AdamHorton
Aquarium Advice FINatic
I've been needing to set up a refugium for my 150 SW tank, so I took this weekend to do it. My girlfriend/roommate doesn't want anything visible next to the tank, so whatever I do, it has to fit underneath the aquarium stand. I was originally going to put a 20 gallon long tank down there, I bought it and I couldn't fit it through the doors to get it underneath the tank! Also, I had put the filter under there before the tank was on top of the stand, so it's down there for good (at least for a long while) and I can't turn it around. I ended up using a 10G tank because it was what fit under there, I figured it was better than nothing. Between the sump on the filter and what's in the refugium I'd say there's about 15G total, which I guess isn't terrible for a 150G tank, right? Here are a couple of pictures:
http://www.adamhorton.com/files/refugium1.jpg
http://www.adamhorton.com/files/refugium2.jpg
I drilled some holes into that U-tube and super-glued some airline tubes to the holes to make sucking air out easier. Once the superglue dried it seemed like there was a much more stable flow. After about a day the water level hasn't really changed. Should I bother trying to lift the bio-balls up above the new water level in the filter sump? Now that I think about it, I wonder if I could get a taller tank that would still fit under there. The pump is on a battery backup, but I'm thinking I might be in trouble if for some reason the power stays out long enough for even that to fail. I designed this myself so any advice for improvements or suggestions would be welcome as this is my first attempt at any DIY aquarium stuff.
Also, I have a bicolor pseudochromis who has taken to hiding behind the overflow cup in my tank. I've tried a couple of things, but here are some pictures of one of them:
http://www.adamhorton.com/files/newpump1.jpg
http://www.adamhorton.com/files/newpump2.jpg
In the second picture, he's trying to figure out a way in. All I did here was super-glued some mesh screen (like the kind that's on a screen door) to the overflow cup. It worked well for a day or so -- he was even starting to socialize with everybody else -- but he finally found a way back there. I'm thinking about just hot-gluing some hard plastic instead of the mesh, but I'd rather not do that unless nothing else will work. If there are any other suggestions or advice on this topic I'd like to hear that too.
http://www.adamhorton.com/files/refugium1.jpg
http://www.adamhorton.com/files/refugium2.jpg
I drilled some holes into that U-tube and super-glued some airline tubes to the holes to make sucking air out easier. Once the superglue dried it seemed like there was a much more stable flow. After about a day the water level hasn't really changed. Should I bother trying to lift the bio-balls up above the new water level in the filter sump? Now that I think about it, I wonder if I could get a taller tank that would still fit under there. The pump is on a battery backup, but I'm thinking I might be in trouble if for some reason the power stays out long enough for even that to fail. I designed this myself so any advice for improvements or suggestions would be welcome as this is my first attempt at any DIY aquarium stuff.
Also, I have a bicolor pseudochromis who has taken to hiding behind the overflow cup in my tank. I've tried a couple of things, but here are some pictures of one of them:
http://www.adamhorton.com/files/newpump1.jpg
http://www.adamhorton.com/files/newpump2.jpg
In the second picture, he's trying to figure out a way in. All I did here was super-glued some mesh screen (like the kind that's on a screen door) to the overflow cup. It worked well for a day or so -- he was even starting to socialize with everybody else -- but he finally found a way back there. I'm thinking about just hot-gluing some hard plastic instead of the mesh, but I'd rather not do that unless nothing else will work. If there are any other suggestions or advice on this topic I'd like to hear that too.