# Raising and lowering lily pipe outflow



## Dominik K (2 Sep 2021)

Hello dear community

I want to be able to raise and lower my outflow lily pipe.
This is for the purposes of creating more water agitation at night to help with gass exchange. Im trying to keep tank low tech so no co2 or airpump just filter and plants.

Currently i have to faff around with the suction cups and unstick them and stick them again..

Has anyone got an idea how I can make this process easier ?


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## bazz (2 Sep 2021)

Hi,
I personally wouldn't bother on a low tech aquarium (although I don't run one myself), reason being folks usually use this method to off gas residual CO2 after lights off (I'm sure others will shoot me down).
Using a Eheim Skim 350 (£23.00) on a timer is another option to negate this practice.
Cheers!


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## erwin123 (2 Sep 2021)

if you are not injecting CO2, any issue with using a standalone skimmer or a Lily Pipe inflow/outflow skimmer 24/7?


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## da_vipin (2 Sep 2021)

If you are comfortable with arduino and 3D printing / designing, you can use servo motors to automate lily pipe height and link it with photoperiod. Below is what I made and used for a while before switching to glass lily pipes. Discontinued the use due to fragile nature of glass, but I think it'll be safe enough with soft & loose hose that will not interfere with free movement of mechanism.


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## Dogtemple (2 Sep 2021)

I have done something similar to the above but with relays and actuators.   you can see in my journal.   done it for the exact same reason, don't want the faff of doing it manually


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## Zeus. (2 Sep 2021)

bazz said:


> Using a Eheim Skim 350 (£23.00) on a timer



Caution with that - if skimmer is off for too long RCS go into pump and give it a clean and when the skimmer comes back on the RCS are ejected out in bits . I limit the off time to 10 mins and 20mins when feeding.


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## Dominik K (2 Sep 2021)

da_vipin said:


> If you are comfortable with arduino and 3D printing / designing, you can use servo motors to automate lily pipe height and link it with photoperiod. Below is what I made and used for a while before switching to glass lily pipes. Discontinued the use due to fragile nature of glass, but I think it'll be safe enough with soft & loose hose that will not interfere with free movement of mechanism.


That is very impressive!
I am looking for something simpler however.. Because if I was going to do something like this (without prior expertise) it would be easier I think to just get an air pump and a plug timer.
I could probably do it but I don't even have a soldering iron.

I don't mind doing it myself but just needs a leaner way of doing it. Like some sort of slider... 

I'm thinking of using some of these partition suction cup with slots and grafting that onto the lily pipe outlet, basicaly creating a rail.

Amazon product

Could this work ?


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## Dogtemple (3 Sep 2021)

If you want easier, have you considered mounting the pipe on some sort of slider rail and have it fixed in position for up and down with a magnet?  You would still need to move by hand but it would take the suction cups out of the equation


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## lazybones51 (3 Sep 2021)

As the tank is low tech, I can't see a reason to not have a high amount of surface agitation 24/7?

On my high tech tanks using a CO2 reactor I run a high amount of surface agitation 24/7.  Dennis Wong did a great video on the subject and is well worth a watch!


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## OllieTY (3 Sep 2021)

EDIT: Sorry, just saw you're not interested in Air pumps! As you were...


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## Wookii (3 Sep 2021)

lazybones51 said:


> As the tank is low tech, I can't see a reason to not have a high amount of surface agitation 24/7?



+1 to this - on a low tech you want good surface agitation 24/7 to promote good gas exchange.


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## bushaaayyy (3 Sep 2021)

Something like This may be less fiddly than suction cups but never used them myself


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