Chinese Water Dragon Paludarium build...

[Fence Up]

That was my problem trying to adapt my experience or aquarium. The problems are different. For one thing the S***t is bigger and water dragons do like to go in the water. Look to how ponds / Koi are filtered.
I think I'll have a trip to Wickes for some foam and grout just to have a play. Can you use the resin over the grout? and is everything non toxic?

[Jim2109]

Originally Posted by Fence Up

That was my problem trying to adapt my experience or aquarium. The problems are different. For one thing the S***t is bigger and water dragons do like to go in the water. Look to how ponds / Koi are filtered.
I think I'll have a trip to Wickes for some foam and grout just to have a play. Can you use the resin over the grout? and is everything non toxic?

my filtration method is similar to Koi filtration, they use sand filters. i actually got the inspiration from a zoo! i was trying to figure out in my head how i would filter poo from the water, and just happened to visit Marwell Zoo on a day when i was giving it some thought. i was watching a penguin swim around in his pool and thinking "this pool is full of penguin poo, how do they filter it?". and as im leaving the enclosure i spot the filtration room which has a window so you can see in, and also a cutaway diagram on the wall explaining how it all works!! id seen this a dozen times and ignored it. but they were using sand filtration and UV, and their water is recirculated permanently, it never gets changed (its a LOT of water to change!). so thats where the sand idea came from.

resin over grout i have tried, it kinda works. resin over foam is a 100% no-no, it melts it. the resin hardens on the surface, but where its mixed with melted foam it takes loads longer to cure underneath, but all the time it hasnt cured it continues to melt. so what you end up with is a porous solid shell with about 3mm of nothing underneath it. and it cracks as soon as you press it hard and all crumbles away. luckily i tried that on a sample piece first lol

i tested resin on a grouted sample piece as well. it doesnt harm the grout, but it doesnt cure in the same way as it does on top of more resin. it spreads really thin, sort of absorbs into the grout a bit, and doesnt go quite as hard. it still works, but im not going to use it on mine. epoxy resin over paint works fine though as a sealing coat, polyester resin doesnt really offer any benefits (it isnt clear, and it doesnt go much harder than the grout)

[Fence Up]

Can't find the foam in wickes closest thing was some boards with foil backing on both sides.

[Jim2109]

Originally Posted by Fence Up

Can't find the foam in wickes closest thing was some boards with foil backing on both sides.

its not the foil stuff. this is the stuff on the B&Q website
http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?action=detail&fh_secondid=9374253&fh_view_ size=10&fh_eds=%3f&fh_location=%2f%2fcatalog01%2fe n_GB%2fcategories%3C{9372016}%2fcategories%3C{9372 050}%2fcategories%3C{9372230}&fh_refview=lister&ts =1241900180188&isSearch=false

the label on the front of the package looks like this....
http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?action=detail&fh_secondid=9273744&fh_view_ size=10&fh_location=%2f%2fcatalog01%2fen_GB%2fcate gories%3C{9372016}%2fcategories%3C{9372050}%2fcate gories%3C{9372230}&fh_eds=%C3%9F&fh_refview=lister &ts=1241900268093&isSearch=false

but obviously it doesnt say "blanket" on it, it says foam or board or something along those lines. if you have a decent sized B&Q in your area then they might sell it, mine doesnt stock insulation because its a small store. my local Wickes is really big though so they did

[suey]

Hey Jim! You must have done some more work on it....come on, you've had 2 days since your last post!!! :o)

[Jim2109]

nothing more done yet. i found some captive bred baby water dragons for sale and wanted to get them now whilst they are still available, so ive bought a temporary viv to house them in and have spent my spare time getting that sorted the last couple of days

there should be some more progress later in the week, the wood is all being cut sometime this week by a friend when he gets the time and once i have the wood the major progress can begin!

[Morgan Freeman]

Can't wait to see some more progress pics!

[Jim2109]

paid a visit to a local aquatic supplier today because i needed some aquarium silicone. had a chat with one of the guys about filtration and plumbing and he gave me some insight on how aquarium guys handle it. so i did some research on the various types of filters and have figured out the plumbing!

im going to run a single circulation pump (plus an additional waterfall pump). you can see the layout in my badly drawn diagram. water will be drained from the main tank (inside the viv) through the bottom and into the external pump. this will also drain water from the overflow tank which is fed by the overflow pipe. the aim is to have enough water flow that there is always a small amount of overflow, basically acting as a skimmer.

from the pump the water is fed into a pressurised foam filter housing (il make a small box with a sealed lid, packed with foam filter elements), which then feeds the top of a "fluidised bed filter". the foam filter is the mechanical filter, the fluidised bed filter is then a purely biological filter. the combination of the 2 should ensure everything nasty gets pulled from the water and in theory it will never need changing! this system works for massive aquatic tanks and fish are pretty messy. there will be enough filtration for probably a few hundred gallons of saltwater tank!! im running approx 125 litres lol (less than 30 gallons)

the fluidised bed filter is also pressurised, so water feeds in at the bottom, through gravel and sand, and then out the top. it is always full. from there it feeds into the holding tank which will be elevated as high as i can get it. water is then gravity fed from here back into the main tank in the viv. there will be an aquarium heater in the main tank heating the water to some preset temperature. im thinking somewhere around 22-24 degsC. warm water = humidity, and in the wild the water would be around this temperature. 18-20 deg UK room temperature isnt the natural temp of water in Vietnam lol

the waterfall will take water from the main tank via a small pump and just circulate in a loop purely for visual effect.

for the overflow tank and holding tank im just going to use a pair of RUB's, probably 84l ones. then il build a 2"x2" frame with shelves that holds the 2 RUB's, as well as the pump and 2 filters. il make all the filter housings myself. then i can just put hardboard on the rack so it is closed off and the ugly plumbing hidden and have it sat next to the viv. the total volume of water in the system will not exceed 209 litres, thus even in the event of a pump failure (or filter blockage) there can never be a flood



anyone see any flaws in the plan? id rather find them now than once its built lol. this part of the project is a few weeks away yet, next step is to build the main viv structure!

[Fence Up]

The main tank, and overflow tank will always have the same water level. Good luck with the seal on a pressurized filter. Do you have to have the water entering the sand filter under pressure, as opposed to gravity fed?
I have my thinking cap on, be back soon.
Good to see the bottom dain.

[Jim2109]

hmmm, if the overflow pipe is submerged in any way then i suppose the water level would equalise. the main tank drain and overflow tank drain are essentially equal, so i guess it might adopt the same tank level. thats a problem!

pressurised filter sealing shouldnt prove too tricky. i work in motorsport, specifically with suspension systems, and dampers are often dynamically pressurised to over 100 bar. plus there are plenty of other pressurised systems on a race car. i should be able to transfer some of my knowledge of sealing methods over on this one. i think were probably taking about 2-3 psi over ambient pressure here, the pump is only 30W or so. rubber o-rings will more than suffice!

water enterring the sand filter has to be "pressurised" in order to excite the filtration media (it isnt so much pressurised as the water is just pumped into the sand by the pump. the only pressure is that which the pump can generate through flow restrictions. a major problem is that the pump might not possess enough power to get the water all the way through the foam filter, sand filter, and then up into the holding tank!). the whole principle of its operation is that every particle of the media is in constant motion, and thus its entire surface area is available for filtration. so you get a giant surface area from a small volume of filtration media. have a look at fluidised bed filters if you arent familiar with them, they seem like a pretty cool concept and are very widely used in saltwater aquatics, and are much higher flowing than a gravity fed drip filter (just water dripping through a container full of sand), which means i need less overall water in the system