Comment

Moderator Comment by Bob Terrell on December 5, 2012 at 6:22pm

Thanks

Comment by Rex Byrns on December 5, 2012 at 6:20pm

My wife and I drink Dr. Pepper and Seven-up.  Most of the bottles fit very tightly on 1/2 inch pvc and don't leak.  If they do, they don't for long.  At first I was using electricians splicing tape on the bottles that were too loose.   I then found that thru fittings work great but I didn't like the extra .69 cents of cost.  Since this system has the bottles setting straight on the T except for where the warped 2x4 calls for a slight lift for levelness, I just take a plastic grocery sack and put a couple of layers over the pipe and press it on.  Usually it even tears the bag over the end of the pipe but holds well.  I just use a razor knife to trim off the excess and you cant even see it.

Like I said, a new bottle might drip for a while, but a little grit settles in soon and it stops.  My first trial setup was hard to tear down because the bottles did not want to let go.

Moderator Comment by Bob Terrell on December 5, 2012 at 5:55pm

How did you seal the bottles to the pvc?  I have been playing with this and I have found out that you can use a 3/4" pvc fitting and by using a heat gun and heating the fitting the bottle will fit very tightly when pushed down into the heated pvc.  Also, a 1/2" pvc pipe will fit into the bottle but does not seal without silicon or some other seasler.  So, was just wondering how you did it.

Comment by Bradly on December 3, 2012 at 5:33pm

Yeah that's a 10-4.

I don't know if algae will be a problem or not as I have no experience with this type of system.  Had a friend near me who got algae bloom in his system and killed lots of his fish...keep your eyes open.  And maybe other people with this kind of system can give some input as to whether they thing it's a concern.  I have my fish tank almost all shaded and by grow beds (gravel) have 1.5" of gravel above the water lines so that sun does not directly shine on the water at all (except for a sliver of light I allow between the fish tank lid and the tank so the fish can see it a little).  :-)

Comment by Rex Byrns on December 3, 2012 at 4:59pm

May be some day, but it was 83f today.
Everything around here is acting like its springtime. I may paint all the bottles black for winter and or cover them with foil.

Comment by Bradly on December 3, 2012 at 3:36pm

Looks neat.  Bet controlling water temperature is a challenge  :-)  !!