Due to some unforeseen circumstances the start of the seahorse series will be delayed one more week, please bear with me on this..
This week i am presenting a video on building a DIY Tube Fuge, this video walks you through the process of building and putting in place a DIY Tube Fuge.
The video was done by Samuel Helms, its a concept project that was he researched put together.
I would like everyone to keep in mind this is a version 1.0. So if you see a better way of doing something, we kindly as that you help contribute to this project and post your suggestions here lets collaborate on this.
BE ADVISED This video episode is almost 30 minutes long, and the file is over 100 MB. Downloads for the first few days of release will take a while.
He he... Sam, I liked the video. I like the concept of your fuge too. I, as Rob stated, think it is a good idea to work to discuss some possible modificaitons to it. For what it's worth, it is the same principle that I use for my cryptic sump. Though, I used a dark, tupperware storage contaner.
First of all, a question. Rather than cutting the "half circles" or notched in the cap and the top of the pipe, could you use a hole saw, type of drill bit and make a more precise hole just below the cap rim? I'm a fan of waterproof unions. I would fear that if any algae or other matter reduced the flow out of the elbow, that it would leak at this union.
Also, I know they are hard to find, but they do make end caps with a flat surface if you wanted to make the unit stand. BUT..with that being said, if we looked to the elbow, used to return water to the system, I'm sure we could find a way to easily modify that to make it a "brace" of sorts, turning your unit into a "hang on tank" type.
Otherwise, it is this spirit of innovation and passion for the hobby that helps is to make leaps and bounds every day. Hats off to you my friend.
Dave
PS... gotta love yer sense of humor. I think we all, as hobbyists, have consumed far too much tank water in the siphoning process.. we are ALL crazy!
First of all, a question. Rather than cutting the "half circles" or notched in the cap and the top of the pipe, could you use a hole saw, type of drill bit and make a more precise hole just below the cap rim? I'm a fan of waterproof unions. I would fear that if any algae or other matter reduced the flow out of the elbow, that it would leak at this union.
Also, I know they are hard to find, but they do make end caps with a flat surface if you wanted to make the unit stand. BUT..with that being said, if we looked to the elbow, used to return water to the system, I'm sure we could find a way to easily modify that to make it a "brace" of sorts, turning your unit into a "hang on tank" type.
Yes to all The 45 bend i used is probably too large; there is just a small trickle of water coming out of it. So if you can drill a precise hole and fit unions into it, go for it. I did see those endcaps once, but was not able to find them again in time for the video. I wholeheartedly agree: they would make life much easier.
One other mod i had to make concerns the bubbles. If you notice from the end of the video, the fuge dumped a great deal of bubbles into the water as well. I just measured wrong, of course, and the 45 bend was too far off the surface of the tank water so it splashed around when it hit. I just put a small piece of 1/8" acrylic in the oven for a bit and bent it around the end of the 45, just to make it longer. That eliminated the bubbles. So the lesson here, extend that inlet so that it just touches the surface of the water, then no more bubbles.
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
All tests were done using the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Nitrate test. The live rock used in the fuge was cured and sitting in a bucket in my basement for about 2 weeks. This explains why the nitrate numbers dropped so quickly. I did this for several reasons: first to quarantine the rock so hitchhikers did not invade my tank, and second, so i would not create a mini-cycle.
The color matching tests for nitrate, as well as any other color matching test, are not interval data (i.e. not truly numeric). The data is ordinal, so the standard parametric statistics are inappropriate (t-test, ANOVA, etc.) for these samples.
This is not a minor point. The power of the parametric tests drops precipitously if used on ordinal data such as these color matching cards. Therefore, it is imperative for us researchers to know what type of data we are gathering from our experiments. For data to be interval, all values between a given range should be possible in your measurements. So if you are measuring specific gravity between 1.000 and 1.030 you should be able to differentiate between 1.001 and 1.002 as well as 1.001001 and 1.001002. If you cannot, you likely have ordinal data. Ordinal data is ordered categories. Typically people think of something like grade level (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior) as ordinal, which is certainly true. Color cards are without question ordinal. The test for nitrate, for example, measures 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40+ but nothing between this points. I cannot accurately read a value of 12, for example.
Devices such as a sensitive pH meter, a Lux meter, and other electronic readings can likely be considered interval, provided they can give many data points in the range of interest. Hydrometers and refractometers are ordinal, however, and t-tests should be avoided.
Thus, to analyze the data for the tube fuge I used a non-parametric test called the median test, which can handle ordinal data. This is a relatively powerful test, on par with the t-test and ANOVA (ARE = .64 v. t-test). Using the median test on the data above, resulted in a quite significant T score of 2.2571 and an approximate p-value of 0.012. For those who have no idea what i am talking about, this means that there is less than a 1.2% chance that the drop in nitrate was due to random chance, suggesting the tube fuge does indeed work!
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
Oh, one last thing i forgot to mention. The arabian dottyback and the firefish are not in the same tank together! The video of the dottyback was from a while ago......yes, meaning i took some video of my fish for my personal amusement then edited it in to this video
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
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