Lunch as a pet?

[DWhatley]

Your zoas are not likely to be a problem but the are not likely to grow much either if they are like the ones I have that look similar (always hard to tell with zoas) that are in my mantis tank.

I don't think CuttleGirl was worried about the fish fighting each other. She was more likely trying to warn you that they might be aggressive toward the octopus.

 

[hlywkar]

Ya... I knew that... but wouldn't territorial nature disperse for all creatures, inverts included, via the same method?

worst comes to worse I can get a small tank... it may help just to keep feeders like crab etc in it anyways.

do you know of an easy cheap method to share water between tanks via a little and cheap pump?

 

[robind]

If the water level of the tanks are all the same, you can use a siphon to do that. My friend did this once with two 40g tanks. He put them side by side, put a skimmer box in each tank to maintain the siphon (even during water changes), and put a utube between the tanks. He used a maxijet1200 or similar to pump water from one tank to the other, and the siphon maintained the level. It'll work with different sized tanks, the key is that the water level needs to be the same.

This could work nicely with a ceph tank. It would eliminate a lot of the annoying sump noise, but still give you a sump. Also you wouldn't need as big of a pump (you're making me wish I'd done this now). Put the return pump in the sump, and mesh over the skimmerbox and you're good to go.

 

[DWhatley]

Just don't EVER loose the siphon and be sure your siphon is faster than your pump . While I was keeping seahorses, I experimented with some very small (2 gallonish) tanks and something similar. I had a lot of fun experimenting but my success was miserable. The best luck I had was incorporating multiple siphons that would each take the full load of the pump. Thankfully, the mess somewhat contained. If you try it be sure you pay attention to robind's note of putting the pump in the SMALL tank. I would go so far as to elevate the pump so that it can't completely drain the small tank should the siphon fail.

A safer alternate (but not as much fun) would be to remove a full water change from the 10 gallon fill it from the tank and put the new water in the main tank during water changes. The small tank won't have the best water but if you are planning on feeders and a couple of damsels it should suffice.

A slightly more expensive method is to just change out half the tank (which is what I do with my 10 gallon and even more on my 1.5 gallon picos) weekly and keep them as separate tanks.

So far, my experiments with the 8 gallon biorb (no filtration other than LR and heavy weekly water changes - original filter removed but heavy air movement added - have been successful for maintaining a few corals and serpent stars but the bioload is pretty small. My surprise mantis is now in that tank but I have not seen him in a week so he either died or is molting. I suspect the later but will have to wait a week or more to be sure. Slither (my other mantis shrimp) originally disappeared for several weeks at a time and we never saw a shed. Just about the time we woudl think he died, he would reappear and start his tank inspection as if to check and see if anything had changed while he was "away". I don't know if he is shedding less (possibly having become an adult) or no longer has much fear but his disappearances are much shorter now.

 

[hlywkar]

hey...

so, what about making some makeshift overflows out of plastic containers? attach these to the tank with suction pads

use my canister to take from the small one, and put in the big one.
then go from the big tanks over flow, use a pump in the over flow to send to the other tank.

the receiving end of my canister would go in the small tanks over flow.

think it would work?
or would it mess up my canister?


I really don't know what I would use for a pump though. suggestions?"

also by siphon. were you actually talking about setting it up with just a tube? and let gravity do the work?

 

[DWhatley]

I don't think so. Your pumps would have to be synchronized too closely for home aquarium technology. The single pump with siphon model accomodates changes in water levels IF the siphon never breaks and can move more water than the input flow. Multiple siphons would never be a problem, unlike unmatched pumps.

Thinking about it though, if your sump pump moved more water than you canister and you put a shut off float valve on the sump pump, you might have something still scary but reasonable. Do you have carpet on the floor?

 

[robind]

That could work with just the canister filter, if you made the tanks the same height.
The canister would pump from tank A to B, and the siphon would return water from B to A. Definitely have a backup siphon.

I've never had my siphon fail on my freshwater turtle tank. I would prefer to have a drilled tank but I don't have a glass grinder...also at this point it would be a huge PITA to drain the tank and drill it.

 

[hlywkar]

well I noticed one problem with my coral..... it's upside down! I saw a few upshoots sticking down outta the sides. so I flipped it over. hopefully it will all come out. I am already seeing a some now.

 

[hlywkar]

flipped a rock around... trying to get space better now that I have some actual live stuff to put on top of these suckers.

Noticed two of those feather duster things you talked about a while ago. tiny. 2 of them. one white, one red/pink.

so what would you recommend for a syphon then? model? what would u recommend for the piping?

also I don't have carpet on the floor.

I am debating on a in tank divider as another alternative. food on one side. octo on the other... at least until he ate them all. num num.

 

[DWhatley]

Dividers have had limited success but as long as the animals on either side are compatible with the octopus, the worse that would happen is a tank full of food or no food. I would suggest an absolute minimum on the bottom substrate to avoid nitrate build up on the non-ceph side. You want to give your octo as much room as possible so you would want the second compartment pretty small. An opaque panel might be best but remember that anything you use will collect algae and need cleaning. If you want to get fancy, devise a way to accomodate two dividing panels to allow pulling one for cleaning.

I think you are starting to see the merits of a sump .

 

[hlywkar]

Well I am trying to think of a way to do it without drilling. not really sure.

I know my tank has front panels that are tempered... because it say that. not sure about the sides and the bottom though.

 

[hlywkar]

any one know how this guy did this?

it's without any drilling... and it is supposed to be ok with power outages.

 

[hlywkar]

my leather coral, was upside down... flipped it over. it opened for 2 days. now it's all closed. is this normal? it looks all pink

 

[DWhatley]

any one know how this guy did this?

This looks a lot like the one we initially made for the nano a few years ago (love those acrylic hang on boxes). Basically he drilled one fo the large hang on boxes and put a bulkhead in the bottom. The part hanging over the tank is a J-tube that was long enough on the short end to sit below the bulk head opening (you can raise the water level by adding a pipe to the bulk head. Adding a U at the top might eliminate the need for that rod - not likely to work for long - to keep the gurgling noise down). The long end of the J-tube must be long enough to never come out of the water.

This set up works as long as the fine tuning stays in place (ours would have to have attention several times a week). The biggest probem comes in the balancing act Robind mentioned with keeping water levels equal.

As shown, the water level in the overflow box, at its lowest, will be below the water level in the tank and high enough in the overflow box to maintain the siphon. If the water in the tank evaporates (we see 2 gallon a day evaporation with some of our tanks when we have to use cooling fans) or you do water changes that bring the water level in the tank below the water level in the overflow box the water will reverse direction (siphons will always try to equalize the water levels), empty the overflow box and break the siphon. We experimented with different ways to avoid the problem but never succeeded in a trouble free set-up.

Our best effort was to take a large diameter PVC pipe the full height of the nano, cap the bottom and add a tee and hose barb and then another piece of pipe to the top and put the J-tube (J-tube and hose diameters must exceed the pump capacity). I don't have a picture of the set up but you can see from the photo (note the belt I sacraficed for this use) that we never really found a great way to attach it.

The nano was inactive for a couple of years and when we set it back up, we dispensed with the sump but it only houses a matis shrimp and some polyps now.