larch's low tech setup

Awesome not badly priced. Thanks...

 

Yeah and its worth it now I don't need to look at the dirty pipes.

 

Added more Nerite Snails:

 

More pictures of the onion snails:

 

Those are very cool. And no risk of overtaking the tank

 

Brought one of those Eheim pre-filters for my canister filter they work amazingly well:

 

Haven't updated in a while, so a few months back had a total crash of my tank due to load shedding and being without power for 4 days due to a blown substation. Lost about 70% of my livestock, so I had to plan for such future events took two 1200VA UPs refurbished the batteries and replaced them with 12v 9Ah versions. One UPs for each filter:



Also invested in a battery operated air pump:



Strangely enough through all this, my Aponogeton Boivinianus thrived so much so that I decided to re-scape the entire tank around it, and it has grown so large that its basically taking up the entire tank now:



Some more shots of the tank, more than a month or two to recover from all the power failures.

 

Nice, how long does the battery airpump last? and are spares available?

 

Tested it, lasts 12 hours on a single charge using the power saving fuction about 16. Also can be charged using a celphone power bank. It basically sits in idle mode till the power kicks out then it automatically powers up and starts working.

 

Nice, does it run while the power is on as well... or only when the power goes out?

 

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You can manually switch it on so it will then run even when the power goes out or until the battery dies.

 

Haven't updated in months so here it goes:

South Africa being South Africa I am now running a 2000 VA UPS on each filter for load-shedding which keeps them running through the 2+ hours without power. I also bought a battery backup air pump that can run on its own battery for about a day. Also have some backup water that I keep stored for a week before doing water changes:



Decided to take the CO2 route last year November bought a brand new fire extinguisher bottle and all the equipment needed to run the entire thing including an inline CO2 diffuser. Had to Mcuyver since it wasn't designed for the size pipes of my canister filter:





My DIY LED light design, consisting of PC fans (for cooling) and some PVC trunking holding the two units together. Also, cut my own class top to stop fish from jumping ou. Bonded some wood handles onto the glass making it easy to lift and remove:



Made a small shelf with a flap with hinges to hide all the cables, I can lift the flap if I need to get to the cables and plugs underneath the tank:



Also bought one of those flow accelerators it was on special for **** and giggles did not actually expect it to work as well as it currently is:



Some of the Zebra Nerite snails that keep my algae under control:





Found a place that has broken slate pieces, collected a few of them so I can start growing my different Anubia species on them:





Some livestock pictures:





Tank shot: