Arapaima Pond Build

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Ok, settling-tank is clear. Filled up with about 30cm of water and waiting for sand under it to settle.
Washed in a lot of sand again, water will drain in no-time, very dry at the moment.
Just want to make sure it's properly supported if there's a ton of water in that tank.
Tank itself will be ok, but the PVC-drain is of course to be supported properly.

Fixed the dome in place. Different from the last one, the fitting for the diffuser on top, not under the dome.
Siliconed the connector at the top of the dome while the bottom end of the airpipe is loose (hand-tight) fitted inside the airline. That way I can lift the dome with the air-line silicone fixed in it if necessary. Silicone will prevent the airline from being blown out. (well at least that's the idea...lets see how it works....lol)

So now just waiting a bit for the dome / silicone to dry and then start filling in the afternoon.

Pictures later...
 
still unbelievable to me, to this day how much you're doing to get the arapaima a much more suitable home. Keep up the good work Luc.

How hot is it these days in Bangkok? How are summer temperatures? I would dread to be working in the heat. Used to do some home reconstruction with a full summer heat, no AC. That was a lot of fun...
 
DammitKhoa said:
still unbelievable to me, to this day how much you're doing to get the arapaima a much more suitable home. Keep up the good work Luc.

How hot is it these days in Bangkok? How are summer temperatures? I would dread to be working in the heat. Used to do some home reconstruction with a full summer heat, no AC. That was a lot of fun...
Click to expand...

Hello Brian, as for the work due to 1 fish, see it in person and I'm sure you'd whistle in the full sun doing the digging....lol...
It's a bit of many reasons to do it. I get to try a nice pond with all the filtering. I'm still laughing all the way to the bank for how little it cost so far, I really get a kick out of using old scrap and repurpose it for the pond.
Those Microwave Antenna's where a god-send. I'm convinced that they where not sold as Aluminum scrap yet for this very reason of becoming a filter.
The Arapaima just showed up to focus me on it...lol

It's a 37' Celcius or 98.6' Fahrenheit...that's in the shadow I assume, so make it a 105 to 110 Fahrenheit in the full sun.
Little bit of breeze on and off, humidity is close to 100%.
You can do an hour, maybe 2 of work, then need to get a liter of water to top up your body-liquids.
It's bearable, slightly down from last weekend where even blinking your eyes would make you break a sweat.
 
Some small holes in the settling-tank at the 50% mark where the 2 antenna's connect...draining the water into pond and push some silicone in them later. Will sure settle it.
Afternoon then start filling again.
 
Still some leaks on the settling tank...
Waiting a bit with it for now. Need to empty it anyway to drill the hole for the skimmer....
Filling the pond...don't think I will get to 50% today..lol...slightly overestimating the capacity of the tap.

But sure is filling up smoothly, hope all goes well for the filling and then start the first tank.
Maybe tomorrow reach the level that the settling tank can be used...hope so.

Cheers,
Luc
 
Well, so far so good.
Water exactly the same as yesterday, so pond and drains are holding up well.
Started filling just now. Had to wait for cleaning the temporary pond.

One of my ladies out to the shop for parts.
Also got the second pump in yesterday, so with a hose I get soon, I'll bypass the normal watertap and see how much we can increase the pumping of water directly from our holding-tank.

First airpump connected, that was a breeze, will make some pictures later, but couple of PVC parts, female screw-fitting and an end-cap, small hole drilled in the cap, airline through it, on the inside a larger fitting to block the air-line from slipping out. filled up with silicone around it and push it on the airline to the diffuser.
Connected it and straight away a huge amount of bubbles coming up.

Filled the second settling tank with dirty water from Mr.T's temporary pond. With all the fine solids in it, it looks like quite a few of the small leaks are settling already.
So will repeat that a couple of times over the next few days to hopefully settle everything before switching it on.

So later, when the parts come in, we'll get to make some real progress I hope.
 
Pffff...sun is no joke here.
We drained some water into the 2 settling tanks to get under the liner in one corner.
Pored a couple of bags of sand under it and stuffed 2 Nylon BigBags under, just to be sure..was a bit rough there, but looks far better now.
Connected the pump and hose, lowered it into our holding-tank and started pumping. That's a beast, drains the tank in maybe 15 minutes. Got like 5 cm water into the pond in that time. My guess is that the tank is 1500 or 2000 liter, but not sure on that.

Anyhow, almost to the point where I can drop a pump into the settling tank and see how that works.
The intake in the settling-tank is about 40cm under the water-surface from the pond, so that is hopefully enough to create a nice vortex.
 
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