Divided tanks and tank-barracks

[Callatya]

As I'm sure it is going to be a popular topic, I thought an information and picture thread might be useful

Here are my additions

2' subdivided tank.

This picture shows it in its first incarnation with 3 airstones and a HOB filter (Millenium 1000) in the females compartment.

I had the divider supports custom made, however the tank builder thought he knew what i wanted better than I did, and just whacked on some supports. I would avoid this as they are a real PITA to remove if you ever want an ordinary community tank.

What I wanted was to have 4 separate lids going from front to back, with the supports for the lids holding the tops of the glass dividers. The bottom would be held in place by thick gravel.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

Later on, i installed a UGF and had the dividers cut down, which improved filtration emmensely

The problem with this was disease spread, as the water was share between at least 4 fish. It could work if you had adequate quarrantine in place.

This is my axolotl tank. I had really run out of room, and had just returned from a roadtrip to Brisbane with armloads more fishies (and an axolotl, what was I thinking?) So i plonked a java fern in each of the 5 way breeder compartments, made sure the tank stayed at 22*C and crossed my fingers. All went reasonably well until i left the lid off the breeder box and came in to find Anna halfway down B's throat. I managed to tickle her free, but it scared me enough to go to coke bottles on my desk )

The tank would work, just not with an axie as an inmate!

Betta Bain Marie #1

What I did when I moved house. Working on the fact that glass is a poor insulator, begged and grovelled for a tank (which was supplied by Kev) and tossed in all of my bowls and bottles, along with a 50W heater, and it worked like a charm

Thing is, I couldn't see to the back of the tank to check on the fish at all.

Which is where this one came in, with its 2L juice jars.

They allow enough room to flare and enough water to give me 8 days between cleans (I use ammolockers for comfort, but I get 8 days without anyway) and most importantly, i can see all the fish easily.

Each contains gravel and a small plant tied to a rock.

When I started breeding, I had no way to heat all the jarred fry, so I constructed a 2nd bain marie tank, which allowed swimming room for the younger fry and heated jars for the larger fry.

The bottle stand was an idea I snaffled from VickiPS, and it works like a charm It also allowed me to create an area on the glass stand to feed the less boisterous of my small fry

The "jars" are Berri juice bottles with gutterguard tied to the top, to allow a flip-to-change water change.

http://fishpics.shesapples.net/albums/userpics/10001/normal_WildBettaDivided02.jpg

Imported Wild Bettas

This tank is GREAT, i still have it, but not for any 'outside fish', only for my home-bred ones.

Again, shared water was a killer, and try as I might, i couldn't pull the wilds through. I lost all of them to a slow moving bacterial infection.

The dividers are made from plastic canvas and strengthened down the sides by poster hangers (get them from Kmart for $5 for 2 next to the posters, its the cheapest ones I found) and held in place by some glass decorator nuggets that I siliconed onto the side of the glass tank. Put the silicone on the glass knob and press down evenly to get full coverage, otherwise you will get algae growing behind them, and that just looks ugly

This layout allows you to pull out one or both dividers to make for a larger area as the fish grow. You could also make a larger mesh size to allow the smaller fry passage and the larger fry to be trapped on the other side, a blessing for feeding times!

There is a UGF running under there.

I'll grab some more pics later, but in the meantime, show us your creations!

[Chuckie]

Here are some shots of mine, while under construction/in test phase. They look respectably mankier now :

The barracks.

The valves.

I'll upload more to photobucket later :)

[Callatya]

And the failed corky ones.

[finley]

Where did the pics go ?

Any possibility of bringing them back? ...this sounds very interesting .

Fin