Schuyler Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 I've been watching lots of videos about breeding and it seems like those who are really serious about it have containers for fry that circulate tank water through. Today I made a diy fry tray that fits a 5 gallon tank. It takes initial inspiration from Dean's fry rack as well as a few other YouTubers and people online. Here's what I started with: a cheap sponge filter, paint stirring sticks, two pieces of PVC (the smaller one fits on the sponge filter and the larger one fits over that), and some cheap sandwich containers. First I cut the wood to fit. This mainly acts as a ledge because the sandwich containers is just barely not big enough. Then I measured how high I wanted the water in the container and cut the PVC to that length (taking into consideration the height of the sponge filter). Then cut a hole in the container for the tube to go through. Then I drilled holes around the PVC a few inches up from the bottom (the idea came from this video) Then I cut a 3" piece of the bigger PVC, drilled a hole, and stuck in a connector for airline tubing. I didn't have an L so I used a T and blocked up one end. I then slid that over the holes and used hot glue to put it in place and seal it. All together it looked like this: Then it was the moment of truth... Putting it in a tank that's actually filled. It actually moved water much faster that I expected and almost overflowed the container. After some adjusting it's looking like it may work. What types of setups have you done? Do you have any suggestions for how to make this better? There is a lot of leftover material so I may end up making some more. 3 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theplatymaster Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 @Schuyler this is pretty cool. in all my designs it used a pump to push water through, using air is pretty smart. is this come sort of recirculating system?, or would you still need to do water changes. i dont see any sort of overflow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schuyler Posted March 10, 2023 Author Share Posted March 10, 2023 On 3/10/2023 at 3:24 AM, Theplatymaster said: @Schuyler this is pretty cool. in all my designs it used a pump to push water through, using air is pretty smart. is this come sort of recirculating system?, or would you still need to do water changes. i dont see any sort of overflow. It's just so that the fry get the benefit of the larger water volume while still being kept close to the food 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theplatymaster Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 On 3/10/2023 at 8:49 AM, Schuyler said: It's just so that the fry get the benefit of the larger water volume while still being kept close to the food i like it, nice idea! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schuyler Posted March 10, 2023 Author Share Posted March 10, 2023 On 3/10/2023 at 6:01 AM, Theplatymaster said: i like it, nice idea! Thanks! I can't take much credit for the idea really. It's a bit of an amalgamation of different approaches I've seen on YouTube https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1BOLljGET-pXbkxZ6ypkr41PAoAJjK2n Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AllFishNoBrakes Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 Super rad idea! You could cut a hole/square towards the top of the sandwich container, and then plug that hole with sponge to prevent overflow/ allow water to continuously flow up and then out of the container, no? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schuyler Posted March 10, 2023 Author Share Posted March 10, 2023 On 3/10/2023 at 8:49 AM, AllFishNoBrakes said: Super rad idea! You could cut a hole/square towards the top of the sandwich container, and then plug that hole with sponge to prevent overflow/ allow water to continuously flow up and then out of the container, no? Oops looks like I forgot that step. There's a hole there with some filter material 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theplatymaster Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 @Schuyler i suspect i may make this for my own purposes, just a little modified for my uses. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levi_Aquatics Posted March 11, 2023 Share Posted March 11, 2023 This is such a great idea! I have been wanting to make some fry trays for my 20L, but I dont have a auto waterchange sytem and didn't want to buy a pump just for this, but I hadn't thought of using air to move the water. I think another benefit of this system is that the main aquarium is getting some extra filtration if i'm not mistaken? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schuyler Posted March 11, 2023 Author Share Posted March 11, 2023 On 3/10/2023 at 9:13 PM, Levi_Aquatics said: I think another benefit of this system is that the main aquarium is getting some extra filtration if i'm not mistaken? Yeah it's getting some extra filtration. Something I'm thinking about trying is having the pipe turn and drip into the tray rather than cutting a hole. The hole makes it a bit tricky to take in and out. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levi_Aquatics Posted March 11, 2023 Share Posted March 11, 2023 On 3/11/2023 at 12:30 AM, Schuyler said: Yeah it's getting some extra filtration. Something I'm thinking about trying is having the pipe turn and drip into the tray rather than cutting a hole. The hole makes it a bit tricky to take in and out. That's a good thought. If you end up figuring that out, please share!! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schuyler Posted March 11, 2023 Author Share Posted March 11, 2023 On 3/10/2023 at 10:08 PM, Levi_Aquatics said: That's a good thought. If you end up figuring that out, please share!! Will do! If you didn't see it already I shared a YouTube playlist of videos that were inspiration behind this 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levi_Aquatics Posted March 11, 2023 Share Posted March 11, 2023 On 3/11/2023 at 1:17 AM, Schuyler said: Will do! If you didn't see it already I shared a YouTube playlist of videos that were inspiration behind this Sweet, i'll have to check that out. Thank you!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levi_Aquatics Posted March 13, 2023 Share Posted March 13, 2023 Sooooooooo, after a weekend of trial and error attempting to make this work with airline hose instead of pvc I had to give up. I was able to get a working czech arlift as the video @Schuyler shared describes, but I was completely unable to convert this to airline tubing in the way I wanted. I suspect it could be done, but I was trying to make it work in a 20L which is likely too short and does not provide enough pressure to get a constant flow out of the tubing. I was able to get it working somewhat, but it was loud and splashed way too much water around while also not providing much flow at all, so I had to scrap that and ended up using an old HOB filter to pump water to some fry trays I made yesterday. This solution worked a lot better for me, but I am still frustrated I was unable to get the airlift working with airline tubing. One of the big isses I think I was running into was that the diameter of the tubing to too small for air and water to pass through simultaneously at a decent flow rate. This being said, I can see a lot of benefits to using an airlift system for fry trays, so if anyone else can figure out how to make one with airline tubing please let me know!! If anyone is interested in seeing a more detailed look at how I built my fry trays as well as some pictures you can check out my journal "Levi's Mini Fish Room Journal" as I will be uploading a post about that system soon. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levi_Aquatics Posted March 13, 2023 Share Posted March 13, 2023 I just posted some pictures of the fry trays I made in “Levi’s Mini Fish room journal” if any of you are interested in seeing them. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now