Tropical Fish Keeping banner
1 - 20 of 23 Posts

· Registered
Joined
·
1,311 Posts
so...the fish would be able to move from one tank to the other?

what you have to consider is that the holes for the tubing would have to be drilled, making the tank useless if you ever decided to take them apart again...and the tubing would also have to be large enough for the fish to swin comfortably through without gettting stuck...im sure you thought of this already...and wouldnt there be the risk of detritus getting stuck in there and causing ammonia/nitrate spikes? just wondering...other than that...its quite genius. =) especially if you want a larger set up but dont have the money to upgrade presently, and already have the equipment you would need to do it. =) you would also have to caulk the holes yourself, and maybe you are good at that sort of thing...but i dont think i would trust myself to do it...=P

just my thoughts..

bri
 

· Registered
Joined
·
1,440 Posts
Discussion Starter · #3 ·
thanks bri i thought of the poop getting stuck so thats why i have a wave make to push it thru. i would probly get pro glass cutter to do this job. i thought of is i think it would probly hard to move. :shock: plz keep ur thoughts comeing!
 

· Registered
Joined
·
62 Posts
i have seen something similar to this before except on a much large scale, it was more like a bridge from one side of the room to the other side of the room. ill try and find a link but im not promising anything.
 

· Registered
Joined
·
1,645 Posts
Ok the most obvious and glaring problem is that the smaller tank is lower that the larger tank. All of your water above that tank will spill out of the smaller, lower tank. Period. If you only wanted them to be connected so fish can swim through, that's fine. You'd have to make the tops of both tanks exactly the same heigth. The drilling won't be cheap. To make a large enough hole, 3" expect to pay almost $75-100 a hole. Those bits are not cheap. My local lfs and glass shops charge about $50-75 a 2" hole. A 3" hole would only fit about a 2" pvc bulkhead so realize that in the end you'd have diameter inside of about 1 3/4" for the fish to pass through.

A better idea would be to drill a hole about 2" from the top of the taller tank and have it overflow into the smaller tank. Drill a hole in the smaller tank in the bottom and install an overflow tube 3/4" from the top of the tank. Add a large wet/dry sump under the stand for the water to cycle through. Use a hobby pump to return the water to the larger tank. This would make a loop that would oxygenate the water, cool it a few degrees, and allow ammonia gases to dissipitate into the atmosphere as it is broken up in the wet/dry. You'd be adding the volume of water to each tank and about 20 more gallons to the total volume. Water changes would be much simpler. Only real drawback is that if one fish gets sick it can be transferred to both tanks. Your fish would obviously not be able to "visit" each other either.
 

· Banned
Joined
·
750 Posts
Those water bridge ideas are cool, but I think it would be a PITA when performing water changes and the water level gets close to the level of the pipe opening.

I prefer your idea Joe about one tank as half land and the other tank all water, with both tanks drilled. This way, you don't have to worry about sucking water through the pipes, like the water bridge setups.

I'm just not sure what inhabitants in the half land tank, since most of them I know eat or may attack fish. Unless you like plants and make the half land tank with plants and have a pump to water so it looks like a stream going into the tank.
 

· Registered
Joined
·
706 Posts
I checked out the link for the water bridge and think it is very cool! Of course you would need $tands$ for both and would have to make sure that the fish in both tanks were compatible. But, way cool!
 

· Registered
Joined
·
29 Posts
I was looking into doing this for my wife's tanks.
The cost was to high for us to justify doing it though.

Another route is using acrylic and making a square tunnel.
I'm not sure if it would be less expensive, but if it is, look forward to alot of labor.
 

· Registered
Joined
·
56 Posts
Honestly why not just buy a big tank and glue some plexiglass down the center with a large hole cut into it then you could get the same effect and not have to worry about ruining 2 tanks, weakenin the glass or cleaning problems. Just a thought. I mean you could still even put the tube in if you put in 2 dividers. thta would be really wild looking.

a very rough idea of what i had in mind
 

· Banned
Joined
·
2,012 Posts
i think you will need two pipes, one pipe brings the water to the 10 gallon, the other pipe brings it from the 10 gallon, otherwise the wavemaker/powerhead will take the water out of the 20 and put it in the 10 which will fill up the 10 gallon fast. Place a powerhead one each pipe one heading out in a separate direction.
 

· Registered
Joined
·
102 Posts
hmmm

a fish deciding to die right in the middle would be abit of a pain, would be a good idea to put some sort of filter so larger fish wouldnt eat the smaller fish /fry, but the smaller could swim in and out as they pleased in the other tank.hope a larger fish doesnt take up residency in the middle of the pipe and block off anyones hopes of "migrating".brilliant idea tho, wouldnt wanna drill holes in my tanks tho unless they were really cheap and not glass...or id do it myself without a care.....on second thought wat if u had a pump/filter running back to ur 20g from ur 10g to pump the water back into the other one
 

· Registered
Joined
·
40 Posts
so, I talked to a guy from another website, and he's got something like 6tanks all connected by these water bridges. He made his out of sheets of acyrlic, so they were square. It's pretty cool.
He gave me these links, which I think were mentioned earlier.

http://www.bio-elite.com/waterbridge.htm
http://www.fishighway.com/

give it a shot, looks promising, and safer than drilling a possibly tempered tank!
 
1 - 20 of 23 Posts
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top