Western Cichlid Forum

OK sorry for the delay, things have been busy. Here is how I get the look of a wooden stand for less than half the price, twice the strength and longetivity, in fact I think this stand will last almost forever.

STAND Pt 1
First get your metal stand and drill holes all the way through the stand as per photo, these holes are for attaching the wood to the metal frame, this stand is galve dipped steel so it should never rust providing reasonable steps are taken to keep it dry most of the time.

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Hi All

Here is part 2 of building my Amazon tank and it all about the plumbing, here are a few tips that I hope you will find handy. I’m sorry if this gets to basic for you tradies and handypeople out there but I am doing this so beginners can understand it too.

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Hi All

This holiday period has finally given me some spare time to build my new Amazon tank. My aim is to build a tank that looks like an Amazon river bank.

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Here is some pics of the Background i made for Scat (Craig)

Same method as the other one

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Just thought i would share this

Wanted to make a background for my new(secondhand) 6×2x2.5

Had a look at a few different ways of doing it and ended up mixing some ideas from backgrounds that have been made

Got some poly from the WIZ for free Thanks Mate

What do you all think?

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A Short tank journal by Northstar

I will start from the beginning. The 18mm ply sheets were cut to size,
the two side panels were cut at1000mm x 1100mm, the bottom panel at 2440 x 900mm,
the back panel at 2440mm x 1000mm and the front was cut at 2440mm x 1000mm with
the oval cut out of it . These were all cut to size at the timber yard . (continue reading…)

I’d been mulling over my background on my 8*3*2.5. I couldn’t find any paper backgrounds that were 2.5 foot tall and really I wanted to do something special with this tank so after a little looking around I based my background after this one on another forum.
These backgrounds are really easy to make and I’d recommend anyone that likes to tinkle with things to give it a shot. There are many different ways to do a background ranging from flat if you are limited by space to something like I have done below.

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Now this is where it all starts coming together. You will need to grab one of your cans of spray foam and start joining everything together. Do everywhere….top,underneath down the joins and seams everywhere. It will look fairly ugly and you will think that you have taken a step backwards or done something wrong. Dont worry about it because the cement stage pulls everything together. As you can see in some images, I had foam drip by accident onto the piece. Just let it as they just look like small rocks when the concrete goes on. In fact I added small blobs onto the back and base just to add more texture.

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This is a simple fry saver that I use for when my fish breed. The benifits of using a fry saver is that the fry can be allowed to grow for a few weeks in water that they are accustomed to without risk of shocking them with different water parameters when moving into a growout tank. Once the fish look strong and healthy is a good time to move your fry..
Mine are made from ice cream containers like the ones found at ice cream shops but any container or bucket may be used.

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One of the most useful things I have made is the hose attachment that I use when I do my water changes. I have a dedicated hose that I use for my water changes. I think from memory that its 21mm or so and while a little more expensive than normal hosing, it really dumps the water out. With this attachment on the hose, I can just walk away and not worry about any hoses popping out of the tank or too much water being drained out as the level is dictated and set by the length of PVC tube that is sitting in your tank. The tap on the unit is also very handy as not only can it be used to simply turn off the flow if you require smaller changes but it also holds the siphon so that you can simply remove the hose,put in another tank, turn the tap on and the siphon starts again. I would be guessing that the price of making one would barely exceed 10 dollars
Now onto some pics…..

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Recently I have been messing around with modified “side drop” filters – mainly because I have found they are a pain with bristlenose and fry, and also to try and cut down costs in building them. After a few early prototypes on smaller tanks Chuck was kind enough to let me run loose on his 5×3x2 and see if a few modifications worked better. The following is a brief step by step of how I put them together.

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9. 3mm glass bits are used to hold the mesh in place around the uplift section. I glue it in so the mesh is at an angle to make it easy to get the air stones in and out.

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This topic has created a fair bit of interest so I thought I would do an article on it and hope you all find it useful. These filters are incredibly easy to make, very cheap and work very well. (It’s also fun eating and drinking the contents of the items required – not the marg though

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I make about 15kg of food at a time so you can adjust all these ingredients according to how much you want to make for yourself.

Ingredients:

5kg frozen marinara mix
5kg white fish meat (any type, although no skin and as little sinew as possible)
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DIY fry saver, by Daniel Radaich.

So what is the difference between other fry savers and my design? Well here are some points which may persuade you to use this design instead of the common designs:

• The first advantage is increased volume of the container; this is because the container is attached under the polystyrene, unlike other models where it is above the material used to float it
• The second, increased circulation; there are four windows instead of the usual two so that water flow is better facilitated
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Here’s a very easy, and CHEAP lettuce clip you can make with just a piece of PVC and a hacksaw.

Cut a piece of PVC about 20mm long, I use 20mm PVC because it forms a nice tight clip for holding nori. Cut the piece length ways with the hacksaw (split the pipe). If you want to stick the clip to the side of the tank put a suction cup on it, I find the easiest way is with one of the cups with a knob on the back, drill a hole in the PVC which will make the knob a tight fit. For my tanks which are small and uncluttered i find it just as easy to drop the clip in and let it sink to the bottom, and retrieve it later when its empty.
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