kermadum Posted January 1, 2011 Report Share Posted January 1, 2011 Just turned on my newly built betta barracks yesterday. A couple of things that I wanted to do differently than how they ended up, but overall not unhappy with it. After a couple of leaky test runs earlier in the week all seems to be going well. No leaks and it's happily cycling away ready for the fry that are almost in need of separating. 2 ft sump filter underneath to power it all and 48 individual beanie boxes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fletch Posted January 1, 2011 Report Share Posted January 1, 2011 Wow. Looks great. You are going to need another one though by the sounds of it. Lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarah Posted January 1, 2011 Report Share Posted January 1, 2011 Looks great! Can't wait to see what it looks like with all the pretties in it. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neffy Posted January 1, 2011 Report Share Posted January 1, 2011 oohh very nice !! hows the water drain out of the boxes ? into a big pipe is it ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kermadum Posted January 1, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 1, 2011 Yeah, each box has an outlet tube (a little larger than the inlet tube) that drains into the large pipe that you can see running along behind. I originally planned to have them sitting in gutters that drained into the sump, but couldn't get hold of any guttering that I liked. If I come across some down the track I've got the ability to change the design back to that guttering if I want to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadoh Posted January 1, 2011 Report Share Posted January 1, 2011 Actually having the water drain out into the pipe will reduce evaporation. It will probably be what I will eventually choose to do for my setup (in the works...) Do you have lids on the individual containers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neffy Posted January 1, 2011 Report Share Posted January 1, 2011 yea i found my aqua one would evaporate really quickly so thats a great solution !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kermadum Posted January 1, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 1, 2011 Yeah each beanie box has it's lid on, with a hole drilled in for the 6mm hose bringing the water in, and another small hole for feeding through. I found drilling the beanie boxes quite a challenge with my little crappy drill, but after some experimenting worked it out. If you're designing something similar, just watch that the hose draining water out of each flows straight down to the larger drain pipe, so you don't get any weird bends that create pockets, I had a couple I'd cut too long and I couldnt work out why they wouldn't drain properly. The other thing I found was that if that drainage hose was touching the bottom of the large drainage pipe, it wouldn't drain efficiently either. All things that in hindsight should have been easy to remember, but for some reason in all the planning were overlooked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniel031 Posted January 1, 2011 Report Share Posted January 1, 2011 NICE! I am slow, so could you explain to me how it works and what all the tubes are for? It all looks so great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kermadum Posted January 1, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 1, 2011 Basically underneath all this on the bottom shelf (that you can't see in these photos) there is a sump filter with a water pump in it that pumps water up into PVC piping in lines above the beanie boxes. Then a small hose runs out of that PVC pipe into each box (with an individual valve on each to control the flow rate of the water). At the back of each box there is a hole with a drainage tube in it, so once the water in each box gets to a particular height it will overflow through that tube into the larger PVC pipe (that you can see running behind the boxes in the photo) which feeds back into the sump filter and the loop starts again. If you have lots of fish, these sorts of systems are useful for keeping them housed separately (like when the boys in a spawn start getting aggressive & need to be separated), they cut down on time spent doing water changes (you can do a single water change from the filter that effectively is a partial water change for all the fish), it also decreases fluctuations in water parameters (bigger volumes of water generally have less dramatic fluctuations) etc. I don't seem to be articulating myself very well today (a little too much champagne last night) does that help or make sense at all Daniel? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniel031 Posted January 1, 2011 Report Share Posted January 1, 2011 WOW! That is smart X D. How does it go with the waste? Does it get sucked up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kermadum Posted January 1, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 1, 2011 It's my first time with a system like this, and at the moment its just cycling with no fish in it, so I'm not entirely sure in practice if it will extract much waste, but I don't expect that it will. I think I'll still have to manually siphon that out. Someone else here whose been using these systems for a while might have a better idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fletch Posted January 8, 2011 Report Share Posted January 8, 2011 Any chance you can take a photo of the overflow from beanie box? Looking at doing something a bit smaller but same idea. Thought you were going to use guttering for overflow. What changed your mind? Where did you get your beanie boxes from and how much? Cheers