Dan's Jelly "Pseudokreisel"
 

Hi Everyone!

Well, it's my girlfriends birthday coming up and she loves jellyfish. I don't mean that in a "I love pizza it's great" kind of way either - she seriously loves jellyfish. Sometimes I think it's a little disturbing, and then I realize that I am way worse when it comes to corals etc.

So, why not build her a jelly pseudokreisel (PK)! For those who are unfamiliar with PKs, they are specifically designed tanks that allow for circular water movement with no corners. Jellies suck at swimming and will get stuck in a regular aquarium -- that's why when you go to a public aquarium you see all these fancy tanks with the jellies.

For interest sake, a "kreisel" has water being pushed down from the top center as part of the return and upwards via closed loops along the side to create two circular flow patterns on either side of the tank.

Here is an example from the monteray bay aquarium.

http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/t...psfdde0ec1.jpg

A "pseudokreisel" also does a circular current -- but rather than two on either side there is just one circular current.

I can easily obtain moon jellies ephyra (baby jellyfish) but they would eventually outgrow my planned aquarium. Moon jellies:

http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/t...psa95cc490.jpg

But what I really want are some sea gooseberries or "ctenophores"

http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps8fcd6c5c.jpg

The ctenophores are her favorite type of jelly, and mine as well. I think they would also do much better on the size of my planned PK.

In my subsequent posts I'm going to show you what I plan, and we will go from there! I'm excited :biggrin:

Cool, it should be an interesting build :biggrin:

Very cool. They have a couple pretty cool setups at the ocean discovery centre.

:pop2:

So, my thought process is to mimic the general designs of Innovative Marine's Nuvo series. I think they are very smart tanks, and I plan on utilizing their skimmers, filter compartment thingies and their slick look.

Everything is acrylic, and the main tank components are going to be 1/2" thick, with everything else being 1/4". All parts will be black except the front where you see jellies.

Here is how the aquarium will look head on:

http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps945e8753.png

Pretty simple - jellies and circles go together like, uhhh peanut butter and jelly.

http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps22c9f19c.png

Now that I hide the fake front panel - you can see the basic tank design. The return is not shown, but will be a lockline spray nozzle that loops over the tank and runs parallel to that little square thing on an angle that you see on the top left. I plan on using a maxi-jet 1200 for my return. The little hole will be covered with mesh that will allow water through -- but no jellies. Having the spray nozzle angled parallel to this screen prevents the jellies from getting stuck on it.

I plan on bending a piece of 1/4" acrylic over a 24" diameter PVC pipe. I'm not sure how it will work, but fingers are crossed!!

http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps80e690a4.png

The back has two holes drilled for a closed loop beer fridge chiller. I haven't gotten to how I am going to convert a beer fridge into a chiller yet, and if you have suggestions or tips I would love to hear it! I want to keep the temperature at around 10-13 degrees celcius.

http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/t...psf9f29409.png

From left to right the "sump" goes: Return + live rock or bio-balls/something, nuvo filter, nuvo protein skimmer + overflow.

http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps3ba6d0c6.png

A top down kind of view.

Thoughts? Holy my brain hurts. Also, learning sketchup was fun but also kind of a pain at times!

jellys
 

use a heat gun to bend your acrylic

Cool plans.

Have you considered moving the right baffle up so the water flows through the entire sump?

So the water comes over the overflow, down under the first baffle, over the second baffel and then pumped back into the tank.

Sounds like one heck of a DIY adventure I'm looking forward to more!

I tried making a beer fridge cooler once but it failed. I looped a ton of plastic tuning in it but it didn't work very well. I later read that you really do need the titanium loop found in real chillers to make it semi efficient. Also the compressors in these fridges aren't made to be worked so hard and die pretty quickly. Just what I'd read before I bought a real chiller. Hopefully you have better luck!

Yeah, that was the plan. Have you done it before? Any tips?

Good catch, I will definitely move that baffle up! Much appreciated :biggrin:

Hmmm, I really haven't put much thought into the chiller side of things yet. I could always buy one, but they are just so expensive that it wouldn't be for a while. Do you know if you can get the titanium loops somewhere cheap?

I think I could get away with running the water closer to 15 degrees but don't know if I would want to get it any higher than that.

Yeah they do! These tanks are where I got my inspiration :)