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If I were you I’d get a plate cut of the same size as the top in a thick plywood and add a brace or two at the back to remove any wobble. If it isn’t on adjustable feet or nicely levelled I’d also figure that out.

You’re going to want/need to get behind the tank so I would probably go for a 30cm cube or a 45p stood slightly forward of the walls.

Blau tanks normally come with a top glass?

I had this issue and honestly couldn’t tell you the answer, but what I did was to go to my local version of Maplin (is that a thing still?) with the light and the timer and try the options until we I found which I needed.

Straight up bleach ought to sort it.

I’ve used that stand and it warped badly, quickly. I ended up replacing the top board with a 21mm ply top and using the off cuts to add a central rib. I later added feet to each corner but the bottom wood cracked so I ended up just making my own stands entirely.

Paint stirrers are good for this.

Just to put things into perspective “we” used to creatively borrow fireextinguisers, take off the horn, stick on a copper pipe and use the handle as a trigger to fire potatoes and apples at each other like a green grocery based paint ball and I still have both eyes and all my fingers. Honestly...

Old models are blue, new models are red to the best of my knowledge, I've both diameters and they're both blue but are now 4 years old and 6 years old. Looked at one recently and they're now red. Purely cosmetic I would think.

As soon as I filled it with water but then I was checking for the bowing. Had the tank running on and off for 4 years, still have it but not wet atm.

I've done it, it's hard work but I had no issues what so ever, the tank bowed but only if you put a rule against it to see.

Re: DIY dual peristaltic dosing pump. More Pics and more. Great little project this! Good work!

I tried something similar using a length of plastic abs plumbing tubing but found that the seal always gave up after about 4 months or so without fail. How are yours on longevity? Great thread, keep them coming indeed!

I'm still using my cabinet and I would have to advise against it nowadays, water ingress has made it blister badly in many places and the overall strength has gone, noticeably lilting in the middle.

It's where you buy something then never use it till you remember you have it in the bottom of a wardrobe one day while looking for co2 line.

Buy it and moth ball it! I really want to but I simply can't justify it.

Let us know what they say, I'd be very interested to see the outcome.

It certainly does where I'm from, Hollington, all sandstone quarries there and the water used to come out the tap at 9. extremely hard water, a kettle would scale up in a week.

It was a boyo light from china I think, infact you can read the logo on it, ebay special.

£40 is a bit on the skimping side, Ebay is your best bet.

Isn't that Dan Crawfords old tank? A metal worker should be able to knock you up a beam like that very cheaply.

It "could" cause the tank to fail in the long run, ADA's guarentee is only good if you can prove the tank was level when in use, same for Ehiem and I think Hagen. I'd be interested in the result as I'd thought about adding those spinning castor things to my stands so that they're level. The...

Sell me one? It looks really great! You should be proud!

Where are you based?

Hot shi... I did better on my window pane tank and I was 17 and used loly sticks instead of a gun! Keighly isn't so far from me, I might try and arrange a meeting

Save your money and don't buy the dupla reg, get the lunapet regulators from germany via ebay, I've had mine since entering the hobby something like 6 years ago and I've not once had an issue. From reading some german forums it seems dupla's quality is often brought into question especially...

I've been trying them today and I found jbls to be good, fluvals where awful however out of the three I opened and tried none the tips touched on. Surgical sets used to be brilliant for finding good tongs and scissors but I don't know how easy they are to find these days.

It's very Wabi-sabi is what you're looking for. They're nice but I'm not sure I'd splash out quite so much. Not when a 30cm cube is £20 at my LFS.

I really like it, fill it up a third and put some frogs in there. I've a rio 180 so I'll be interested to see that.

Plastic market pegs, the huge ones people use for clipping the sheets to stalls. I prefer to stand and watch however, you can then use the water going in to agitate any areas of plants that have buckled over or to keep plants moist if it's a slower flow.

That always made me think, just how do you clean a sealed sump? Or a sump at all for the matter?

If you had a pair of closed loop reactors that are dedicated to co2 would that not negate the speed at which co2 could be out gassed? I mean, Amano uses sumps on his big tanks, and so does Tom Barr and a couple of polish aquascapers?

There's an american company called something like slim-reef that do a fleixible slim algae cleaner that floats. I'll try and find you a link.

Just thinking, might this be an early leak of the new version of the hydor eths?

The price is brilliant, as already said, German produce tends to be of exceptional quality. I'm tempted to put my money towards a dabble, as long as it doesn't get stuck on like the hydors like to!

I've done it with a 2 foot tank, it's easy and no powertools required. I don't know if it's possible on a 3 foot stand though.

I'd go with the one with the thickest glass, that way you know that the strength is there. Ae's are the same as ADA I believe. TGM's used to be A ltd A ltd's are excellent quality wise, though the door on my stand still keeps falling off and trying to get someone to talk to me about it is like...

Cheers, Andy. They're looking really good, the CPU I've got is 12 predominately, is there a possibility 5 x 4 would be better from 12v rather than 7 on 24v?

