Amano New Year Build!

Another alternative to a bulkhead inside the tank would be a stack of glass plates, drilled with a 50mm hole right through, through which the entire glass tube fits and I can use standard pvc connectors and silicone at the bottom since it will not have to contain any water pressure. That would mean however the tank cannot sit flat on its own on any other surface and would need to be raised.

 

Hi, I am new here, and don't want to interfere with your project. Play sand has a high clay content imo and for my dirted tanks I used normal swimming pool filter sand. Another good option is sandblasting sand if you like a black substrate. At least 4-5 cm on top of the dirt to keep the dirt out of the water column. Then stick the roots of the plants into the sand and let them find their own way down to the dirt. The new dirt is very rich and might burn the roots of your plants. I am also new to dirted tanks, but had to learn the hard way to seal all that mud and dirt in.

Even with the sand layer on top, some of the dirt land up in the water column but filters out within 24 hours. This one below had a light mud cloud and was clean in about 12 hours after filling. Needs a lot more plants though.



EDIT: Disregard this post. I missed the complete second page of replies somehow. See someone has already gave this advice.

 

Have a look at the Bean Animal overflow. It's one of the most effective set ups I've seen, tried and tested too. Gives you a safety factor as well should there happen to be an issue or blockage with the pipe, and it's silent.

Just spitballing some ideas out there for you. As you said, once it's drilled it's drilled, extra options couldn't hurt to look at.

 

Proof that the aluminium sulphate treatment wasn't Nuclear Armageddon:


From past experience, I hate the tiny snails and am tempted to do something while I still can. I can only see the one but there are bound to be more. Bactro bloom is still hectic and shows no signs of abating. I have not done any water changes since the gravel vac and will simply wait this out. The rotala is growing!

 

Those new shoots on that rotala stem look great!

What's your issue with the snails? I love them in my tank, free CUC. Their numbers can grow quickly but I've found that cutting back on the feeding slightly sorts that out

 

Nah I hate them parking off on the glass. They annoy me.

As an aside, having a planted tank with no macrofauna makes for fascinating viewing. I'm seeing bloodworms and allsorts.

 

Haha, fair point!

Ya, that's one thing I miss from my marine days. The microfauna were incredible. Almost weekly you'd be seeing a new type of amphipod, algae or bristle worm.

I've only ever seen one type of freshwater copepod? in my planted tanks. That's on a very rare occasion too

 

Maak-a-plan time! I was tired of the Brondingnagian HOB blocking the view, so I had another dig. Discovered a tiny new-in-box 400lph (claimed) submersible pump of unknown age and progeny (my father reckons the last time he was in Kimberley it was in the back of a Casspir). I had a look on Google Maps, the place is now a CV Joint outfit.



All the fittings were present and correct and I'm eyeing that Venturi fitting with intent! I think I will make some yeasty goodness today.

I also found a couple of those smol bubbler filters you get with cheapy starter tanks - the outflow tube fits snugly into the pump's 13mm adaptor. I cut some foam, removed the air tube et voila - a reverse flow filter. The only issue is that it expels the filtered water back onto the pump unless I physically distance it away with some tubing. To help with circulation I added a teensy 5v USB-powered fountain pump (which moves a surprising amount of water!). The filter is clearly filtering quite well as the floss slowly turns brown. Words cannot describe how much I hate this substrate - ANY minor disturbance and the water turns brown and cloudy. I also hate the 50W resun heater - it's WAY too long considering the wattage and doesn't fit except at an angle - and you're not allowed to, ahem, submerge the knob end.




The micro swords are not the happiest, most of them started floating up with clearly melted roots. Either they don't like the substrate, or they just don't like being disturbed. The free-floating fragments show healthy root growth.

 

Very nifty DIYing there!

The yeasty goodness you speak of?! Are you planning on doing some homemade CO2? I've been thinking of crafting myself a setup but there's such mixed reviews about it online. Some people rave about it and have stunning tanks, others say it's not worth the mission. Not sure what to believe

 

MOAR TREASURE! A shorty-style fully submersible quartz glass Deluxe Extraordinaire ViaAqua heater in dulcet tones of black and mauve. Needs a clean and a test though.



I think if I dig any further I might discover Jimmy Hoffa's corpse...

