Bettarazzi

@girlz0r I don't worry about cleaning the beanie boxes. When they get vacated I give them a good scrub. But no, they don't get regular cleaning. The boxes nearest to the light get a bit of algae and those ones might get cleaned maybe every 3 or 4 weeks. Not all the poop flows out of the boxes. And sometimes it starts to collect. This is not uniform across all boxes. Seems like some fish poop more. And I guess I'm not giving each fish exactly the same amount of food because I just chuck a pinch in. Anyway if a box is really poopy I would remove it with a turkey baster. But it's really only the first two rows that get this attention. The ones at the back just have to put up with it. @Ness, no, I haven't fixed the damp issues or insulated the window. Still on the To Do list. Need to do it soon. It's getting COLD in Melbourne. It's kinda not really functional as a study any more. The new arrangement of downpipes has somehow increased the sound of rushing water rather a lot. If I have to actually work in there and use the phone the person at the other end would think I was calling them from Niagara Falls! Also the desk has an 18 inch tank, a 12 inch tank and 4 takeaway containers sitting on a heating cord acting as my brine shrimp hatchery. I'd be more than happy to help anyone build their barracks for no fee other than sugary drinks and unhealthy snacks if it means the hobby is much more manageable and fun for you. Of course by "help" I mean you do most of the work, I'll provide design advice and stand there making fun of how you're holding the hacksaw and not warn you when you're about to kick a bucket of water over. Afterall, you've got to have the full experience in order to truly appreciate the end result.

There's a smaller set of shelves with 16 x 7 ltr tanks and I finally stopped flip flopping about the 2 ft tier and just got a medium sized officeworks shelf for $49. It's cheap and not such a big deal if I change my mind. This can hold two 2 footers but I only have one because the other became the sump.

@fishbites actually it's not 2" pipe but 1 1/2" (40 mm). When I was shopping for the elbows I was cursing that I didn't originally use 2" (50 mm). 50 mm fittings are cheaper. @Ness if it's a fishroom-off then we'll need to put up pics of the rest of the room @Busman the sump isn't airtight. But even if it was there's plenty of air mixed in with the water as it's coming down.

Come on, where's your dedication? Sleep in the lounge. Start off by pretending to fall asleep in front of the tv. Slowly increase how often you do it until the rest of the household are so used to it they just expect to find you there in the morning. Then before they know it your bed has disappeared and extra tanks have taken their place. *lol*

Nah... too small. Double the size would be perfect. I want to be able to hold about 200 jars, 4 x 4 ft tanks, 4 x 2 ft tanks, 6-8 x 20 ltr tanks. That would give me the flexibility to spawn often enough to make it interesting and be able to keep some other fish on my wish list like apistos, plecos, killies and do more with guppies too.