Yeah I'd wondered how that'd work, dennerle are pushing a shrimp specific one that binds heavy metals but I just imagined that since others already claim the same it couldn't be much different. How long would it take to bind do you imagine? From the tap levels will be high and no reaction is...

Ceg, I know this is directly related but what's the best way of neutralising heavy metals, or at least bringing them down to invert safe levels? I have high levels of copper from the tap and it means inverts are pretty much a no go.

Hmm... I suppose I could use a multimetre and see, that'd give me an idea of the stability or would it need to be under load?

I don't think there's anyone on here who actually uses one so no doubt the knowledge base is somewhat limited. I've been tempted by a HMA myself as I have exceptionally high levels of heavy metals back in stoke rendering inverts impossible but it's easier to just not have shrimps than fighting...

I've laid my hands on a CPU which my mums dog decided it would like to chew, am I right in thinking I open the case, chop off all the wires I don't need that go to 3v and 5v, add all the wires together onto one output and use the -12v and the +12v to create 24v out put, then it's a matter of...

I'd sooner get a smaller tank than cut corners on CO2, it's vital it makes my head spin like the girl in the exorcist every time I read people saying they're going to use diy co2 or bemoaning pressurised. Mark, where in the world are you, you're more than welcome to visit me in leeds if you...

True Mark, it in most instances it is plant based, but you can find that it just doesn't look right though simply because the substrate level is out of whack with the tanks height. It looks strangely flat too if like in my scape you intend to run the foreground plants (in my case hairgrass) up...

You're right, George, mines 60x45x45, It's a brilliant set of dimensions and as amy says you're non limited in hight, where difficulties arise is when working using golden section or sloping as you can quickly find that even a modest slope really eats up the substrate, regarding golden section...

Good link and neat little read, the only issue I can spot is that the growth form seems indicative of lower light levels, just think how grass under a tree is lusher than that in the middle of a lawn, I could be wrong but that seems obvious to me, the plant taking a taller/larger growth form to...

How many do you reckon I'd need then, I reckon I can get away with 15? probably even less if the figures that PFK where saying are accurate. If we assume that since TMC use 10 that around 10 would provide pretty good levels, the LEDs used in the PFK test had 20 leds over it and was producing...

Hello everyone,Firstly thank you everyone for all the help and things to consider so far, my Leds arrived and departed again pretty swiftly palmed off onto my uni's tech department at cost. God knows what they'll do without drivers, I couldn't find a suitable one. I was planning on using these...

Craft shops. If you use a frosted sheet they look even more effective. Just don't be tempted to try to reapply the frosting if you get bubbles in it, you'll ruin it as I well know/ :( :oops:

The clue that it won't work is right there in the first paragraph, t5 and halide.

Agreed, forget it. Diy really is inferior, that's why it's never been popular with serious hobbyists on this side of the pond, it's like wanting to buy a lada when you could get a porsche. I can not stress this enough, spend money on your equipment and your time on research and you will have a...

I'll have a think, not sure it'll raise the temp enough in a 24" tank... I'll be sure to let you know.

I got email notifications saying I had private messages but no new messages. I've been having no end of trouble with the PM system since the upgrade.

Most likely Hagen?

Having a mist is actually better than totally desolved co2. it sounds like a good idea though, very tidy too if outsied the tank.

Sounds brilliant, Matt. Where did you get your tubing from out of interest?

Thank you for taking the time to reply, I'm using 7 x 3w Leds so I'll need individual strings of 21w, right? I understand that underdriving them helps alter the spectrums better for plants, d you know if there's any truth in this? I was planning on using laptop power packs if PCI turned out to...

Hello, So I finally got round to getting my LED luminaire into action, I've decided on using three strings of 7 3w leds, giving 21 in total, below is a rough schematic, does anyone know which I should use? I understand high power LEDS shouldn't be used in series? If anyone could eye over them...

The plants alone cost me that much. :(

I had the same. Cooked a tank that I'd only just set up. Killed everything still not got a replacement from hydor despite them promising me one.

I use the superfish heaters and found their 50w one to keep my 11" cube really warm and stable, it cycled on say once every hour so I'm guessing it was plenty up to the job. They're very cheap too and aren't too difficult to hide.

Aww, I thought this was going to be a vivarium. :( What effect are you going for with the single spot light? Will it not give you patches of good growth and patches of indifferent growth. Same with the background, will that not effect the flow making it chaotic?

Yup, they strangle the flow pretty badly when you do though.

It's where I got mine from originally too. They have "magic fish" which are killifish kits at the moment in the sale, I'm very very tempted by those, always fancied a go at killis, and the kit can then be used to breed the ebay egg packs!

Cheapest place at the moment is warehouse aquatics, I'll be ordering one soon as, since hydors warrenty people have been atrocious.

I wouldn't say your filter is over rated, I used a ex1200 on the same size tank ;) I'd say that for the difference in dimensions it wouldn't be too difficult to step up, really it'd be the thickness that's an issue rather than the over all dimensions of the pipe, there'd be a couple of issues...

