My Fish Room Updates

[Jshakour]

I will use this part of my blog to post "updates and going ons"in my fish room!

Please check back!

[Jshakour]

I recently purchased a fry saver, these things are neat!

It hooks right inside your tank and connects to an airline. There are holes drilled at one end and the other end has a sponge filter built right in. It provides great water flow. It measures about 8 inches long and about 4 inches front to back.

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Right now I have some Pheno fry in there and they are thriving! My main reason for purchasing this, was in case I ever needed a tank in a pinch to place some newly born fry.

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[Jombi21]

Cool! Where did you purchase?

[Dan Woodland]

Made of? Give details James my boy...

[Jshakour]

Cool! Where did you purchase?

They are available in a couple of different places. They are on Aquabid. I got mine from Ken's fish.

Made of? Give details James my boy...

That would help, sorry about that. The sides are made of ABS plastic and the middle is made of acrylic. The sponge appears to be the same material that the hydro sponges are made of and there is a piece of PVC that runs inside the fry saver down into the sponge.

There are two different sizes. Mine is the 8 inch and there is a 12 inch.

I may a few extra lying around if you are interested.

[Jshakour]

I just got done building a new stand for a 55 gallon. I notched the ends and put a support beam in the middle of each shelf. I used 3/4 inch plywood because I made the stand 18 inches deep to accommodate a 75 or 40 breeder in the future and the 55 is about 13 inches deep. I plan on putting a 30 gallon on the top shelf. I kept the legs about 20 inches high past the top shelf, I plan on attaching it to the joists up above.

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[satony]

nice stand there james about to build one just like it my self but one thing though I dont know if I would use plywood underneath your tank if thats where your putting it. reason being is because I once used LVL's which is a glue laminated wood and what it did was it absorbed all the water that had been splashed around on it overtime and swelled up enough to actually split my 30L right in half at the center....now I dont know if plywood will do this because its thinner or mabe if you paint it real good it wouldnt but just a warning because its compressed wood glued together. but hey when do we get the full fish room pic though? I like to see how everyone designs there fish room.

[Daniel Smith]

I always use ply under my tanks . I give it 3 coats of yacht varnish first though to make it totally waterproof
dan

[Jshakour]

That is a great point Aaron, I have plywood under my other stand that has 3 15's a 20 long and a 30 (the 30 that will be moved to the new stand) once that is moved I will add 3 20 highs. I have had this setup since for about a year now with no problems, I am very careful to avoid water spills, If I do happen to splash, I wipe it up within a couple of minutes.


With the weather being like it is, I would have to wait to seal it or paint it outside and doing it inside is not an option (wife/kids) Although I guess I could send them out of town for the weekend!!!

[satony]

yea varnish would work good or paint. I just was unsure if anyone used it or not. but sounds like your in good shape.

[Jshakour]

I made an egg tumbler from a design I found while doing a Google search.

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Here is a Youtube video of it in action...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBWW2DCUXxw

Here is the web site where I found the design...

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?239173-DIY-Egg-Tumbler/page2

The only thing I changed from the original design was, that I drilled a 1/4 inch hole down through the top of the 90 degree elbow, it helped keep the air stone in the center of the tumbler and I drilled holes in the 1 1/4 pvc couplings for the suction cups to hold.

[Jshakour]

So I thought up another idea for an egg tumbler, seems to be working good so far.

I used the fry saver which has holes drilled into it, stuffed the sponge hole with floss, tipped up one end of the fry saver and dropped two air lines into the corners and clapped them to the side. I posted a video on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPF3LFXg15U&feature=player_profilepage



What do you guys think?

[Jshakour]

I tried another idea for an egg tumbler and I have to say this one works the best. All I used was a tube and the tub adapter from a hydro sponge, two suction cups from a heater and a couple of inches of screen. I did add about an inch of air line to the under side of the tube adapter and I hooked the main air line directly to my central air system, which seems to give me better control of the air flow. The other couple of times I had a ball valve in between the tumbler and my central air system or maybe I have better control of the air because of the smaller circumference of the tube.

Here is a YouTube link to my tumbler.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA_4-ooAtCE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[Dan Woodland]

Nice work, I like this last design best. Simple and effective.

[Jshakour]

I came up with an idea to better control the environment that the eggs tumble in.


I used the tumbler design in the above post, but this time instead of putting the tumbler in a tank with other fish, I used a plastic container that holds almost a 1/2 gallon of water and it also has a removable top and I drilled a 1/4 inch through it for the air line to come out.

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As you can see I added some methylene blue, the room temp in my fish room holds pretty good at 75 - 76 degrees, so right now i'm not worried about the temp.


I keep you guys posted on how good or terrible it works!

[Jshakour]

So I think this is my final design regarding the egg tumbler, I added a piece of screen to the top and made a little hole in the top to fit the airline tubing through. This design is working beautifully!!!!!

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[Jshakour]

So I finally got around to placing the pump where I wanted it all along, but never got around to doing it.

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I also added a larger piece of PVC coming right out of the pump and then into 1 inch, this makes the quiet pump even quieter, it made a huge difference in my fish room! I stole this idea from Kyle May, his fish room is super quiet!!!

[RIFTLAKEAQUATICS]

Nice Fish Room James !

RIFTLAKEAQUATICS has the same ( 2 ) FRY SAVERS at a lower cost than KEN's and he is Local in the Cleveland area. http://shop.riftlakeaquatics.net/

[Jshakour]

I haven't updated my blog in awhile so here it goes....

I rinsed out 8 Hydro sponges today in a bucket of tank water. I have been doing this every 6 months or so. 9 sponges to go!

The hatchery got a total once over. I cleaned up all the lids and lights of calcium and algae and they got a water change as well.


Whats next in the fish room you ask???? Well i'll tell you!


I plan on custom making some lexan lids for the hatchery and 6 of my other main tanks. I plan on discontinuing using individual lights for each tank and installing one strip light for each bank of tanks. The strip lights use a T8 bulb the 36" light uses only 21 watts and the 48" light uses 28 watts. all together I will be removing 8 lights from my fish room at almost 120 watts!!!

I will be sure to post pics of that process.

[Jshakour]

I knew the weather was changing!!!!!!

Over the weekend I had the following spawns...

Brown Bushy Nose Plecos
Aulonocara Jacobfreibergi (Undu Reef)
Aulonocara Jacobfreibergi Albino Eureka Red
neolamprologus multifasciatus (must have been multiple spawns, there has to be well over 25 fry in different parts of the tank).