Brownfish Posted January 27, 2004 Share Posted January 27, 2004 Hi again SCPers I am still setting up my 8ft tank and was wondering where the best place to obtain a spinner for randomly distributing the water over my bio-media (bundled gutter guard ). The box containing the bio-media is 40cmX40cm. What is the best brand and how much can I expect to pay? Also, I'd be interested to get people's feedback on whether spinners are a waste of money and whether I'd be better off using a drip tray. your feedback would be much appreciated, Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishly Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 Hi Richard, I believe that drip tray cost less expensive than a spinner but works as good as spinner arm. You can buy spinner from one of our sponsors: either Wayne (extreme aquarium), or St. George aquarium, or you can go to trans aquarium in canleyvale. Last time I bought mine from Wayne about $70. Bear in mind, there are many sizes, and the bigger the pipe, the more money you expected to pay . Regards, Tony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ITEvolution Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 I have 2 sump filters running at the moment. 1 has a spinning arm and one has a drip tray. I am about to set up another one in the next couple of days. The new sump I have has dual raised intake chambers and will require 2 drip trays. if you go down the drip tray path let me know where you get the perspex or drip tray sheeting from. I prefer the drip tray over the spinning arm for 3 reasons. 1. I can see if anything manages to get washed into the over flow chamber and into the sump filter. With a spinning arm you need to remove the pvc arms to see if there is anything inside. (I have had 3 fish recently that managed to get over the mesh on the overflow chamber and land in the PVC up pipe prefilter and end up on the drip tray/ or in the sump. All survived) 2. The sump that I have the drip tray in is powered by a 6000 lph pump and I am not sure how a spinning arm would handle that flow rate. 3. The less moving parts the better. Cheers Adam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brownfish Posted January 28, 2004 Author Share Posted January 28, 2004 Cheers Adam After looking around town for spinners and noticing the $100+ prices, I'm with you. I'll keep an eye out for perspex for you. What dimensions you after? Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grouch Posted January 29, 2004 Share Posted January 29, 2004 hEYS.. why dun u take a trip down to Bunning s or sumfing and make ur own psining arm... pretty eazy i rekons Translation for those of us who speak english... Hey Why don't you take a trip down to Bunnings or something and make your own spinning arm... Pretty easy I reckon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aquaclear Posted February 1, 2004 Share Posted February 1, 2004 ...I use a plastic sprinkler placed upside down under the lid. Cost me $9.95 from Bunnings. Only had to modify it slightly, like cut off the base part. It's been working non-stop for months now. Has a hose cuppling for ease of removal too! ...my two cents!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chorrylan Posted February 1, 2004 Share Posted February 1, 2004 hi, I'd vote strongly for a drip tray. Spinner arms - cost more, - require more maintenance to remove snails, bristlenose etc, - cause floods when the abovementioned buggers block the flow (important for someone who has an 8x2 on a carpetted floor hint hint) - make more noise (especially at high flow rates) I'm quite willing to believe they're more effective ate water dispersion and aeriation but not enough so to compensate for the disadvantages. I have two drip trays made out of secondhand perspex I got from revolve (tha recycling centre at the local dump for those who don't know Canberra). I presume it was originally used in a shop fitout. Another one is the lid from a plastic tub I got from bunnings. I was about to start cutting and drilling some perspex when I realized the plastic lid was already exactly the right size. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ITEvolution Posted February 1, 2004 Share Posted February 1, 2004 Hi Richard, Any luck with your search for perspex? I am going to start looking for some tomorrow. I am after 2 sheets of 300mm x 300mm for the drip trays and maybe another 2 sheets of the same dimentions for lids. I'll let you know the search goes. Cheers Adam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter_Gun_Riff Posted February 2, 2004 Share Posted February 2, 2004 anyone got some pictures of driptrays to give us an idea of how they work and what they look like etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MollyMan Posted February 3, 2004 Share Posted February 3, 2004 Go for a spinning arm... either use the sprinkler method mentioned above or give the guys at Xtreme a buzz, I am sure thye can knock something together for you... (just got mine from there, and it works a treat)... cause floods