Hi everybody, joey here again and welcome back.
In today's video, I'm going to show you how to build a water bridge.
This is a project similar to the upside down aquarium that I showed you how to make a while
ago.
They are similar in that they work the same.
Simply put, A Water Bridge is a tunnel that connects 2 aquariums from above.
It allows fish to freely swim from one aquarium to the other.
I wanted to make this video as universal as possible, so I decided to go with glass, as
you don't need any special tools to build it like you would with acrylic.
Now there are many methods and ways to accomplish a bridge like this one like using PVC pipe
instead or even clear acrylic tubing.
However, you can't see through PVC which ruins the whole point of the bridge, and clear acrylic
tubing of a reasonable size is surprisingly expensive.
So before considering building this bridge, I recommend watching my video on how to build
a glass aquarium.
What you learn in that video can be applied to this video.
For my water bridge, I recycled old glass lids I had.
Since it was only 6mm thick, it was easy to cut through.
I started out by cutting out the pieces I needed with a hand held glass cutter and sanded
the edges smooth with 60 grit sand paper.
I made this bridge 36" long.
It has a 6" diameter.
It is a total of 14" tall.
The easiest way to build a bridge is from the top down.
Since we cannot really cut glass into specific odd shapes at home, I prepared my side panels
in advance.
I needed them to be in the shape of a U and doing them in advance made the entire project
a lot easier.
I used 3 pieces to shape my U.
This U will depict how long and how tall the bridge will be.
I used enough silicone to insure I trapped no air bubbles in-between as this is something
we will need to see through.
When placing these together, I left a small lip near the top to allow them to fit into
the next piece, which you will see more on in a moment.
It is ok if you make a mess here, as we need to let this cure for 24hrs anyways.
Once cured, we can take a razor blade and clean it up.
I repeated this step twice, as I needed two of them.
They will eventually be the front and back of my bridge.
After 24 hours the silicone cured and I cleaned up the excess silicone with a razor blade.
With these side panels now ready, I siliconed the first one to the side of the top panel.
The lip i created earlier allowed for me to sit the upwards facing panels on top of the
top panel while the side panel silicone to the side...
Electrical tape held it together for me as i moved on.
I then silicone an end panel on.
This panel again, was silicone to the outside of the top panel.
I then flipped the tank around and added the other side panel on.
Then the last end panel.
After each panel i smoothed out the silicone with my finger.
This is needed right after placing the panel as you will not be able to do it later.
Finally, the bottom panel.
This was silicone and sits right on top of the front and back panels.
Last was the inside side panels.
These went on the outsides.
That was it, i waited another 24 hours and did water test.
To do the water test, i sat the bridge upside down and filled it up.
I let it sit for 24 hours to insure no leaks.
When building your bridge, you can now see that the inside will determine how far apart
the tanks will be.
While the diameter of the bridge is dependent on the size of the fish that you intend to
have travel through it.
I recommend the bridge having a diameter of 2-3Xs the height of the fish.
When determining what size you want to go with, you will need to start with fish size.
This will determine diameter needed.
Then span between tanks.
This will determine how long the bottom piece will be.
The diameter and the bottom span combined will give you the overall length.
The height will be discussed later.
So now we can install it onto an aquarium.
However, before we jump to installing it, we should first understand how it works.
As the tanks fills to the bottom of the bridge, the bridge becomes trapped with air.
That air will be sealed in by the water level in the aquariums, and create enough pressure
so that water cannot enter the bridge.
As we remove air, a vacuum is created and the bridge will start to fill with water.
Why does this happen?
The pressure created by water in an aquarium is always greater than the atmospheric water
pressure.
Which is why water will push outwards on a regular aquarium.
However, in the bridge, the pressure is less than the atmospheric air pressure.
This allows water to stay in the bridge and not fall back out since no air can get back
into it due to the bottom of the bridge being submerged in water.
Because of this the pressure being the opposite, and pushing in on the bridge, a bridge cannot
leak water, it can only leak air.
Meaning that if you happened to have a pin hole in the bridge seam, water will not leak
out, but air will leak in and bubble to the top of the bridge and collect.
The more air that enters, the lower the water level will drop and the less of a vacuum there
will be.
A quick example is that you can experiment at hoe is this:
Fill your sink with water, and submerge a glass in it.
Turn the glass upside down and slowly raise it out of the water, but not completely.
You just created a vacuum.
So now that we know a little bit about how it works, let's set one up.
You can start off with a full aquarium or empty, the end result on how to prime it will
be the same.
As the water level rises, it will rise to the bottom of the bridge.
It will then start to trap air.
Keep filling the tank to the top.
Once to the top, you can create the vacuum in the bridge.
I used a simple airline to suck the air from the bridge.
As I did this, water was sucked in by both sides.
When all air is removed, the will remain in the bridge.
That's it.
Now an interesting fact about the bridge is that it will keep both tanks equalized with
the same water level.
So if water is removed from one tank, they will equalize on their own.
So that means you can filter both tanks with one filter.
Preferably a canister filter with the intake in one tank and output in the other.
However, i have not personally tested a bridge to its limits on how fast it can equalize,
so do this with caution.
This also means that during a water change, you only have to take water from one tank
if you want to as it will level out on its own during draining and filling.
This is where the height of the bridge is important.
To insure that water never goes below the bottom
of the bridge, i like to calculate how large
my water changes will be.
I then make sure the bridge goes down farther on the tank then the water changes will.
If you do drain too much, and water goes below the bottom of the bridge, it's still ok.
However much water you remove from below the bridge, close to that
same amount of air will escape into the bridge.
Why this doesn't lose the vacuum, it will mean you need to prime it again.
You might also be wondering, how am i going to clean this thing?
To clean the bridge, you will need to use a simple magnet style algae scrubber.
This will allow you to clean it with ease; however, cleaning it will not
be a chore you will need to do offer.
Anyways guys, I hope you enjoyed the video, I
want to thank you for watching, and we will see
you next time.