 

Yes the DIY sugary setup. It looks pretty easy to make but the only way to measure the PITA-factor is to try it. I have everything I need except yeast, so will pop out later. I think the biggest complaint is that it's not controllable and requires manual intervention in the mornings and at night. Since I'm not going to be keeping fish in this tank I might not even need to worry about that.

 

My tank started to clear yesterday after 3 weeks. Mine wasn't as bad as yours but it had a cloudiness that wasn't being cleared by a 60l sump, and 2 sponge filters.

 

Please keep me updated. Very interested in hearing some first hand experience

 

Well. I went out for the morning and came back to a crystal clear tank. All that had changed was that I swapped out the HOB for my little DIY setup. The only other thing I can think of was that I primed the filter with two capfuls of Stability before switching it on. It can't be the fresh filter media - the Cascade holds MANY times more floss than this dinky little thing. Can it?

I dunno and I'm not going to complain. I just hope it lasts.

 

That's definitely worth a TOTM entry now

 

Testing the Venturi at atmospheric pressure, it works pretty well producing a mix of fine to very fine bubbles.



It will not produce bubbles when the filter is attached, however, since the pressure differential is reduced too much. You can however see how it pulls vacuum and is preventing the water from rising up the tube. How many inches of water equals one inch of mercury? The three pump fittings are an infuriatingly incompatible mix of ODs and IDs and none will fit into any others so I had to scrounge for 15mm tube to make a connecting piece. Smh.

I'm fairly certain the additional pressure from a CO2 setup will be enough to tip it into bubble sucking, but I was hoping to not have to worry about making a hermetic reactor and just let negative pressure do the job for me.




Alternatively I could just use this pump bare for CO2 and use the USB pump to power the filter, but the extended bubble dwell time in the back of the filter is too juicy to ignore. OR I might kill all the good filter baccies in a flood of carbonic acid. We'll see.



Naturally, I disturbed the filter and now the water is cloudy once again

 

Ah, you're too kind.

No, really. XD

 

Checklist:

2x 2L Bottles
15cm Soft silicone tubing (the usual vinyl airline tubing might also work but it will be prone to leaking I think because it becomes hard)
1x drill bit of the same or slightly smaller diameter than your tubing
10cm of 4 or 5mm acrylic tube (I raided the air tube of the bubbler filter I'm using in the holding tank)
1x Stanley blade
1x Pliers (or very calloused fingertips)

I made my holes by heating up the stub end of the drill bit (held in the pliers) over a gas hob and popping them through. It makes a nice, neat round hole that only needs the flashing sliced off with the Stanley blade. I used the acrylic tube to force an airtight seal by pulling it through by 1cm (It's like a Uniseal gasket in miniature). a 2cm piece for the reactor and 2x 4cm pieces for the bubble filter - the longer pieces on the bubble filter because you want to extend with normal vinyl into the bottle and out toward the tank. The final gas port uses a 2cm piece of silicone tube to form the gasket.

The seal is airtight (the full strength of my lungs cannot break it nor make it pop or leak) and no glue or baking soda or faffing about needed. And it makes the neatest DIY gas port in the universe.

This took me all of ten minutes to make:


<-- before neatening with the blade.

 

Jelly time! I used 4x 40g packs of Rhodes jelly. The recipe I referenced called for 6oz (170g) of gelatin and 400g of sugar. These packs already contain sugar, in an unknown amount - a taste test left me none the wiser because they also contain artificial sweeteners and a whole host of E-numbers. There's also no nutritional value table for me to make a calculation for how much gelatin is in there. But it's what I had and so this is a wing-it first attempt. The only unflavoured jelly stuff I had was pectin and I have no idea how well it would work. The box has a Halaal stamp on it so it's likely cow schmoo.

I dissolved it in 500ml of hot water; that went into the bottle. I then dissolved 400g of sugar in 500ml of water, that went in and it got a shakeup. It's busy setting in the fridge. In a not-so-rare moment of unpreparedness, that's when I realised you need a third bottlecap to keep the mix sealed in - so I had to go trashcan digging to get another cap.

It smells pretty good and is sweet AF. And what is a greenguage anyway? Why is jelly the only thing in the world that is greenguage flavoured? (apart, perhaps, from greenguages themselves?)

A mystery wrapped in an enigma! Anyway, I have a 10g pack of "Superbake Instant Yeast" waiting for it. I will probably be up at the crack of sparrows tomorrow morning adding it, I'm pretty excited to see the result.