

Im new at this but why does everyone seem to use T5 tubes, why not T8

Will the mollies survive in saltwater - if they are not eaten

I have made a drip plate out of one of those tank fish separating sheets of polycarb or whatever. It has heaps of very small holes. I placed my foam on top of it to filter out anything big enough to block the holes. The plate is about 400 x 300 and easily handles the full return of approx 5000lhr. I have Bio-Bale in the wet/dry underneath and get a very good distribution of water thru the media with that drip plate. Have a look at Bio-Bale on goggle it looks good. Tank not operational yet so this is all still a bit experimental.

Personally prefer the dark rum, thinking of testing this out when I get some water in my cold marine

I have been told that both vodka and rum are great but it has to be digested first before adding to tank!!

I cannot believe I have only had one response to my question on pumps. What is everyone out there using - perpetual motion? I hope I did not put everyone off with my" break the bank" comment. I know you only get what you pay for but some must be more value for the dollar than others. Cheers Warren

Thanks Ira I guess thats rated at 5000ltrs. Do you know what sort of $ and where to purchase. Warren

Hi Everyone I am in the process (still) of setting up a cold water marine. I purchased a King 5 pump with a 6000L and 4m head capacity as my main circulation pump. I thought it would be OK as a starter until I sorted out exactly what I would need long term. I have a freezer panel equipment cupboard down the side of the house which contains my cooler unit, sump, denitrator and protein skimmer. I was a bit suprised at the noise this pump makes and although it is not a major problem with it being outside I would like to obtain something that makes less noise. It has a kind of rattle that makes more noise than the fridge plant. Can anyone recommend a pump of similair capacity that runs very quiet without breaking the bank. Would need to be submersible to go in the sump as I am running out of room. PS I have a total water capacity of around 700litres. Cheers Warren

I am still setting up my tank but thought I would place the return underwater but drill a small hole say 5mm in the return pipe down about 30mm below the water level. This should break the syphon when the level in the tank drops. 30mm in my tank equates to approx 30 litres which the sump can accommodate. Do you think this will work ?

Thanks Caryl I am off to Raratonga in a couple of weeks. Don't suppose they would let me bring back any tropicals. cheers Warren

They don't come much greener than me. The last time I had an aquarium was back in the late 60s. I was living in Whangarei and had a small cold saltwater. I was amazed at what was available in the shops when I started to get back into my latest project. My sport is scuba diving and I am keen to start enjoying the things I come accross in my sport rather than just eating them. My tank is still under construction. It is 600L with a sump of about 70L. I have built a protein skimmer and a cooler unit. All of the equipment is to be housed around the back of the house in a freezer panel "cupboard" I have made. I have read a lot on the internet and hope all the theory works for me. If the worst comes to the worst I may just have to force myself out diving to collect some more critters. Cheers Warren

PS STEVE Wot is that picture you are running?? Warren

Hey Thanks for your comments. I have an electronic thermostat for the cooler which goes down to 0.1 deg C hysteresis. I had thought I might purchase another for the heating. The saltwater has a greater head than the glycol so if there is a leak I am hoping it will not be in the direction of the tank. The main pump has a capacity of around 6000l/hr so I may look at byepassing some of this thru the cooler rather than run a dedicated pump on the cooler 24hrs. Thanks again for your help. Cheers Warren

I am in the process of setting up a cold saltwater tank (15 deg c )of approx 700 litres. As part of the setup I have constructed a heat exchanger (for cooling) consisting of 0.5 inch polythene tubing (approx 40 metres in 3 circuits) which carries the saltwater thru a glycol mix tank which is cooled by a refridgeration compressor. The cooling will operate for extended periods in the warmer weather. My concern is - will the tubing build up aerobic bacteria and work as a biological filter while the cooling system is operational. If so what will happen to that bacteria if the cooling is not required for some days and there is no circulation thru the tubing. Will I get a burst of nitrates or whatever when the cooling circulation re starts. Will I need to keep the circulation going thru the heat exchanger continuously even when the compressor is not required. Any thoughts on this? Cheers Warren