Tank setup update

[Keith Wolcott]

Thanks for all of the kind comments.

andyroo- I used the below pictured air tube and just sucked the air out. Just hold it where my hand is, dip it into the water and feed the other end up into the river bridge. I had intended to attach it to a ventura on a powerhead and let it do the work, but it was very easy and took only a minute or so.


Wolfram- I'm waiting for that Munich brew! That is a nice water bridge experiment that you are doing. I am excited about your ideas! First, the other day, your idea to just have a second hose between the tanks rather than an overflow for safety in case of the siphon breaking, is really nice. Now your idea of lowering the entry to the bottom makes a lot of sense. I had thought that a longer tube could discourage the fish, but I think that you are probably right that they will more naturally enter the tube if the entrance is at the substrate. This idea has given me another idea. If the entrance was horizontal at the substrate, rather than pumping water through the bridge, it could flow naturally as part of the current. That is, if my current in the tank is a horizontal circular flow, the entrance to the water bridge could be inserted into that flow and it will force water across to the other tank. This will work with your idea of having a hose for the return water. I really like this plan, since with this more passive flow, if one of the siphons fails no water is spilled. Thus, I no longer need an overflow safety in case of problems and no pumps are used directly to power the flow. I will try it out today by putting one of my Tunze pumps pushing water directly under and across the opening of one end of the my water bridge. This should create a suction and pull water across the bridge from the other tank. I will be able to gauge the amount of flow by checking the flow through the return hose. I am excited since I think this could work quite nicely and be so much simpler than pumping water from one tank to the other. It is so much safer too. I had intended to not only have a safety overflow, but also a float switch to turn off the pump between the tanks if the level got too high. I will report on the results later today.

[andyroo]

Keith- You were able to suck air against 20+Lbs of water-weight?
Am i getting muddled in the physics?
A

[Keith Wolcott]

I have not done the calculations (maybe I'll have my calculus II class do it today), but I was also surprised that it was not very hard. I think it is because the tube is small and thus only a small amount of water is being lifted at one time. Picture lifting the amount of water in a one foot length of the tubing. It is very light and thus easy to lift. You are not lifting all 20 lbs at once.

[Keith Wolcott]

I put a Tunze pump powering water directly across the opening of the water bridge. I installed a .5 inch inside diameter plastic hose between the tanks as a return. I put a small piece of tissue in the end of the return hose and timed its speed and then calculated that it is flowing at a rate of 52 gallons per day. That's pretty slow, but probably keeps the water in the two tanks mixed pretty well. I think this simple method is quite a nice way to power the flow between the two tanks with no risks of overflows. There are many ways to implement this, depending on whether the water bridge opening is moved down to the substrate level or not. I will experiment first with it as it is near the surface and see how often the fish use the bridge. I will be out of town for a week, so it will be some time before I get to play with it.

Thanks for giving me this idea Wolfram.

[wasserscheu]

Keith- You were able to suck air against 20+Lbs of water-weight?
Am i getting muddled in the physics?
A

Andyroo, no problems with the weight, only the air needs to be removed to make space for the water, than the normal air pressure on the water surface of the tanks fills the void automatically, so no need to suck the water up into the pipe. That may work up to approx. 10 meters which equals to approx. 1 bar atmospheric pressure.

Keith, your idea is ingenious - I love it. Did I understand it right, that you create a venturi-effect using flow close to the waterbridge opening? That would be fantastic. The limiting factor during your successful trial was the thin return pipe. If the return-pipe causes less friction by selecting a bigger diameter, (as water speed enters exponential into the formula of loss) you will have much more flow in the waterbridge and you have optimized the design a lot with your new idea - excellent, thanks for sharing.

you also could, for a trial, just lay a pipe from the floor with an horizontal entrance, close or actually somewhat into the waterbridge, that pipe could be smaller and leads smaller fish (that stay on the ground mostly), to the waterbridge...

I love to play ... others pull concrete blocks with their tractors for fun...

