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[APD] The Stooges Work Tank Update
Greetings
I have been doing a lot of Archive searching since last posting in early
January about Rift Lake Algae and the 75 gallon tank I am setting up at
work. I have decided to use plants in the African Cichlid tank rather than
exclusively algae. I will try from among Anubias, Bolbitus, Java Fern,
Vallisneria, Crypt. affinis, C. aponogetifolia, and any others I learn of.
I am in the process of building a HOB trickle filter using a modification of
Tom Barr's PVC pipe plan. This filter will be attached to the wall rather
than the back of the tank. Should I then call it a HOW filter? :) It will be
a PVC box 48"Lx8"Wx14"H containing seven 4" PVC pipes filled with lava rock
and growing Spathophyllum and Anthirium. I will be pumping sump water to
these pipes and letting it drain back to the sump. The PVC box is for
secondary containment should anything go wrong with the primary drain. Each
pipe has a perforated screen at the bottom to contain the lava rock. The
pipes slip into Toilet Flanges glued to the bottom of the PVC box to allow
easy removal. There is a 3/4" pipe threaded hole under each flange to drain
the water back to the sump. I have a 1" overflow in the bottom of the PVC
box. Water is supplied via 3/4" pipe from the sump. The pipe has barbed tube
fittings screwed into tee's so that 1/4" ID PVC tubing can supply each 4"
pipe. I will use a cheap pinch clamp as a valve to control the flow to each
pipe.
I have a free hand sketch so far which I am using as I build this filter.
All parts are cut but nothing is glued yet. I plan to set up my drawing
board to draw the plans neater and to scale. I plan to scan it at work so
that I can post it for anyone to see. I guess I will need to set up a home
page for myself on my AOL account to do this. I haven't looked into that
yet.
Tom suggested that I could use a RFUG in this tank. I checked the Archives
on this one as well. My design will be as follows: Cover bottom of tank with
Polypropylene padding for protection from all of the rocks in the tank. I
cut out a 1/8" PVC sheet to cover the padding. I will glue manifolds to the
underside of this sheet. To give extra support to the sheet, I will glue
small lengths of PVC pipe the same length as the manifolds are high to the
underside of the sheet. PVC tubing from the manifolds will distribute the
water under the sheet. The feed to this RFUG will come down next to the
overflow at the back corner of the tank. The PVC sheet has many many 1/8"
diameter holes drilled into it to allow the water to escape up from the
bottom. I sifted the African Cichlid gravel I bought to get small pieces
which I glued to the PVC sheet to camouflage it should it get exposed by
digging fish. I used a quart of Medium body PVC cement on the 47"x17" sheet.
I first cleaned the sheet with primer and then I sprinkled the gravel into
the cement and let it dry. I had to touch up some spots where the gravel
didn't stick. Do this in an area with plenty of ventilation if you try it. A
quart of cement is a lot. Again, a drawing is in the works.
The sump is a 20 gallon long tank. I am building this filter as well. It
will be simply a 4"x9.5" mechanical filtration section followed by a
3.5"x9.5" chemical (activated carbon) section. There are coarse mesh
pre-filters in the overflow drain to the sump. I will be putting more 4"PVC
pipes in the sump as described above except I will be using PVC couplings
cut in half to produce two sockets glued to the bottom plate of my sump
filter. The same pump which supplies the HOW filter will supply these sump
pipes. A separate pump supplies the RFUG. The heater will be in the sump.
I took an old 4 foot shop light with reflector I found unused and cut it
down and pop riveted it to a 20" reflector. I removed all of the old guts of
the light and had our electrician rewire it with G23 sockets and magnetic
ballasts for four 9 watt 5000K Compact Fluorescent tubes (Phillips PL-S) so
that the plants in the sump will grow. I will be adding cut pieces of
plastic mirror underneath the tubes to provide a better reflector than the
white paint there now.
The ladies in the office are impatient and today taped fish they made and
colored to the front glass. They all want to see the tank set up. One of
them is saying we should of just stuck with the 10 gallon tank. I told my
boss I was doing all of this to minimize the upkeep on the tank when it is
in operation. So far he is patiently waiting.
Jerry "Curly" Smith in Bloomingdale, NJ
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