Recent content by ian_m

Use silicone eater to remove any excess silicone first.   Silicone doesn't stick on set silicone.

Couple of issues you might want so consider/work round with these, been there got T-shirt etc, is:- 5050 LED's are actually not that bright or efficient, you may struggle with enough light to grow interesting plants. A 85cm T5 tube is over 3000 lumens (even Ye Olde T8 tubes are 2000 lumen) , so...

I wouldn't risk it. My mate had the silicone tear on one of his tanks where the unit (chest of drawers) he placed the tank on started deforming after a year or two. The bottom of the tank twisted and silicone on back left and front right tore and leaked. Fixed by repairing silicone and placing...

BBA is caused by way too much light for the non supplemented plants you have. Adding liquid carbon and some form of fertiliser will help.   However liquid carbon will only remove BBA if spot dosed, which in my experience works fine.   So...   Use a syringe to squirt directly on difficult areas...

For a start algae is not caused by nitrates, as us planted tank people run algae free with nitrates way beyond the normal test kit reading of 50ppm.   So you want to start looking for other causes of your algae as it is certainly not nitrates (or phosphates).   Algae is normally caused by poor...

My mates tank placed on an old chest of drawers failed due to poor floor boards.   What happens was, under the weight of the tank, the drawer unit twisted slightly to accommodate the uneven floor in his house, basically one of the front legs was pushed lower than the other three. The top of the...

24" T8 @ 18W is a Juwel tube length.   To get brighter you can replace with a Juwel length T5 24" @ 28W which being the more efficient T5 & 28W will give loads more light. Enough for you to think about controlling lighting period to keep algae at bay...

Unfortunately, this won't work as there are multiple cracks which go edge to edge. The only way to salvage the tank is by completely replacing the old base. My mates cracked bottom (oh err Mrs...) went to the edge, just butt the sheet of glass right up to the edge and add a fillet of silicone...

Just silicone a sheet of glass over the cracked area inside the tank.   About 15years ago my mate cracked the base of his tank by placing it on a wooden stand WITHOUT anything underneath eg polystyrene sheet, and cracked the bottom sheet of glass in one corner due to a piece of gravel between...

I tried making one like this using a bucket with so called "water tight lid", but was not a success.   - A suitable pump for 40mm (1 1/2") fittings is not cheap and probably way over powered for most aquariums. I used 22mm plastic plumbing pipes in the end and cheaper pump. Suitable pump was...

People have had issues with their Hydors where they have run them in non vertical positions and get trapped air/gas in the heater causing failure of the heating element especially where only say half the heater ends up being in water. Other than that my mate has had one for probably over 10...

How are you adding dechlorinator to incoming supply ?

On Juwel units if either bulb fails or comes loose both lights stop working. Check for bulbs coming loose before proceeding. When my Juwel light unit failed like this, I took it to local fish shop who swapped bulbs one by one and found one of my tubes had died.

You drive LED's, especially these chips arrays from constant current not voltage. You will quickly destroy them on constant voltage. The ones you quote are 700mA, 900mA & 1000mA current so you will need corresponding constant current drivers (or drive all at 700mA). They must be connected on...

I built something like you are describing using these 10W LED's. Were initially impressive, but learnt my lesson why one buys proper LED's (Cree) and proper drivers.   This is what happens eventually the LED arrays. One starts failing (picture taken through filter), eventually whole column...