Thread: Alburglar's DIY fry setup and grow on pond and filter.

Modifications to the Jebao auto feeder to stop the snails getting in. Perspex cover for the shute leaving a 10mm gap and a little rain cover for the plug hole.

Found my footlong tench in my drum today. Sadly dead. My first instinct was that he'd got into the bottom drain, but when I thought about it, he was wedged in the dirty side of the drum, with his tail in the skimmer line.
I've been running the skimmer on 4" gravity line, and it's a floating weir type, so the fish must have forced its way past the weir door and down the 4" pipe. I haven't been running the skimmer basket because I want all the crap to end up in the drum. So to rectify that I've modded the skimmer basket. Hopefully leaves etc will still make their way through, but not footlong fish or tosai.
Plus I've left the handle of the skimmer basket up so if anything tries to force it's way through the door will hit the handle.

...the karashigoi is going to be miffed, because he like to do exactly that and suck all the floating food the skimmer has collected. But that fish was way to lardy to get his head fully in the hole, so he was safe.

...I've also had to jiggle the big blue and run it backwards for a minute, as Chlorine was getting through. The fish were lethargic and had really red fins.
It worked a treat.
I'll see how long that lasted...

Despite their being white spot in the pond, all the fish, apart from the tosai, appear to be oblivious and feeding happily in the sun. The second video is better, but the first one has a good view of my Short bodied Asagi. - a pond spawn, and not necessarily my cup of tea, but nice enough. Probably would be worth a fortune in Asia as they love the short bodies for some reason!?

https://youtu.be/XzduR6CKqlE?feature=shared

https://youtu.be/AjVdkWY0rHY?feature=shared

A leak!
Took a while to find this one.
... actually didn't notice I had a leak, just that the filter house floor wasn't drying up after rainfall.

I ended up lining cutting a slit in a thin 30-40mm piece of 110mm waste pipe, so it would fit inside to the 110mm tank connector, with a load of gold label pond seal (because it sets under water and I need the filter back on). Crap photo, but this bridges the gap between the flanges and the grp tank. So far so good...

Diy submersible UV has let in a dribble of water over the summer.
I could redo it with some silicone grease on the threads, but I removed the whole lot for some revisions as 36w wasn't cutting the mustard anymore.

And I've tweaked the air lift lengths so they are about 25mm longer. Doesn't seem like much but they are now long enough so that if one air pump fails, or needs to be turned off, then I don't lose all the water back down the redundant tubes. They are taller than the lowest return now. They still pull water from 8 inches down, which is when the drum triggers (the three inch tube pulls from about 10inch.)
The float switch may need a slight adjustment as its taking over 99mins to trigger, but I'll keep an eye on it. Could just be that I have been feeding light, in the build up to fixing the leak on the filter.

...still leaking...

Originally Posted by davethefish1

that looks to be a difficult one to fix, unless you remove the flange and reseal it.

they always leak in the most awkward places,
could you inject some mastic in to the flange gap where it's leaking, with syringe and large bore needle?
don't know how easy mastic will push through a needle but warming it up in hot water might help?

Now that Dave, is a flipping excellent idea!

Yesterday, in desperation, rather than thinking it might actually work, I tried to squidge some sealant into it with my finger but water kept seeping out...

Couldn't get it to work.
I had 5 sizes of syringes as I was going to try and reglue the headliner in my old Audi 80 Quattro (with it in situ). So I used what I had, but may be due to the awkward spot, I couldn't actually fit any syringe past the flange and even if I could, only the middle sized syringe I had, would express any sealant after sticking the body of the syringe in a pot of boiling water for a minute.

I'll have to strip it all out, which means pulling all the anoxic baskets out, which is annoying.

It's a tiny pin prick hole. Dunno how it's occured, or why it's only just started to leak? Maybe something organic, like a hair, caught up in the sealant, that rotted out eventually?
I always put sealant on both the flange face and the thing it connects to. Never had an issue before. It will have to come off when I can be bothered. And of course, because I had the slide valve apart, so despite cleaning all that up before reassembly, that is leaking too, so I've actually made it worse.

Well, my leaking slide valve has fixed itself, so only the weep out of the tank connector to sort and that can probably wait until spring.

In other news my pond cover is coming together. The supports I made have worked well, with pipe lagging over the glass, and I've been buying a sheet of 25mm polycarb every time I get screwfix vouchers as a reward from work, so they've cost me nothing, so far. Just one narrow bit short.
Three 3000mm x 1000mm sheets cut down to 2600mm long. One 2400mm sheet cut in half for two 1200 x 1000mm sections. Just another 1200mm by 690mm to finish, which I'll use as a feeding flap. Eyewatering how much the one last bit I need is. That and a Glazing bar to cut to lengths works out at about £85-£95 delivered with a couple of end caps for the bar. Maybe I'll make some more ally supports instead, to keep costs down.
Nowhere local does 25mm polycarb sheets, which is annoying.

Just need to figure out how to lock it all down. Perhaps some sacrificial building clamps for this winter and some lengths of wood to lock the sheets into the aluminum c sections? We'll see...

I also bought another drum! A filtreau with the high pressure pump included.
..why because it came with two 40w Amalgam UV ballasts and a new bulb and a working used bulb. The last owner got a new filtreau ballast sent and it was likely a duff new batch of bulbs from his supplier that turned out to be at fault. It was a great deal and I have paid submersible Amalgam UV money and potentially, if the second UV works, I have a free complete a filtreau drum, high pressure pump and submersible UV. All locally from a nice chap on here.
My brain is saying both:
....perhaps an awesome grow on setup....
....No, finish the pond you have first, you numpty...

Special delivery!
A chance conversation with the Koi Club Chairman yesterday and a call from him today as he was picking up a filter he was buying.

"Do you still need a bit of inch polycarb, 6ft sheet for a tenner? I can put it on the van and deliver it to you on my way back."

Sold!

Progress.
Still needs some thinking work to make it wind proof at the near end, and generally shore it all up a bit better, but that sheet has saved me a few quid at least.
...I already had a ton of 300mm quick clamps left from making the pond, but a few more to purchase.