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Superfish Scaper Tanks

I have two of these waiting to setup.
You need an external dimmer but they work very well with the cheap eBay s2-pro.
The external filter is a silly design, I'm still considering how to modify it to not use the cartridge. Basically it pumps water upto the top of the plumbed cartridge and then back down before flowing out through the cartridge and over the waterfall. I may just ditch them and use air driven corner hmfs.

In general I'm quite impressed, I got them on a blackfriday deal so lights and filters were essentially free. The silicon is neat and the optiwhite looks nice. I do however need to make covers. One actually arrived with a chipped corner so I got a third free to use as a terrarium though I wouldn't trust it with water.
 
Regent said:
I do however need to make covers.
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I’m really thinking very seriously about buying one of these this week but I too would like a glass cover (which say, the Dennerle Scapers Tank comes with.) Straight forward enough for a glazier I guess except for the fact that the brackets for the lights appear to sit either side of the glass. Is the solution to use cover glass brackets and make the cover glass 1mm smaller all the way round to allow for the bracket to slip between the glass edge and coverglass?

You'll have to forgive me asking such a question, I’m not great at trying to solve these issues and there’s going to be something I’ve missed.

Grateful if you could tell/show me/us how you solved this one.

Many thanks

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You can get glass brackets on ebay/Amazon, I used this solution on an old tank with a sheet of perspex. There are a couple of other options I'm aware of.
One us to have a net/mesh top made, I've seen these on reef tanks.
MD aquatics uses twinwall polycarbonate roof sheets from the local DIY shed, cheap and simple to cut a home, likely what I'll do at first...
 
Regent said:
You can get glass brackets on ebay/Amazon, I used this solution on an old tank with a sheet of perspex. There are a couple of other options I'm aware of.
One us to have a net/mesh top made, I've seen these on reef tanks.
MD aquatics uses twinwall polycarbonate roof sheets from the local DIY shed, cheap and simple to cut a home, likely what I'll do at first...
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Many thanks. Any chance of posting a close up of the lighting stand where it sits on the tank? It’s the way it appears to sit on the tank edge that I can’t quite make out. All of those solutions sound good.

cheers

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Hope that helps, just dealing with a filter on a different tank entraining air but if you want any more info let me know!
 
dw1305 said:
Hi all,

<"I like these">. They aren't as good as glass sliders but they are perfectly adequate and a lot easier to work with.

cheers Darrel
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I think I’m getting what you’ve got going on there in the lab Darrel. I get the idea of using a twin-skinned polycarbonate sheet but can’t really make out how you’ve got it resting on the tank rim. For sure, easy to work with using a scalpel or craft knife.

Also, (and I will read the thread surrounding the thread you link to which almost certainly has the answer therein after my next coffee)... does not the propagation of light from a point source get absorbed by the polycarbonate material to some extent?
I used to work in film and tv on the camera side - using not dissimilar materials to diffuse light (or occasionally polarise it) was not uncommon but at the cost of some final output at the exposure before being compensated for. I guess its all relative as providing you’re not operating at full blast for 16 hrs a day, and not getting plant health, it’s just a question of relativity. Without wishing to open up a further tangent - I imagine that floaters have a similar affect.

All the best

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Hi all,
Big G said:
I get the idea of using a twin-skinned polycarbonate sheet but can’t really make out how you’ve got it resting on the tank rim.
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In this case there is just a wooden bead on the inside of the lid. You can flex the polycarbonate enough to wedge it firmly in place above the bar. Most of my tanks have bracing bars so I just rest it on there normally.
Big G said:
does not the propagation of light from a point source get absorbed by the polycarbonate material to some extent?
Click to expand...
Yes it definitely will, @oreo57 is the person equipped to give you a more definitive answer.

cheers Darrel
 
Big G said:
I think I’m getting what you’ve got going on there in the lab Darrel. I get the idea of using a twin-skinned polycarbonate sheet but can’t really make out how you’ve got it resting on the tank rim. For sure, easy to work with using a scalpel or craft knife.

Also, (and I will read the thread surrounding the thread you link to which almost certainly has the answer therein after my next coffee)... does not the propagation of light from a point source get absorbed by the polycarbonate material to some extent?


All the best

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Twin wall policarbonate can cut out about 20% of the par. As to minor things like changing the angle if the light, nit really considered but the par measurements account for it anyways,
As to spectrum attenuation, pretty even till you get in the violet range.