[Keith Wolcott]

Yes, I agree that a larger return hose will increase the flow. I also want to try it with the venturi effect on the return tube. This way it can be hidden in the back of the tank. Also, it can be done with a powerhead with a T shaped extension on the powerhead. That is, attach a short piece of hose to the output of the powerhead and put a hose coming down from the top attached to it at right angles. It will have a venturi effect on the hose coming down and that can be the return for the water bridge. I think that this will produce a lot more water movement than what I currently have and it can be hidden in the back of the tank. But it still has the advantage that it is passive in the sense that no tanks will overflow if either the return or the water bridge get blocked.

[Keith Wolcott]

I opened the water bridge on Sunday afternoon and the first fish made the crossing last night, 2 and a half days later. It happened at night so my motion activated web cam did not get it on film. Thus, there is now one adventurous fish in the 300 gallon tank that really seems to be enjoying the space and the current. There are four Tunze pumps pushing 13000 gal/hour and another 1000 gal/hour through the canister filters. That's a turnover of the tank 46 times per hour. See the video.

http://s148.photobucket.com/albums/s14/ ... =Tanks.flv

Note that I stuffed the plastic plants into the one end of the water bridge to try to make it feel safer for the fish and it was just a few hours after I did that, that the first fish crossed. Since then I added the white pipe down to the sand to encourage them to enter the bridge. We'll see if anyone goes through tonight.

Can you tell what kind of fish was first to cross from the video? I was betting on the SAEs, but that was wrong.

[chefkeith]

Have you tried to entice the fish with some food in the other aquarium so that they'll go through the bridge?

The tank looks great in the video.

[raecarrow]

BTW, Cute corgi!

[Keith Wolcott]

chefkeith- Yes, I have put food in the large tank and directly into the bridge. They are a bit scared to enter the bridge, but I think that they will get used to it over time. The motion activated web cam caught SAEs in the entrance of the bridge twice, but they exited quickly as if they were scared. Overnight a second fish crossed, so now there are two (the same kind) in the large tank. They are staying close to each other and look really happy to be together.

[Graeme Robson]

Fantastic video Keith!!

Oh... and lovely pieces of wood in your larger than large tank, i'm sure i saw a platypus face on one of them pieces of wood.

[wasserscheu]

What a nice tank the new one is.

Was a Striata amongst the first?

Great video and update , thanks Keith. Motion controlled cam, sounds exciting. I will ask you a lot of questions once I get that far.

In my current q-tank, it took the tigers a few days, the Garra 2 weeks and the the htreadfins were kind of "sucked" in there, from a school of 7, 6 are over at the bucket now. S. cf balteata ande Stiphodon have not been seen in the pipe or bucket yet. One of the 4 pangios also is in the bucked now.

On my main system, the first who knowingloy went back and forth was a bristlenose.

[Keith Wolcott]

Yes, Wolfram upi are correct, the first two across the water bridge were striatas. I really thought that the kubs would be first. Thanks for the update on your water bridge traveling fish.

Thanks Rae. Our Corgi seems to like the tank room. He often sleeps in there (maybe he likes the relaxing sound of the water).

Graeme- I have not spotted a platypus, but there is a chicken and a buffalo. I'll have to keep playing with the wood to get a good setup, but the two striatas seem to be enjoying it. They tend to circle around the tank with the current by swimming right in to the main flow and coasting down the tank. But they also spend quite a bit of time going end to end by traveling under and through all of the wood.

[andyroo]

A tiny dab of anchovy paste on the bridge opening.

[Joe Khul]

An absolutly amazing venture!!!! Kudos!

I just reviewed all 13 pages of your thread. I can't believe that you moved the stand outside in January and there was no snow on the ground (at least not that I could tell in the pics )!!!

I am an engineer by trade as well, and a wood worker hobbiest,
so I have a deep appreciation of what you went through.

So I have to ask....

when is the open house and how do i get to Charleston, IL ????