I've been going on and on about fixing my drip system and it's certainly taken me a lot longer than I expected. But here at last is the promised thread. I was going to make a YouTube but I've been suffering a constant cough for the last few weeks so I can't do any voiceover so we'll have to make do with text and pictures. This will make a lot more sense if you've already watched the YouTube of my barracks before the modifications. My barracks was idle for about 18 months and with the impending need to jar my current spawn I thought I would take the opportunity to give it a good scrub and make some minor adjustments. The adjustments were driven by two snippets of information that I stumbled upon. The first was discovered when I was researching fish rooms. It was suggested that the air delivery system is more efficient if you make it a closed loop. Pressure is equalised in a closed loop so all the outlets should provde the same output if there are no dead ends. I wondered if this would be the case with delivering water and thought it was worth a try. This would have been quite easy to do. My system had six dead ends (one at each end of the 3 rows), I just had to replace the end plugs with elbows and tees and a bit of extra hose. The second piece of information came when I was browsing an irrigation website (to buy the elbows and tees). It suggested using 19mm hose when you have over a certain number of drippers (can't remember how many now). I had only been using 13 mm hose. So I thought since I was creating the closed loop I might as well do the larger hose as well. This was a lot more work but the old hose was pretty dirty so still worthwhile. Here's a pic of one end of the 'loop'. Basically I've got three rows of hose and they're joined with elbows and tees at each end like this to create the closed system. The theory is that water would enter the circuit at one point and then fill the entire network with water, of course exiting at each dripper. I have to explain the reason there are two pumps in the previous version. The first pump I bought was too weak so I bought a much bigger one. The second pump was also unable to handle the load so I ended up using both pumps. The smaller one served one row while the bigger one served two. When I found out those two bits of information that I talked about earlier, I suspected that I might gain some efficiency by creating the closed loop and using larger hose. But I didn't believe one pump would cut it so even in this version I set both pumps up. I have to say that this black poly pipe is very difficult to work with. It's sold in a coil and the curve is really quite stiff so you have to use quite a lot of force to get it into position. I couldn't find a large enough container that I could use to heat the pipe with hot water so I struggled on until I got to doing the hoses which joined the pumps to the closed loop overhead. There was nowhere to clamp the hose so it had to be straightened somehow. I wasn't prepared to fill the bath with boiling water. Hot water from the tap just didn't cut it. So the project came to a standstill until I thought to Google it. Not sure why I forgot that answers to everything are on the internet. Anyway, what you do is cut a longer piece of pipe than you need, put about a couple of centimetres of it in hot water to soften, fold it over and clamp it. Shove a funnel in one end, and hold it with tongs or pliers as I did. Then just pour boiling water into the funnel until you've filled the pipe. Hold it upright for half a minute and Voila! -- straight pipe. Wish I discovered this when I was working with the closed loop. In my day job, projects often experience what we call 'scope creep' meaning that the job just gets bigger and bigger. Well in this case, hobby certainly imitates real life. Having decided to replace the old hose, it occurred to me that maintenance would be easier if the hose coming up from the pump was at one of the ends rather than in the middle ie the corner/crook of the L shaped shelves. So now I wanted to replace the two storage boxes that acted as the sump for a single container. For a long time I'd been wishing that I'd gone with a glass sump when I originally made the drip system. I didn't have any real reason but the plastic strorage boxes just seemed dirty all the time. The sump got solved when I purchased a used standard 2 foot tank (for $10 dollars at an Aquarium Society of Victoria meeting ). I realised that the old container I'd been using to hold the filter media would sit perfectly on the rim of the tank. This would mean that I could set it up as a trickle filter instead of a submerged filter. Pic of the new sump. I like that I was able to cover the sump much better. The filter media box has it's own lid with a hole for the downpipe. And I used plastic corrugated board to make a lid that tightly cover the area around the hoses coming from the pumps. But notice that there is only a single pipe coming into the sump? The previous version had three downpipes. These all had to be joined into the middle pipe. What a painful task this was. I couldn't get how to measure and cut the pieces accurately and had to cut pieces over and over as they were too short or too long. Was quite at the point of giving up when I was doing this. The need to jar my boys became more urgent and for a while I actually had to keep them in unfiltered jars requiring manual water changes. How primitive! But here they are all happy in their new abode. Although I think a few of them are finding the constant flow a bit challenging. I was very nervous turning it on yesterday. Fully expected to find soaked carpet, dry sump and burnt out heater this morning. Well the carpet did get wet this evening but that was because I kicked over a half-filled bucket of water while I was taking these photos!! So was it worth doing these changes? I think so, the pumps are much more efficient. So efficient that I had to turn the smaller pump off. Yep, it's sitting there doing nothing. Fortunately the smaller pump has a valve to control the flow which can be closed almost completely. Otherwise, with it turned off, the hose that's attached to it would act like another downpipe. I will probably remove it at some point but it will mean fiddling around with more poly pipe and I can't bear the thought of it. There are still a few little things to do. I need to find a clamp that I can use to attach the downpipes to the shelf. They're currently only hanging on by friction. I've got visions of the whole thing falling off and then I will be waking up to a soggy carpet. The other thing I'd like to do is attach a float switch that will turn off the pumps and heater if the water drops for whatever reason. And there are still exposed parts of the gutter which I've been planning to make covers for.