Covers like egg crate can have a more pronounced lensing effect on point vs diffuse
light sources.
greenhouse-transmission-rates.jpg
 
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oreo57 said:
Twin wall policarbonate can cut out about 20% of the par. As to minor things like changing the angle if the light, nit really considered but the par measurements account for it anyways,
As to spectrum attenuation, pretty even till you get in the violet range.

Covers like egg crate can have a more pronounced lensing effect on point vs diffuse
light sources.
greenhouse-transmission-rates.jpg
Click to expand...
Thanks Oreo.

Interesting (to me)that photo-inhibition from even multi-walled polycarbonate isn’t as bad as I might have imagined.

An adjustable output light source would more than compensate for those losses at a given tank balance.

The specs on the supllied lighting unit put the output in PAR in the hundreds. I can’t ever imagine needing more than 50% of that, even in a high energy set up and much less in low- medium energy. (Based on my limited experience of plant growth from a roughly 60 PAR light source )The dimmer module is going to be an important purchase or some fairly opaque cover material. Baking paper anyone?😳

Can anyone confirm if these dimmer units come in at preset dimming levels when used in combination with a timer?

Somewhere down the line HDR will find its way into intelligent tank lighting and then it gets very interesting.

All the best

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The bigger question for me is do I try and reuse the HOB filters, which I think I can modify so water runs down through sponges then back up through bio media. See photos.

Or do I just fit an HMF which appears essentially maintenance free and keeps everything in the tank.
 
Currently water is pumped in then pushed down through the thin end of the sponge. One of the worst designs I've seen.
I'm thinking by fitting a divider after the first cassette then I could push water down through a stack of sponges as a prefilter and then back up through bio media.

I think fitting corner hmfs would be no harder, cheaper to run and maintain and would hide shearer better!
 
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Hi all,
Regent said:
The bigger question for me is do I try and reuse the HOB filters, which I think I can modify so water runs down through sponges then back up through bio media.
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I've not had exactly this design of HOB, but could you <"not use the internal cartridge?">. I'm a HOB fan and if I go back to having a suitable tank I'll start using my Eheim Liberty HOB again.
Regent said:
I think fitting corner hmfs would be no harder, cheaper to run and maintain
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I'm a fan of these <"corner (Eck) HMFs"> as well. I'd definitely get the Czech style air-lifts. <"Envobee Shrimp"> on eBay sell the sponges and airlifters in the UK.

Have a look at Stephan Tanner's (owner <"Swiss Tropicals"> in the USA) comments on <"Biofiltration">.

cheers Darrel
 
dw1305 said:
I'm a fan of these /www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/low-maintenance-aquarium.58199/page-2#post-568923']corner (Eck) HMFs[/URL]"> as well. I'd definitely get the Czech style air-lifts. /www.ebay.co.uk/str/Envobee-Shrimp?_trksid=p2047675.l2563']Envobee Shrimp[/URL]"> on eBay sell the sponges and airlifters in the UK.
Click to expand...

I have one in my hospital / grow out / quarantine tank. I originally did plan on using the same if I for one of these tanks but the bodge job I have done in this tank isn't exactly pleasing to look at
3cbc0e49a44e9ab7c43bff1b35b1ebff.jpg

Reminds me this tank really needs a bit of maintenance...

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk
 
Afternoon, apologies, noted my name was mentioned. My work week has been dominated by Brexit.

Right, to answer all the questions.

The Scaper 90 has a different light as the normal SuperFish tanks, it's an 'Overtank fixture' witch acrylic fixings. par rating is 269 🙂. Within the SuperFish range, you can buy a timer with a sunset/ down feature however I am using an inline dimmable timer bought online. lights are on at 07:00 ramping up from 1% to 100 % over a 5 hour period, full steam till 6 and ramping down from 100 % back to 0% at 11 pm. purely to avoid algae.

O am not using the supplied hang-on filter, purely as this tank is in our living room and I didn't like the looks. I am using a 100 litre per hour external filter, guess the brand. Co2 is provided from 10 am till 7 pm using the New Colombo Co2 unit, if you got access to it why not using it 🙂.

As you can see on the picture my choice of Fish is limited to 'Non' jumpers as I am not using any covering.

If there are any more questions please feel free to ask.

Ps. Nat has done a lovely review earlier this week


Maurits
 
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