Do it yourself projects

I've haven't seen much of it on this group, but I think a few do it yourself
posts would be cool every now and then.
Not all of us have the deep pockets it can sometimes take to run a reef and
every penny saved helps. Besides,
sometimes the projects can be alot of fun.

I'm going to toss a cheap project out and if no one is interested in things
like this, just let me know
and I won't do it again.


You can buy fairly expensive dosers, or if you can find them, old IV bags
work great.
But you can make a simple dosing system for less than $7.

All you need is gallon plastic milk jug(washed out well), a pencil, a couple
of sections of airline tubing,
a small tube of aquarium silicon, and a plastic airline control valve.

Using the pencil, poke a hole in the side, about 1 inch from the bottom of
the milk jug. This will allow for
settling if you use it for kalkwasser dosing. After you poke the hole,
slide one inch of the airline
tubing into the hole and using the silicon, seal it well and allow it to
cure. After it's cured, attach the other
end of the airline tubing to input side of the plastic airline control
valve. Hook a section of tubing to the output
side and you're done. You can use the air control knob on the valve to
adjust the flow from a small stream to a slow drip.

It works extremely well, and you just saved enough to buy a small frag for
your tank.

I made a couple of fluidised bed filters out of empty 1.25lt mineral water
PET bottles. The type with rounded shoulders and short neck with parallel
sides about 100mm (4in) dia work ok.

Leave the screw cap on and melt a 12mm (1/2in) hole in the center of the
base to accept a length of 12mm PVC retic pipe. Insert the pipe all the way
down into the neck and leave about 25mm (1in) protruding to connect to a
powerhead. I use a Powerhead 301(Various brands worldwide) which has a 12mm
round adapter which fits the pipe perfectly. You could mount the powerhead
elswhere and connect with tubing to the filter inflow pipe.

Melt a second hole about 19mm (3/4in) dia in the side near the base to
accept a 90 deg. elbow(optional) to give direction to the outflow.

Fill the bottle with washed, dry, fine coral sand through the outflow hole
to about 75% capacity. Make sure no sand gets up the inflow pipe by making
sure it is fully inserted down into the neck against the cap at this stage.

I use the base section off a second bottle to form a holder for the filter
which will be neck down in the tank in operation with the powerhead on top
forcing the water down the pipe to the neck area at the bottom. The water
rises up through the sand fluidising it and exiting through the larger
outflow hole/elbow.

The success of a fluidised bed is a low flow rate to allow the bacteria in
the sand to colonise. I added a couple of handfulls of live sand from my
tank once the unit was installed in the tank. In operation the surface of
the sand in the bottle, once fluidised(it will rise up increasing in volume)
should be just simmering on the surface of the sand. Regulate the flow by
raising or lowering the pipe in the bottle, and by whatever regulation is on
the powerhead(Mine is on full flow). You can test run outside of your tank
by connecting to a garden hose initially, a good way of rinsing the
silt/dust from the coral sand before setting up with the powerhead in the
tank and adding some live sand(optional but probably a good idea).

I run my 4ft tank on two of these units(built in redundancy) and a diy
skimmer, but that's another story. I saw a turn around in my tank daily over
the first four days and have been using them for over two years now. There
is no maintenance required that I have found. I do a water change, about
10%, at about 4 months(Easter was the last) this year and I only have 1 x 6K
4ft fluro and a cheap blue actinic. Livestock, various corals,
anenome/clowns, shrimp, snails, gobie, 10in clam, caulerpa and macroalgae.

Andy



"Anthony Pruitt" wrote in message
news
I've haven't seen much of it on this group, but I think a few do it
yourself
posts would be cool every now and then.
Not all of us have the deep pockets it can sometimes take to run a reef
and
every penny saved helps. Besides,
sometimes the projects can be alot of fun.

I'm going to toss a cheap project out and if no one is interested in
things
like this, just let me know
and I won't do it again.


You can buy fairly expensive dosers, or if you can find them, old IV bags
work great.
But you can make a simple dosing system for less than $7.

All you need is gallon plastic milk jug(washed out well), a pencil, a
couple
of sections of airline tubing,
a small tube of aquarium silicon, and a plastic airline control valve.

Using the pencil, poke a hole in the side, about 1 inch from the bottom of
the milk jug. This will allow for
settling if you use it for kalkwasser dosing. After you poke the hole,
slide one inch of the airline
tubing into the hole and using the silicon, seal it well and allow it to
cure. After it's cured, attach the other
end of the airline tubing to input side of the plastic airline control
valve. Hook a section of tubing to the output
side and you're done. You can use the air control knob on the valve to
adjust the flow from a small stream to a slow drip.

It works extremely well, and you just saved enough to buy a small frag for
your tank.