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

Got the middle bit done.
Made myself a tamper tool.
Copied the idea off Lee Hadfield's youtube.
I had to finish it in a rush and do school pick up and parents evening, but pretty happy it's OK.

I had to brush it off under torch light last night, which was a mistake. I either used too hard a brush or too soon or too late, but it's put scratches in the surface, rather than just reveal the pebbles. Which was the desired effect, to make it a bit non slip. I brushed it off again this morning and it's not perfect, but certainly live able and certainly will add grip.

Originally Posted by dbs

Ahhhh nice one, looks great, a lovely little area to sit in that is!!

Yeah I'm pleased with it. It will be a nice spot once it's done and definitely nicer moving round the pond doing jobs.

Winter mode initiated. Slight modification for the new auto feeder.
Plus I found trich and fluke!? What the hell.

Originally Posted by dbs

Like that idea for the hole in the polycarb mate, why in 4 years did I not think of that, I left a square gap <face-palm>

Trich and fluke, how the hell did that happen, what made you check them, had you spotted odd behaviour?

Yep they were flashing

I have copied this from a description someone posted up, so thanks to them.
DIY air timer.
Why? To feed an air ring under my skimmer and give the fish 20 mins or whatever to eat floating food and treats I throw in, in the summer.
Currently I use a gate valve and shut off the whole skimmer line and set a timer to re-open it.

This is a mechanical hose / irrigation timer. I have attached 8mm hose barbs. 3/4 bsp male and 3/4 bsp female. It will tee off the main pond air, so no pump turning off and on. Just diverting the air already in use.

I've had a lot of green foam lately and today I noticed the flow over the skimmer weir was down to a trickle, so I checked out the air lifts and they weren't flowing well. It then occured to me that they had never had any maintenance at all and maybe the air stones needed a clean. I plunged them all and it worked great. I bolted a stiff brush (cut down masonry paint brush) on a bendy bit of water pipe and that worked great. One wasn't as good as the others, but it's the only one made with push fit fittings and Mark at Cuttlebrook had warned me it would leak eventually and it does belch a bit past the seals. I plunged it again and I must have dislodged something as it puts all it's air into the sump tank now. Oh well, I have the solvent weld swept tee sat ready to swap over, I just need an excuse, so that's a job for warmer weather. The lift in question also has a cheaper airline, which I'll replace with a decent sinking airline whilst I'm at it.
It will mean stripping all the baskets out the sump, which will be a pain.

I have 2x 50lpm air pumps split across two air lifts. (One pair of 4" lifts and a 3" and 4" as a pair) So currently I have 50lpm diverted to the one 3" air lift. And it handles it great, so I may look to upgrade to a pair of 100lpm air pumps this summer once I've fixed the duff airlift and get some more flow into the pond. The limiting factor will be what the collector box and 4x 2" gravity returns can handle.

Originally Posted by dbs

Now airlifts, that is really one thing I just can't get my head around

Fill up a tall glass of water. Put a straw in it sat on the bottom of the glass. Blow as hard as you can Into the straw. 2/3 of the water will be on the floor.
That's what an airlift does, but from the filter back into the pond.

Got my "skimmer blocker feeder timer" on the pond. Yes the name needs some work! Thanks again to whoever I copied the idea off.
If you haven't seen it, it's a hose/ irrigation mechanical timer, just turn the dial to anything up to 120mins. And it shuts off when the timer is done. I have just converted it to air that tee's off the pond air bar, to a small air bar under the skimmer. When I can't be stood next to the pond (or the Mrs/kids calls me in for whatever reason whilst I was happily watching the fish feed!) and I want to chuck floating treats in, I can put it on for 20 mins and stop all the food going down the skimmer. When it shuts off, anything un-eaten gets skimmed off the surface as usual.
Don't bother with a Hozelock mechanical timer. It feels cheap, so may as well buy a cheap one off eBay.

A bit of fettling required at the tee (or 'Y') junction to fine tune it. Too much air pressure and the timer struggles to close 100%....and you can't see the damn fish. It still technically works at 100% (60lpm) as it just leaves a fine stream of tiny bubbles leaking past, which is weak enough to get sucked into the skimmer. But the valves are already installed so I've tweaked it down to just enough air to push the food away from the skimmer mouth.

I found a cheap power lead for the old jebao auto feeder so the sterlet has an upgrade. I'll take off the old clamp on battery one as soon as it's empty. I made a little ally bracket to fix it better than the plastic brackets.

The jebao one gives up if you fill it over 3/4 full. Well it did on 4.5 - 6mm pellets. But it's fine with less in it and seems better suited with the 2-3mm sterlet feed.
The super fish one hasn't missed a beat so far...

I do love handfeeding but I need to finish my pergola roof or the seagulls land on the pond.
...and probably bring all sorts of nasties with them from wherever they last plonked in the water.

Striped out the anoxic filter today to fix the airlift leak and have a go at a 4" tank connector that's been weeping.
Airlift sorted easily. Just swapped out the orange push fit tee fitting for a weld on one (no glue used) and wiggled the leaky 3" so it sat flat on the floor and didn't let air escape.
Impressed at the anoxic sump. No mulm really or anything lurking to worry about.
I attempted to fix the 4" tank connector by using a waste pipe end cap (with the middle cut out) covering it in gold label and whacking it in the 4" tank connector (from the flat/ flanged side - inside the filter). Fingers crossed. It says it cures under water but it definitely doesn't stick to wet surfaces. Hopefully dried it all off well enough before applying and waited a few hours before refilling the filter.

New fish day!
Adam Byers Kikusui 29cm. It has a sport of Sumi, but I don't mind, the Beni looks painted on. It's incredible. The Kuchi-Beni is nice too.
And a substitute Showa because my goshiki totally flopped, so they offered this, Showa 35cm (Adam Byers Bred). I really like Showa with Menware on the head, so I agreed straight away.