Poor yet addicted

[Insomniac]

Hey everyone,

I recenetly rescued two blood parrots that are in a small 20 gallon tank with a crack in it, so it's only 17 gallons. They were abandoned at the store I work at.

I have a 75 gallon that doens't have anything in it merely because I can't afford the lighting, filtration, and the stand for it. But my parrots need more room, so I've decided to do the cheapest, ugliest, functional, DIY projects needed to get it up and running.

For lighting, I've decided I'll probably buy a 48" double strip light with two 40 watt bulbs from Canadian tire. It's on sale for 11.99. They sell bulbs there specifically for growing plants and aquariums now, for only six bucks a piece.

For a filter...I'm not sure. Is it possible to make a huge sponge filter to complement an aquaclear for a fifty gallon? Would that be sufficient? What is my cheapest option here?

And the stand...this is pretty damn ugly, and pretty damn cheap. Do you think it would hold the 75 gallon? What can I do to make it sturdier? http/saltaquarium.about.com/od/algaemari...ldiyaqstand.htm

 

[Tolak]

I love cheap & functional! For the light, a single may be cheaper, I built one for a 55 & it works fine. The cinder block stand is good, people have been using them for years. Check out http/www.garf.org/ & look down the left side for diy projects. It's just 2x4's, but it looks a little better than cinder block, and leaves you the option of skinning it with plywood at a later date to dress it up.

For a cheap filter, I build them with powerheads & 1 liter bottles with some foam for media;

A couple of these, one on the bottom of the tank, one towards the top, would work well with those fish. Big Al's has the 201's for $12 http/www.bigalsonline.com/catalog/produc...id1=2181;pcid2=

Here's a couple of pics of a rack I built using the garf idea & extending it up to hold a couple of 20 talls above a 55. The 55 is an overstocked growout tank with 2 of the home made powerhead filters in it;

Here's the 20's on top;

The 55 gets by with a 2 foot 20 watt flouro fixture above it, the 20's get light from a glass block window to the left of them during the day, a 60 watt incadescent during the evening.

The stand used 7 8' 2x4's, at a couple bucks each, that's $14. Yours would be closer to $10 as it's 1 level. A couple powerheads are $24, empty bottles are free. You can get cheap open cell cusion foam that isn't treated with fire retardant at Wal-Mart for a couple bucks, media at it's cheapest.

You're looking at $40 for a stand & filtration. If you want to throw a top on, get some diffuser panel from the lighting department at a diy or hardware store. The cheapest stuff is around $3 for a 2'x4' panel, the cheapest stuff works best. If you want to get fancy you can do this with it. http/www.gcca.net/howto/tank_covers.htm

I do projects like this all the time, it's the only way I can break even in this hobby, or at times make a few dollars. The only money loser is the display tank in the living room, it's the garf idea dressed up with some plywood, trim, & stain. Have to have one good looking tank so I look like somewhat of a respectable aquarist!

Tolak

 

[Insomniac]

Wow, thank's a lot!

I think I'll stick to the cinder block idea, unless it's more expensive, just because I like the idea of being able to adjust the height of it, although I'm thinking of building a dressed up Garf stand like yours, for a 33 gallon, as a gift for my parents.

Can I add other filter media into the pop bottle between the foam, or something? Would two Aquaclear 20 powerheads be sufficient for the 75 gallon? Would only one powerhead of a greater strength work, or would that be more expensive?

Now I wish I had a DIY heater Idea....to bad, then it would be very cheap! haha!

 

[Tolak]

You would be fine with the cinder block stand. The only real advantage to the garf design is that you can start plain & dress it up as time & money allow. Underneath the nice stand is the exact same design as the 55, minus the extension for the top tanks.

You can add other media besides the foam, the one in the pic has foam, carbon, & some floss, from left to right. I usually just use foam, it's cheaper. I use the smaller powerheads because sometimes I have smaller fry in the tank, don't want to see them get sucked to the filter. Check the gallons per hour on the powerheads, if you can get one larger one for cheaper than 2 smaller ones with the same gph, go for it. You could also use a 2 liter bottle with the larger powerhead. If you want, I'll pm some instructions & pics to you on how to put one together.

Heaters are also cheaper online, you could pick up a 300 watt heater for under $20. The only thing to watch for is the shipping costs, & how they adjust them according to the cost of your purchase. Big Al's charges the same shipping for everything $35 & under. If you spend say $20 on a heater, you may as well get a few fake plants, dechlorinator, food, or something to bring it just short of $35. It's all getting shipped for the same cost.

