Should I build my own aquarium?
-
Guest
Topic author
I had a 29 gallon that I glued in a glass divider at an angle to create a land side and a water side. I used aquarium sealant. If you use glass as your inside divider make sure they sand/smooth the top edge so no hermie gets cut. I was keeping White's Tree frogs at the time so I didn't need a ladder up but I think maybe a hemp net ladder would be good? I also used a fluval 1 submersable filter inside to keep the water clean and I did frequent water changes using a cup to scoop out as much dirty water as I could then I added clean water scrubed things down scooped all of that water out until I couldn't get any more out ... and kept that up until the water was clean. Looking back a turkey baster would have been great!
-
Guest
Topic author
I have made my own aquarium before. I used the plans/info at
http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/diytanksrefugiums/
http://www.garf.org/140.gallon.html
this is the one that had the best info, I though, with a good supply list
I was thinking about doing the same thing, with the slanted water dishes and such. Right now I have 1 gallon containers in each side that I have built slants into, but it isn't the same. I use a fish pump to clean them out. The pluggable drains should be easy, most saltwater aquarium stores have the parts for doing that, since most saltwater aquariums are plumbed. Putting in bulkhead fittings isn't terribly hard, but I've only ever tried it with store-bought aquariums. I would think that your biggest problem would be getting the slant to hold. I liked the idea someone had for just make it a box, and then make it slant by using gravel or some such. If one had a big enough tank to make it feasible, one could have a large enough saltwater area to use live sand as your substrate, complete with "cleaning crew", and then you could put in mangroves, which are a natural filtration system. Mangrove sumps with live sand are one of the best filters around, so your crabbie water would be fresh and clean, and they'd get the trace elements and such from the mangroves, the wastes of the cleaner crew, etc etc. That is at least what I was planning soon as I have space for a really big tank.
http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/diytanksrefugiums/
http://www.garf.org/140.gallon.html
this is the one that had the best info, I though, with a good supply list
I was thinking about doing the same thing, with the slanted water dishes and such. Right now I have 1 gallon containers in each side that I have built slants into, but it isn't the same. I use a fish pump to clean them out. The pluggable drains should be easy, most saltwater aquarium stores have the parts for doing that, since most saltwater aquariums are plumbed. Putting in bulkhead fittings isn't terribly hard, but I've only ever tried it with store-bought aquariums. I would think that your biggest problem would be getting the slant to hold. I liked the idea someone had for just make it a box, and then make it slant by using gravel or some such. If one had a big enough tank to make it feasible, one could have a large enough saltwater area to use live sand as your substrate, complete with "cleaning crew", and then you could put in mangroves, which are a natural filtration system. Mangrove sumps with live sand are one of the best filters around, so your crabbie water would be fresh and clean, and they'd get the trace elements and such from the mangroves, the wastes of the cleaner crew, etc etc. That is at least what I was planning soon as I have space for a really big tank.