Rays on a budget- My (somewhat long) story w/pics

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
earthstudent;4585174; said:
Man, you have had just about everything go wrong that could. I think you should be in the clear soon because you are running out of things that could possibly go wrong. I would say you are doing a dam good job of dealing with everything. It seams you are being tested. Good job so far, keep moving forward and keep your eye on your goals.

And your cat? As in your house cat (feline)? Very sorry to here that.:(

It would seem that not much else could go wrong...but if I can get Vegas to give me odds on having Michigan's first Volcano in my Yard, I'm laying $100 on it.

Yeah....it was my house cat. Was gonna have to have him put down, but I was hoping for results with some last ditch-effort medication.
 
tscharf;4585297; said:
haha so after staying with you this long in this thread ive come to the conclusion that you have super man like problem solving skills

100% learned from my Dad...sure wish he were here to see this.

And a few sayings I have collected and try to remember-

"you gotta roll with the punches"

"Keep your eyes on the prize"

"Never let them see you sweat"

And many others...

Mike
 
A little piece of airline tubing makes a good stinger "sheath." Cut it into 2" sections and slide it over the stinger. I've yet to see them puncture a bag when packed in this manner.
 
I had considered the airline tubing option, but it isn't small enough to stay on the barb of the pups. I bet the hobby shop has a lot of different diameters of tubing like that.

Mike
 
what about sponges.... cut to length of the barb and a little longer so that it protects the tip. barb is serated so that the sponge wont fall off... just a thought
 
It was actually really easy to trim the barbs...so I'm really not to worried about it...I'm more interested in finding the long-shot odds on my Volcano popping up, I'm pretty sure it's coming any day now. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000:1 odds would pay off pretty decent with a $100 wager.LOL

Almost done with the new pool. Plumbing is all done except for finalizing the depth so I can attach the spraybar permanently. I'm going to make the actual overflow inlet out of vinyl rain gutter I think...hard to explain...but right now, It's 2 2" elbows facing upward....the first pond only has 1 2" drain, and I have another one all set to go in...just gotta lower the water level and drill the hole out the side.

I've been running the pump a little bit at a time now (every couple hours) to slowly mix the 2 together and avoid drastic temp and param changes for the rays in pool #1... I hope to be able to put the BD/Leo female in there later tonight so I can give the pups their nursery tank back...The bioload has been a pain in the butt to keep up with, and after I get the new pool running...I plan to re-connect the nursery to the main system. I only separated them so I could monitor the water better...but ever since I made the sump so much bigger, the water in the main system has tested awesome. (as long as I don't leave the pump unlugged)

I really wish I would have realized when I built the first pool that the drain didn't have to go out the bottom....the side outlets are much "cleaner" on the new pool. Not a real huge issue, but Looking forward to finalizing this new overflow setup so I can apply it to the 1st pool. but one cool thing about the 1st pool is that since the drain went out the bottom, there is room to let the de-humidifier blow it's hot air underneath it...only reason I've had the de-humidifier on that barrrel (in the last foull room pic) is because I didn't have a long enough hose to make it into the utility room, so I set it there so it could drain into my water change drain system.

Basically, the rain gutter will be capped on both ends with the 2" holes in the bottom. then I will fit plastic light diffuser into the bottom held a little biit off the bottom. On top of the diffuser, I'll be able to use a pre-filter. I like the idea of that 1" thick matting filter made out of plastic fiber stuff that they use in pond skimmer pictures, but I also want something that fits in like a liner...so that way I can take it out like a trash bag without losing all the debris.

This is going to make a huge difference on the amount of food and stuff going into the sump. Might possibly even be the greatest thing ever in the history of the world (that has ever been used on my ray pools in my basement).

Pool- Pond... Everyone always calls them ponds...but after having a planted outdoor koi pond for 6 years, that just seems really dirty...pools sound a lot cleaner.

Mike
 
Everyone got "re-homed" last night. Didn't really like the idea of up-rooting the whole family, but a single 9" BD/Leo just didn't "look right" in a 10ft x 58" pool.

I took a bunch of pics of the new pool running, and some of the "behind the scenes" plumbing that hasn't been shown yet...but I have some things I gotta get done before I can get my couch on for the Talladega race.

Mike
 
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