Connected Tank Idea- Feedback please

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Or you could just use a single filter with the intake in one tank and the outflow in the other...then you'd have a flow in the opposite direction in the fish highway. No mech. filtration in the tank with the outflow though.
 
If it's not too big, you could probably make it out of a small sheet of ¼" acrylic. Just have all your panels cut from one sheet kind of like this (but not crappy):

wbridge.jpg


then glue the panels together.

You'd have a longer assembly time, but less time spent sourcing materials. Maybe cheaper, too.
 
schaadrak;1016831; said:
If you have a small enough tube, you don't really need a check valve or a pump. You just submerge the entire thing and get all of the air out of it. Then block the openings so that no air can get in. Put it in place on the tanks and make sure the openings are both under water and unblock them.

Also, if you wanted to create a small amount of flow through the tube, you could very slowly pump water from one tank into the other. The bridge will act like a siphon and water will flow back through it into the first tank.

I'm thinking about doing this as well, but having a planted tank with a breeding live-bearer population on one side and a large cichlid tank on the other. The bridge would only be big enough for the live-bearers to go through and get eaten. I just can't figure out a way to only have a certain number of them go through it per day. I don't think they'll listen to me even if I ask politely.
Click to expand...

Make it so only the smaller feeders can get through... thats the only way i can think and im not sure if the ones you'd let through would be big enough.
 
he'd have to put on a latch/door/mesh screen type of thing on one end and have it open only for a certain amount of time each day. that's the only way i can think of controlling the sacrificial rate.
btw, do cichlids 'smell' their food? cause if so, they would probably spend all their time attacking your water bridge entry way in their tank.
 
I used 3/8" cell cast acrylic sheet. I used some of the plans from that $10 book at the website that was mentioned earlier www.fishighway.com It's probably worth the $10 in my case because I've built about a dozen water-bridges. Some being with clear acrylic tubing, and some with white pvc pipe. The acrylic sheet one's are the nicest though. Next time I build more I'll do a few things different. I think fish would enjoy them more if I used a dark tinted translucent acrylic for 3 of the sides. My fish dart right through these bridges because they don't like all the reflections glaring at them from 4 sides. A none reflective acrylic would be ideal for 3 of the sides.

The cost for the acrylic bridges was probably about $50-$90. I built the smallest one out of scrap acrylic I had laying around, so that one didn't cost me anything extra.

Only snails, shrimp, fry, and other small fish can get though the small bridge that goes to the refugium. It's narrow enough so that most fish won't swim through it.

For circulation, I have about 1300 gph of water flowing through the water bridges, except for the smalll one. That one only has about 350 gph flowing though it.

I've been using the water-bridges for about 4 years. They have never caused me any problems with overflowing or leaking. They do make water-changes alot easier though. Instead of having to do water changes to 5 tanks, I can just draw and add water to one tank. I use a continous drip water-change system now though. The drip system works amazingly with my set-up. I'll thank a few people from this forum for that great idea.
 
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