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RE: Undergravel heating



>Also, while I think about it, I just read in the latest Aquarium Fish Magazine
about an undergravel plumbing system for use as undergravel heating.  I have
seen the heating cable DIY stuff but it seems a bit beyond my capabilities.
The plumbing system I think I could do - anyone (particularly George Booth
please) care to give their opinion of this system?  I will be moving to a
new apartment soon & thought it was a good opportunity to redo my substrate
with laterite and/or an UG heating system for my 25 gal tank, though the
plants grow pretty well in it right now except for hygrophilia diformis
which I cannot get to grow.<

I have untested designs for a complete substrate plumbing system, including a 
circular water flow path, surface skimmer, undergravel flow system, and a 
center-of-the tank 2-speed built-in gravel vaccuum that relies on the circular 
flow to position debris in the middle of the tank and then sucks the debris 
through a grate covered by pea-sized gravel into your pre-filter.  You are 
welcome to the designs if you would like to DIY.  I plan to implement them as 
soon as I have a bit of free time.  The system has 5 vertical tubes that can be 
grouped together or separated.  I ran the undergravel flow system past George a 
few months ago and he said that it looked like it'd work as long as I could 
make sure the flow was evenly distributed.  I plan to add my potassium tablets 
and DuplaPlant 24 drops directly into the open top of the substrate flow system 
and maybe keep the nutrients in the substrate where they belong.

Now, George's bare heating cable snail and algae killer design is really the 
interesting item though. ;-) (if only it were for real)

David W. Webb
Enterprise Computing Provisioning
Texas Instruments Inc.
(214) 575-3443 (voice)		MSGID:		DAWB
(214) 575-4853 (fax)			Internet:	dwebb at ti_com
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Webb