Control Your Water

[DigitalPunk]

Managing excess water in your tank


So you've built a false bottom or you've setup a drainage layer, but the water line is slowly rising! If you don't do something all your hard work will become a nasty swampy smelly mess. In this section we will cover the common ways people setup Vivariums to prepare to deal with excess water.


Siphoning

Siphoning water out is not a new idea, but in a tank with 3" of soil, plants, and frogs above the water we have to plan ahead to get access.

Built in an access - Deranged Chipmunk used a piece of PVC in his design as hidden access to the water. In this example it worked to hide it in plane site. Other ways to do this to hid the PVC in the spray foam background. When using the PVC method you can either insert a hose when you are ready to siphon or permanently install a hose.



Permanently installed tube - I prefer to permanently install a hose. When using a hose it is best to have a sponge or some other type of filter. This will help keep hose free from getting clogged. Another trick when using a hose that is permanently installed is to put a valve on the end outside of the tank. This will allow you to siphon it once and then close the valve and preserve the siphon for the next time (meaning you should only ever need to siphon it once). Below are 2 pictures showing this setup. <Pictures provided by Deranged Chipmunk>






Hidden Access

Hidden access - In this tank I built in voids behind the background to allow access to the bottom. Hidden access can be done many ways, your imagination is the only limiting factor. If you are placing an aquatic heater and/or a filter in the false bottom you will need an easy way to access them for maintenance or replacing as needed.




Drilled

Drill the tank - Drilling the tank and installing a bulkhead will allow any excess water to naturally drain off as it rises. This method is as close to fire and forget as you can get. Just simply make the drainage material a tad higher than the bulkhead.




There are other ways to address this topic. These are just a few of the more common solutions.

[Vivariums In The Mist]

Nice article.

[deranged chipmunk]

Nice article Paul. Thanks for writing this one up


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