mate. Great setup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kermadum Posted January 8, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 8, 2011 I changed my mind on the guttering mostly because I couldn't get what I wanted on the day I was trying to get it. When I'm on a roll I like to barrel on and the idea of having to wait for the guttering I wanted was going to break my momentum, so I went back to this system, which was one I'd thought of earlier, but decided it was more difficult to setup and maintain than guttering. In the end I'm actually pretty happy with how it turned out. The beanie boxes I got from a guy on ebay, Bettarazzi put me on to it, I can't remember exactly who it was on ebay, but if you search "beanie display kids" it will come up. I think I paid about $150 for 48 boxes. They're a lot cheaper in America, I found a site where I could get more than twice that many for that price, but the shipping they wanted to charge to Australia was something like $1100, and I couldn't get a decent answer out of them as to why it cost about the same price as a return ticket to the US to get them shipped here, so I decided to go with the Australian ebay guy. If you're in Brisbane check with someone, I vaguely recall someone saying they got some from her. Ok Photos... This is the overflow return pipe. It runs along the shelf between the two rows of beanie boxes. The front row just have short overflow/drainage tubes straight into it, and the back row have a slightly longer tube to feed into it. I decided that was easier than running a second return pipe behind the back row. I found that the back row drainage tubes were a bit fiddly with the exact length though, too short and they didn't reach, too long and you'd get weird air pockets in them that would stop the boxes from draining. You can see in the top left of the photo where the drainage tube comes out of the beanie box. So I'm not going to win any awards in the "Mr Silicone 2011 Championships" but this is a view of the overflow/drainage tube through the beanie box. I used 6mm hose for this (and 4mm hose to pump water into the boxes). For fry that I think might stand a chance of getting their head stuck in the tube I've got some mesh to put over it, which is an easy attach with an elastic band. Again no awards for my silicon work, but here is the exit hose from behind. Does that help mate?PS. Going to start putting fish into it today. Water parameters are all good. Fingers crossed I haven't overlooked something!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fletch Posted January 8, 2011 Report Share Posted January 8, 2011 Wow. Thankyou. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun85 Posted May 17, 2011 Report Share Posted May 17, 2011 Thats very smart i like the look of it. I have been looking around at what breeders have been using as when i purchase a house in the future or find a long term lease i am considering attempting to breed my first lot of bettas You silicone work beats mine by a mile :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bettarazzi Posted May 17, 2011 Report Share Posted May 17, 2011 Somehow missed this entire thread when it was first posted! Good job Adam! It was a good move not using the gutter. I think you avoid a lot of evaporation this way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melbournebetta Posted May 17, 2011 Report Share Posted May 17, 2011 Brilliant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kermadum Posted May 18, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 18, 2011 Yeah, the piping has actually worked really well. I'm really happy with the system. The only thing I think I'd do differently is try to get shelving units that I can have a larger gap between each shelf - the back row is really difficult to clean and get fish out of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul Posted May 19, 2011 Report Share Posted May 19, 2011 I saw Betty splendens solved that issue in her fish room by having the selving perpendicular to the wall. Kinda intrudes into the room A LOT, but makes it much easier by way of access to the individual jars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bettarazzi Posted May 19, 2011 Report Share Posted May 19, 2011 My original plan was to have the shelves perpendicular but the room was too small for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kermadum Posted May 19, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 19, 2011 Yeah if I had a big room I would have done it that way too. I have it noted that when I eventually buy my own place it needs to have a HUGE fish room. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
little_troppo Posted July 14, 2011 Report Share Posted July 14, 2011 how much did this all cost you? :drool: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melbournebetta Posted July 14, 2011 Report Share Posted July 14, 2011 I've just returned home & resolved to use this design as reference for a miniature version... mah gahd... i'm delving into this keeping business waaaaaay too heavily, but the easier i make it, the more fun it'll be to keep making more and more phush! (right?) BASIC barracks question - could I use my big Eheim canister filter to do the filtration? Or is that a "how long is a piece of string" question that would need diagrams and water quantity answers? I'm thinking of barracking the equivalent of around a 5ft tank. -jetlaggedNess Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
little_troppo Posted July 14, 2011 Report Share Posted July 14, 2011 That raises a quesion; How big is a piece of string :giggle: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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