Tolak

 

[Insomniac]

The prices are a lot less attractive in Canadian dollars. $39.99 for the 300W.

Edit to say:

I just found the big Als heaters...the 200W is $16.99 and the 100W is $11.99. Does combining heaters work?

 

[simonbrown403]

Heres a an idear for a cheap filter for you, i made one a while back when i was board out of some bits and bats i had lieing around.

I had one runing in a breeding tank a while back, it turned over 20gph with an air stone, but one of your power heads would do nicely.

 

[Insomniac]

Hey!

I went to Big Al's today and bought a heater and a powerhead. It sucks....they don't carry the aquaclear powerheads in the stores, so I bought a different brand. It ended up costing less to buy one big one instead of two smaller ones...I just couldn't find the good prices that you were able to find I should have ordered them off the internet, but my parrots are really stressed and I'm really impatient. I'd like to set up the 75 gallon as soon as possible...IE, probably tomorrow!

I bought a Maxi-Jet 1200 with 295gph. The heater is a (I'm not sure If I've got this right...) Hdor Theo 300W. I also went to Canadian Tire and bought a 48 inch double strip light...it was on sale, and was actually cheaper then all of the single strip lights!

They even sell bulbs for them that say they are specifically for Aquariums and Plants, and they enhance fish colours, gravel colour, and promote plant growth. I also found soil for aquatic plants at Canadian Tire for only four bucks a bag! Hurrah!

Now All I have to do is create the Sponge filter thing. I think it'll be a two litre bottle, foam, carbon, amonnia remover, then floss. Where do you buy the foam? How do you secure the tubing to the pop bottle? Should I put the filter into the middle of the tank?

Also, I don't know if you know the answer to this but...will my parrots eat Java moss and fern?

 

[simonbrown403]

The rule of thumb is 5wat per gal so a 300wat will be over worked and burn out sooner rater than later, depending on the ambient temp of you area and house.

 

[Helminator]

You have a great cheap tank setup friend, only one slight problem. Those Jager heaters by Eheim are not fully submersible if you look on the heater near the top it says do not immerse past the line on the heater. I Learned this the hard way at the wasted cost of 20$ for the heater and a trip to my local store at 11:00pm to get a new heater after finding my water was 93degrees. Most if not all places sell these heaters as fully submersible but it isn't so.

 

[Tolak]

If you are talking about my heaters, they are all still running, without a malfunction. This topic is nearly a year old, I have all the same heaters. That water line thing is a legality issue, they are fully submersable, and have been for going on 3 years.

When Ebo-Jager was purchased by Eheim some time back they had a few runs of some bad heaters. A friend of mine doing a fishroom upgrade bought 8 of them, 6 failed over a month's time. He got replacements, the newer ones are still running. This was about a year ago. His are all running fine, he has around 25 tanks running. I only have 16, with about a dozen Jager heaters.

 

[Helminator]

Ah sorry about that, i bought 2 Ebo Jager heaters and both have failed in less than a month. I am new to these forums, and i thought in case you hadn't had one fail i thought i would give you a heads up, i can tell you put alot of time, money and sweat into your systems and didn't seem right not to say anything.

 

[rfisher]

Ah sorry about that, i bought 2 Ebo Jager heaters and both have failed in less than a month. I am new to these forums, and i thought in case you hadn't had one fail i thought i would give you a heads up, i can tell you put alot of time, money and sweat into your systems and didn't seem right not to say anything.

Hi,

I think that is great you did mention it. Thats what this forum is about, everyone helping everyone else. I have two of those heaters as well and if I remember rightly the instructions said something about if you are using the heaters in Canada, I think, Then you should not immerse past the white line.

Rich

 

[Tolak]

Ah sorry about that, i bought 2 Ebo Jager heaters and both have failed in less than a month. I am new to these forums, and i thought in case you hadn't had one fail i thought i would give you a heads up, i can tell you put alot of time, money and sweat into your systems and didn't seem right not to say anything.

It is a good thing to bring something like this to everyone's attention, I had totally forgotten about the bad run of heaters. Things like this happen with reorganization or sale of any company. There is a change of management staff in these situations, and often a change of production personell.

 

[drango91]

here i use this to help get my funds back in my pocket after like1 month of having thiws on youll have $50 or more
click here for the thingy