Most cables use polyethane based coatings, silicon ones are available but they tend to be on the high end,high load silver and gold cables. If you're worried about bonding a smudge of vasaline will solve it. If bondings your aim to attach suckers etc. then the type of liquid solvent, rather...

To who ever buys them ;). I'll be trying the lilly pipe when I get some money in. Can't be too hard and It means I can custom the inlet. Cheaper than getting my science labs to blow them in glass I'm sure!

Lily pipe?

http://www.my-mac.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=11080 Nelson Sent me this so credit should be sent his way, this should help give better form to the lily, I meant to try it but never got round to it.

No, I probably should have done. I didn't want to have to wait any longer and said I'd see what I could do with fixing it myself.

I've hung the door on the opposite side now, took me a fair few minute and I stabbed my hand with my screwdriver but yeah, disaster averted! The young lad came back and said if I wasn't happy with the repair that they'd send a replacement cabinet. Still can't believe that I've had this fuss...

Cheers Lisa, I just heard back from A.L and they're going to get the delivery guys to come back and see what's going on, so I'm limbo'ing till they get here.

Finally took delivery of my Optiwhite this morning, decided I'd let the guys delivering it get of as they said they'd a lot to deliver, not knowing they had to witness me unwrapping the tank. So I unwrap the tank, pretty chuffed with the tank all optiwhite, worth all the saving, got to the...

Plastic guttering won't work, I used it and it melted and smelt awful when hot.

I had an ex700 with a leaky head, it's moulding pips that aren't filed down enough. The customer services are exemplorary though, I got a brand new one within days of giving them an email saying what had gone on.

I have both and I like the accessories that the JBL comes with more, I've not had it running yet so I can't comment. I love my ex1200 though, super quiet and powerful.

S'okay, being homeless in the summer and having friends make the ordeal easier. I'm using V. high light yes, pretty much for the challenge but also because it makes stems much much denser and it's easier to get crawling plants to spread across the substrate rather than upward into the water...

Shall do mate, like I say if I'm really impressed I'm going to get a glass clone. I really like its form already so we'll see. I'm really over doing the flow, hitting 20+ turnover as a way of getting really good distribution, something that will be more important as I plan on doing a pretty...

Not yet, no, I'm still waiting for the tank to arrive once I have it I'll play with an empty tank and experiment. The filter is pretty huge at 1500lph but I dunno, I like that they're black, it's just tidier than ehiem green but I'm more than open to experiement if I think the results are...

Hello, Laura. Strictly speaking, no, two filters aren't really needed but because I'll be using very high levels of light more flow is needed to distribute nutrients/co2 and it helps to safe guard against possible dead spots. One filter with a 1200lph capacity would meet the 10x an hour base...

http://aquatic-art.blogspot.com/2009/11 ... -2009.html

Re: TGM backgrounds Don't suppose you have enough for 60x45cm knocking about spare to tag on my order do you james? :P

Re: TGM backgrounds You can do exactly the same thing with a very similar product from wilkos, wilkos is very effective stuff, I've never seen TGM's in the flesh however to compare.

Just a quick update, substrate, and filters a ex1200 and a e1500 ordered, waiting for ebay seller to get back to me on diffusers and lily pipes. LED's ordered but put on hold I'm pretty sure I've ordered the wrong ones. Just need the tank to arrive now! I'm pretty certain I'll be selling...

I know you did a brackish, it wasn't planted though so it was discounted on account of it not being a planted tank ;)

There's been a few dutch'. George has already done one. I think it's probably going to be brackish but I know of our members already has one of those but hasn't posted it up as a thread.

Blue gravel, plastic plants? Cave animals? Who knows.

Sorry mate but I need a program to draw up a schematic for you. Your plan is correct and entirely suitable but I just have some finer details on the design to get best out put.

It's really difficult to use though!!! It blacks out so you can't see what you're drawing. :roll:

My geek side loves this.

How about building a none bypassing filter? Mount the pump on the side and then imagine it like a giant prefilter. I'd do a diagram but macs suck and don't have ms paint ;)

I personally find the argos ones are better than the ikea ones. I have one that is absolutely brilliant, I bulked up the stand using the shelf vertically, it's only 30cm wide though.

I have 2 rubbermaid ones that my dad bought from a large builders merchants, worth a try.

Do you know if it can be extruded? If so I reckon I could blow it to form lilys...

I want to make a jet style outlet, I'll be using two filters, one with a lily one with a jet. I wanted custom intakes too but It strikes me as a lot of work. I just don't know about the design I got some quotes for the glass ones made but it works out expensive when they want a min of 5 of each...

Cheers James, Trust you to be on form! Now to sort out my plan.

If you already have it then it's understandable, I read it as though you would be buying it. :roll: The cheapest way if you have a hood is to add a second dual ballast and add t5's or if your tank gives access to the tank edges and luminaire would do.

Why buy a large tank with a rim and bracing if you want the rimless look? I'd go no better than a 60cm removing the rim especially not when tanks like the roma etc are all only a few notes cheaper than a "proper" tank.