Post by dave1961 on Apr 14, 2010 14:38:57 GMT
after a year of experiments I am now able to control the tanks environment, I have placed a piece of white kitchen drain tube with (drilled holes about 1 -2" inches at the bottom) this has a length of aquarium air pipe set in it with about 6" of tube sticking out of tank, this then has about 2-3" of course foam filter material in the bottom (enclosing the air tube), the plastic tube is then filled to the top with course oyster grit, and stuck to the inside of tank with general purpose silicone seal (the one without antifungal) then I placed 1"-2" layer of the grit in the bottom, then 1" layers of compost & coir, in the tank I have brandling worms, & woodlice, I can keep 6 massive snails in without the need to clean tank other than a quick window clean, but I find I have to remove water each day, this I do with a washing up liquid bottle with an air valve fitted. just squeeze the bottle and out pours the water, this being good for outdoor plants, plants are 5-6 times larger using the waste water, then I just feed the plants back to the snails. to test how effective this was I removed the compost from a tank I had not converted, that had smelly compost in, within two weeks the worms had sterilised the compost, again I removed water each day, the first tank I did like this I have increased the snail population win no effect to the tank, other than the glass needs cleaned more, also I have a polycarb cover on the tanks. the secret being the removal of the waste worm "p" as this too has a smell that gets worse the longer it's in the tank.