when the abovementioned buggers block the flow How??? Blocked flow means no or reduced return.... in effect if the sump and tank levels are set correctly there should never be any risk of flooding (exceptions in the case of hose connects, etc) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chorrylan Posted February 3, 2004 Share Posted February 3, 2004 hi, if the sump and tank levels are set correctly there should never be any risk of flooding quite true... but lots of us obviously have sumps and tanks that are incorrectly set up. When setting them people usually try to use the largest sump they can reasonably fit and manage working on the principle that more/bigger filtration is better and ensuring the sump is big enough to hold any water draining from the tank if the pump were to stop. What we're talking about here is the converse of that... having a small enough sump so that if the drainage stopped or slowed and the sump contents were to be pumped into the tank the tank could hold it without overflowing. eg say I have a 6x2x2 tank serviced by a 3'x16"x16" sump, not an uncommon or implausable arrangement. If I had a fairly powerful pump which resulted in a "head" of water in the tank of say 1" then when I switched the pump off it'd drop about 1800 cubic inches of water into the sump which would raise the sump depth by 3 to 5 inches depending on how much filter media was in there. That's reasonably easy to manage and account for. I generally try to work out where this point is with a bit of experimentation and when doing water changes will fill the tank and sump as close to this point as possible. If on the other hand you stop or slow the drain from the tank because some *&^% bristlenose gets stuck in the spinner arm the water level in the sump will drop. If it drops by 8 inches it'll raise the tank depth by 3 inches. Not one of my tanks would cope with a 3 inch rise in water depth without flooding so I would be in trouble. I guess I'm naive but until I spoke to someone who had actually been caught out with a spinner arm and bristlenose plug it hadn't even occured to me that it could be possible to have a sump that was too big. Cheers, Laurie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MollyMan Posted February 4, 2004 Share Posted February 4, 2004 Laurie good points you have made... but the one thing that really confuses me (unless poor design or haphazrd techniques have been employed) is how you would get a dumb a#@ BN caught in the arm in the first place??? By using a strainer, such as the one I am using (slots are 2-3mm wide) and even some prefilter materials, it would be impossible for anything bigger than a pin head to get stuck in there, and then if the arm holes are 3-4 mm in diamater anything should go right through... Again, as you explained this would only work if the sump levels are set correctly, and another point, why would you have 8 inches of water in the sump anyway??? should be more like 4-5 inches, hence the term and theory of Wet/Dry... I guess there is a lot of tweaking that should be done, but with everything done correctly, there should be little or no risk of coming home to a swamp... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chorrylan Posted February 5, 2004 Share Posted February 5, 2004 awww now I feel bashful.... "haphazard techniques" sums up my fishkeeping techniques and habits pretty well... not just my sump design. Some explanatory bits: - 8 inches of water in the sump is keep the pump submerged and hence quieter - bristlenose (and fish generally) can be pretty imaginative sods.. they can get through holes and jump heights that I simply wouldn;t believe if I hadn't seen the results - I have to be fairly careful pre-filtering and screening in the tanks partly because of that bit I mentioned about simply not having 3-inches of freeboard. If I pre-filter too effectively on the tank side and then get lax about checking and cleaning the pre-filter/screen I risk getting the same sort of slowdown in the drainage process that a miscreant bristlenose or snail might cause in a spinner arm and a lovely overtank waterfall effect. I've promised myself that when I set up my next fishroom it's gonna be done right so I'm trying out all the wrong and inefficient techniques with this setup Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MollyMan Posted February 5, 2004 Share Posted February 5, 2004 Practice makes perfect... & Tried and tested beats Science anyday... no offence to the white coats out there... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EcHo2134 Posted February 9, 2004 Share Posted February 9, 2004 the best way to save money on the spinning arm is to get the actual fitting with bearings from a mail-order. e.g aquamail. then do the rest yourself, its just pipes with holes in it, blocked off at the ends of course. add a mechanical pre filter to help avoid the spinning arm from being clogged. I built mine for $50. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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