Our Salt Water Adventures
So, we bought this tank -- site unseen from a girl in Victoria. We originally bought it for Mom as she had expressed an interest in a hexagon tank. We, at the time, had a 48 gallon freshwater community tank with a couple of discus.
So, Sarah phones up this girl, buys the tank ... and later considers the actual size of this puppy is BIGGER than the one she has ... smart thinkin', eh? NOPE. It's a 65 gallon hexagon tank, stand and lights plus some extras. Rick and Jen pick it up from the girl in Vic and the emails begin. Do I realize how big it really is? It's HUGE! But is it ever pretty looking ...
Hey, did we know that the tank has a hole in the bottom? Um, yah NO. I asked if it leaked, she said NO. How can it NOT leak if there is a hole in the bottom. Well, as the story goes on Rick sends pictures of the setup underneath ... weird box with blue plastic balls in it....and some tubes and a pump. To make a long story short ... turns out we bought a "plumbed" salt water setup. OOPS! The tank was such a good deal that we couldn't have passed it up ... but had we known...? We decide no biggie we will convert to a fresh water setup and Bob's Your Uncle.
We did. Decided to set up as an Angel tank. Very nice looking tank and WOW it was cheap. Considered going with a marine tank but chickened out....too much work.
So, Sarah phones up this girl, buys the tank ... and later considers the actual size of this puppy is BIGGER than the one she has ... smart thinkin', eh? NOPE. It's a 65 gallon hexagon tank, stand and lights plus some extras. Rick and Jen pick it up from the girl in Vic and the emails begin. Do I realize how big it really is? It's HUGE! But is it ever pretty looking ...
Hey, did we know that the tank has a hole in the bottom? Um, yah NO. I asked if it leaked, she said NO. How can it NOT leak if there is a hole in the bottom. Well, as the story goes on Rick sends pictures of the setup underneath ... weird box with blue plastic balls in it....and some tubes and a pump. To make a long story short ... turns out we bought a "plumbed" salt water setup. OOPS! The tank was such a good deal that we couldn't have passed it up ... but had we known...? We decide no biggie we will convert to a fresh water setup and Bob's Your Uncle.
We did. Decided to set up as an Angel tank. Very nice looking tank and WOW it was cheap. Considered going with a marine tank but chickened out....too much work.
posted by Sarah at
10:02 p.m.
1 Comments:
It's actually not a leaky tank; it's actually a pretty cool method of filtration. The hole in the bottom is for drainage, but there's a whole feat of engineering that prevents the entire volume of the tank from draining out, so it's pretty darned cool.
In short: water overflows the walls of an empty colum or tube, trickles down to the hole, through the hole and into a trickle filter, and a pump moves the water back into the tank after it is filtered (which raises the water level so it overflows again).
Thus, if the pump dies you'll still get some overflow but not the entire tank, and most of the filtration is thereby simplified by the design of it all. Potential energy is your friend, man!
- ..
By
Lunchbox, at 4:47 p.m.
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