Sigh. I want some wilds. :(

They'll be okay with the guppies but might still not tolerate each other. The guppies could provide a distraction though so it's not entirely a bad idea. But here's the thing, that's a pretty big tank you got there for only 3 females, yet they're still attacking each other. Why don't you try uncarding them until they get bored of flaring at each other. I would expect it to subside in a few days. Then maybe try them in the tank again plus guppies.

What are you using for filtration as Hai? Could that sand become anaerobic?

Yeah mine are jarred same age as the boys.

I love starting new hobbies. Maybe I can find one that needs a Dremel as the primary tool. LOL

Maybe there's a betta equivalent of menopause. LOL To be honest betta females never get along for me even when they've been in the same tank since birth. To have females live together for so long is quite foreign to me.

Dunno what I was thinking when I said I'd wait. I've bought the Bohle plastic ones. I want a Dremel now. Then I can line up all my German tools and talk like Colonel Klink. LOL But the Dremels seem confusing and $129??? What else can I use it for other than grinding glass? Had been thinking about buying a cordless reversing drill because my drill is old and only goes one way. Does the Dremel drill as well? Have to bear in mind that I'm not so much a DIY person as a therapeutic shopper. LOL

I'm not in a hurry so I'll keep looking until I see the same ones with cheaper shipping. A local seller might pop up. Or I might see what the local glass suppliers are like.

Bought the cutter but the pliers were $21 with shipping. There was another that sounded like a combo of running pliers and grozing but not sure. It looked different but was only $14 with shipping. http://cgi.ebay.com.au:80/Stained-Glass-Leadlight-Tools-Craft-Grozing-Pliers-/120713670356?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item1c1b186ed4&autoredirect=off#ht_3902wt_827

Just had a look at my cutter. Mine does have an axel but actually it's quite flush, it's just the edge of the head that scrapes and kinda slips off the ruler if you know what I mean. Are those tools, the cutter, pliers etc available at bunnings? Or only at specialist suppliers?

LOL @ Neffy. They're gorgeous. Are they at breeding age?

girlz0r was two rows in front of us I think. Tank is looking good. Was dubious about how your tree was going to turn out but looks like the plan has worked. Well done!

What kind of ruler do you use? I find using a metal ruler impedes the movement of the cutter because the wheel is small and tiny axle gets caught. I've tried using a plastic ruler wrong way up but then it's hard to get an exact line.

Question: Did you remove the silicone between the joins or just the stuff on the inside of each corner? You didn't wait for it to form a skin before ripping off the masking tape?

You don't have to wait till someone comments. Just wait 10 minutes. Oh... it's only been 8 minutes. Ok any more pics? Assume you didn't get silicone on the camera.

fishbites promised to give everyone glass cutting and tank building tips. I've seen how people use masking tape to ensure a clean finish. Here are some of the things I'd like more details on and I'm sure other people have questions as well. - When I cut glass there are all these tiny slivers of glass everywhere. What's the best way to handle this? - I can see how using masking tape to hold the tank together while the silicone cures works with a small (under 10 litres) tank, but if you want to make something a bit larger, what's the best way to keep the sides in place. - I've used wet/dry sandpaper to manually smooth off sharp edges but I've got bored (and quite tired) well before I got an edge like a bought tank. Only managed to get it so you didn't cut yourself instantly but still not entirely blunt. What are the other affordable ways of doing this? I'll think of more questions later I'm sure.

I want tips on glass cutting and tank building as well. I'm going to start a new thread so we don't hijack Ness' resealing thread which has been advertised as having video and pics even though there aren't any yet. I hope she wasn't referring to the YouTube. Sorry Ness, it has to be YOUR video. *lol*

Fantastic shade of yellow. Can't wait to see the offspring.