400 gallon project

[justinl]

I is confused. I want to say G. smithii because of the meral spot (white ring with dark purple centre) but G smithii don't live in Florida. Anyways, a full grown G. smithii is rated for 5 gal minimum. At 2 inches, 2 gal is fine temporarily.

Just keep in mind that you may lose him once he enters the battlegrounds we know as "400". i also wanted to point out that at the rate you're getting mantids in the tank and the amount of LR you'll have, you're obviously not going to be able to target feed all the mantids. This is going to cause fierce competition i think. This will lower the survival rate of your mantids in the 400 but i don't know what you could possibly do about it.

for future reference, the general set up for mantids is not BB. they usually need a sand bed, LR and rubble (small rocks and/or shells). wennerae chill in holes in the LR. not sure what G smithii do normally.

poor crabby. some mantids just like to play with their food. hehehe, yeah i wouldn't hand feed any mantis either.

[untamed]

Originally Posted by justinl

I is confused. I want to say G. smithii because of the meral spot (white ring with dark purple centre) but G smithii don't live in Florida. Anyways, a full grown G. smithii is rated for 5 gal minimum. At 2 inches, 2 gal is fine temporarily.

Just keep in mind that you may lose him once he enters the battlegrounds we know as "400". i also wanted to point out that at the rate you're getting mantids in the tank and the amount of LR you'll have, you're obviously not going to be able to target feed all the mantids. This is going to cause fierce competition i think. This will lower the survival rate of your mantids in the 400 but i don't know what you could possibly do about it.

for future reference, the general set up for mantids is not BB. they usually need a sand bed, LR and rubble (small rocks and/or shells). wennerae chill in holes in the LR. not sure what G smithii do normally.

poor crabby. some mantids just like to play with their food. hehehe, yeah i wouldn't hand feed any mantis either.

Not his best photo. I'm sure he is green wennerae. He hasn't gotten any bigger in quite some time.

You're right, I won't be able to target feed. I'm hoping that they will choose to hunt hermit crabs. It is no problem to dump a few hundred hermits in there from time to time. Combined with the existing crab population, that's my feeding plan. To my knowledge, I don't know anyone else who has tried this.

The 400 will be mostly sandy bottom.

[untamed]

The tank temp dropped to 76.5 last night. Looking at the history, the tank temp has been falling slowly ever since I had to shut off the two CL to prevent sand storm a few days ago.

Clearly, my 2 x 250W heaters can't cut it on their own and need the heat from all the pumps and lights in order to keep the temperature up.

Temperature in the fish room this morning was 68 degrees.

This all bodes well for maybe not needing a chiller...

MHs are going on today for 4 hours or so. It will be interesting to see what affect they have on room temperature.

[Phanman]

More pics man, lol. Im dying to see the progress on this bad boy.

[04scoobysti]

Love the rockwork and bar rail!! I had the same sort of plan for my next tank! You have executed every detail perfectly, im very impressed!

[deep6er]

I think you need to invest in a few more heaters just incase, that big of a tank you don't want to risk anything.

Great work, keep it up.

[untamed]

Originally Posted by deep6er

I think you need to invest in a few more heaters just incase, that big of a tank you don't want to risk anything.

Great work, keep it up.

I just ordered a single 500W Finnex titanium. That will increase my total heater wattage from 500W to 750W.

The good (OK, GREAT) people of JL were able to double-check a water test and they confirmed what I suspected...my ammonia test kit was too old and it simply wasn't working at all. (Thanks!!) I certainly have ammonia present, so my tank cycling is well underway. Yeah!

I did an immediate 40 gallon water change, even though none of the tank's few inhabitants are showing any stress. (Mantis haven't lost their appetite!)

I've also got to find out some way of preventing sand from being sucked up into the CL intakes. It's OK now that everything has settled down, but if any sand gets stirred up, there's nothing preventing it from being sucked into the CL. I've already had one of the 4-ways jam up from getting some sand in it. A 6"L x 4"W x 2"D piece of sponge over the inlet worked well until I just caught one of the sponges before it got completely sucked into the intake. I need some sort of combination of strainer and sponge. Maybe a sponge wrapped around a strainer with zip ties...but I would like something more elegant than that. I've got some new strainers on the way to experiment with.

[kaboom]

I'd really like to see your close loop design, anyway you can post some diagrams/photos? Or perhaps describe the layout, # of intake/outlet, position and gph per outlet. Really admire your setup!

[untamed]

Originally Posted by kaboom

I'd really like to see your close loop design, anyway you can post some diagrams/photos? Or perhaps describe the layout, # of intake/outlet, position and gph per outlet. Really admire your setup!

As the Dart is rated at 3600gph with 0 head, I expect I'm pretty close to 3000gph through each CL depending on friction loss. 2" pipe to the pump, 1.5" output from the pump, 4x1" outlets from the 4-way.

You might refer to page 2 of this thread for more detail, including pictures of the pumps, 4-ways and back intakes/outlets.

Here's a flow diagram of the 2 closed loops. This is a top view, so you can see the position of the tank bottom outlets. Red/Green fire together, then purple/brown. The one grey line coming straight down from the right loop is actually at tank drain. Arrows show direction of flow through the loop..NOT the direction of water in the tank or the direction that the outlets point. Little triangles are union ball valves.



As the 4-ways rotate, the 2 back wall outlets all fire at the same time, then the tank bottom outlets fire. This pushes water forward and generally downward, then upward and back toward the overflows. The idea is to create a "rolling effect". It would have worked even better if I had placed the "red" outlets closer to the front of the tank, but I couldn't stand to look at them there.

This also has the effect of blowing the sand/detritus toward the front of the tank...which will keep stuff out from under the rockwork and up front where I can see it and clean it out.

[justinl]

seriously?! thank you so much, I would definitely appreciate some mantids! Actually I owe ticketyboo one. He reserved one for me even though he was looking to get one himself... so now he gets first dibs on anything i find.

lol yeah RC, that's me alright. RC is the best source for reliable mantis info. Dr. Roy is my hero. I felt that after taking so much info from there, I figured i should give back to the community... or something, lol.