gee thanks....now almost everything i look at looks like tank gear......ive been tearing up the restaurant i work at......i got all sorts of plastic pans and sheets of plastic (2'x3' lids).....and im even using the plastic meshing from the lobster tail packing to make filters for my pumps....

still the soap dish is still the best!! they should give you some sort of award....nano genius of the month...
you might just be the inventor of the nano frag tank...

But inventor of in-tank pico display is wanted too!

When using the soap dish as a fuge with Cheato do you just position the water to flow through the soap dish? Do you use just the tank lighting?
Great idea!
Vicki

This is a great idea.
I saw this thread today and went out and bought 2 at Home Depot. Same exact model.
QUick question.
How much do I have to clean this thing before use?
Do I have to soak in overnight or anything?
Will this plastic basket outgas or leach anything dangerous?
Or can I wash it and drop it right in?

yeah tank lighting works great. you dont have to put it right under your filter but i found it to help keep the cheato from collecting debrit.

my first dish was placed into the aquarium back in june i believe. its been there along time and has no visible signs of breaking down. even the suction cups are still clear. i havent seen any signs of gasing off or breaking down.

wash it out and throw it in the tank.

home depot!!!! why didnt i think of that! and its the same exact model??
what was the price?
who cares! they are cheap!!
think they have any good ones at bed bath and beyond???
i like seein the look on the sales girls face when i tell em what im trying to do with the soap dish....

lmao! yeah i imagen bed, bath and beyond has them, although i imagen there twice the price.

LOL i got dogged on my in tank fuge-es
check out the comment in my gallery!

ive used glass jars for years w/ lots of success....
only problem is they can be an eye sore and are not that easy to work with,

you have place them where flow spirals in and out

pretty much no real mod unless you have a big jar

maybe a small olive jar or baby food jar in the big AC filter could work

this way you can still run carbon and other media...

probably could get away with not siliconing it at all if the cheato is isolated

just when using them you have to consider flow

I was in Target and they also carry the same soap dishes. I purchased a small one for $2.49.

Vicki

seriously though, why do you have so many jars in there?

This thread wil never die! I have the wal mart one in my shower. I think i'll pick up a few more today.

when i first started this thread, i figured you'd all think me crrrraaazy for using a soap dish in the aquarium

however they really do come in handy.

charging the 5'' sandbed i have in my tank....remember i got wiped out by the summers heat??

sorry, im not familiar with charging sandbeds

Cool! I did the same but with a breeder box. I had to make holes for more flow and add holes and glue on some suction cups. Looks like you got a winner.

its pretty much how you make your own LR and sand....

you just gotta start growing pods and other stuff on a ridiculous scale.....

im startin to see little worms in the sand now.....i got one jar, one on lower left thats just full of some unidentified worm.....i know its a harmless sand sifter, the other jar on the right is amphipods and copeopods......

swoop, my hawk fish is there for any isopods and is keepin my amphipods in check...

if i can ever get the old man at LFS to come off some of his sand in this one tank hes got, ill have a jar growing limpets and chitons.....
he had a heart attach and lost his whole SW section while he was in the hospital....
scary looking to the novice, them tanks are teeming with life....

he's raising pods in some tanks w/o a real filter!! maybe an air line if its luck!!!
even the ones that look like an oil spill disaster have pods, thousands!!

Anyone have any pics of this working? Does it allow pods to grow?

hey guys, awesome idea! just found this thread and i ran around for a while and found a good one at target. I know everyone has a target around them, so if you cant find one, they have them there. again, awesome idea.

I wonder if you added a u-tube to this, and mounted it high up in the tank, would it work as an internal overflow box?? Jon

This soapdish thing is one of the best ideas ever. I have my chaeto all in my tank and it is getting on my nerves. I think I will go out and buy 2 or 3 for my chaeto!

This thread made me buy one at Lowes, for when I frag things to grow them out. No more frags lost in the sandbed!

well i have to say, after putting the soap dish on the shelf for a while, its once again proved it worth.

this has to be my fav. use for the $3 soap dish.
feeding times always a treat in the dish. for both the horses and spectators. )

Cool nice idea .

-Mac

nice horses...im def. gonna look into this chaeto dish in the future...

...also will 2x65w pc's be sufficient to support chaeto in a 55 gallon tank if placed in the middle depth area?

plenty!

thanks!
i have a chem midterm in 3 hours...i shouldnt be on nano-reef right now lol

goodluck, and GET THE HELL OFF THE NET AND STUDY!

Thanks for the idea!

Check out my tank to see another in action. Cheato really does awesome under metal halide. After seeing some peoples designs with the egg crate, I think I might have to go this route as well and get another soap dish for my tank!

I would cram cheato underneath the egg crate in those, you know how many pods could be supported in there! Not to mention the nutrient export.

Well I decided to make my idea a reality:

right side: Click to view attachment


Left sideClick to view attachment

FTS: Click to view attachment

Got my "Soap Dish" of Cheato up and running this weekend.

(Got it at Walmart - $1.79 - must of been on sale)

I was looking at Fosters and they had an "in-tank" fuge for $24 and it looked like the large soap dish (just square) with a power head attached blowing water into it. I'm was thinking you could do the same thing with the large soap dish and a small power head.

Total NooB here! Can someone please explain to me the purpose of a fuge and what the cheato is and needs to survive? I've been doing a lot of research b/c I have a Mandarin and have read repeatedly that I need to have a fuge for the copepods. I don't want to get extreme, so this sponge holder thing looks AWESOME! Where would I place it in the tank? Could I just put it in a spot that gets good flow? Also, how do I maintain the cheato? Is it obvious when it is healthy like any ole plant, or do I need to switch it out every once in a while? Thanks for the help. Right now I am just constantly adding copepods and brine eggs. I'd like to not have to worry about it so much.

how big is the aquarium? mandy need large feeding grounds to supply a healthy amount of copepods to thier diet. a small aquarium (under 30g) cannot support enough pods for a healthy mandarin (most "experts" say 100g per mandy)

many of us that keep mandy in smaller systems add sumps/fuges to fight the good fight. the refuge is a safe house. be it, to house fish/inverts that cant be kept with the rest of the tank mates, a safe place for algae, or a safe place for foods like copepods to breed. thats it.

cheato just needs light and water movement. if its green your good.
although the soapdish will help, imo (2.5 years of mandy experiance) it wont be the fix your looking for. you really should add a sump and stock it with pods. (no matter how big your system is)

couple other points.

NEVER EVER ADD BRINE EGGS TO YOUR SYSTEM-hatch them in a bottle and feed them live. the eggs can/ will cause ammonia algae problems, but the shells can cause your fish real problems.

also 1 month is a very new system to house a mandy. your only saving grace is your adding pods.

brine is a hollow food and only nutrious for about 8 hours after hatching (the time it takes to eat the egg sack) after that all energy/food is used for growth and its pretty much usless unless you gut load the brine (adult)

i'd get away from brine and start stocking the aquarium with live mysis (which will breed for years in a sump/fuge) rotifers, isopods etc.

try some cyclopeeze or cyclops (frozen copepods) if your mandy doesn't eat them, try feeding at the same time you feed live. decrease the amount of live food verses frozen food as time goes on.

if you search mandy on this forum, you'll find alot of my posts and things i've done to keep my mandy healthy and happy in a smaller system. (switch out lr from the sump, algae purchases, pod breeding etc)

So my tank is a 24g. I'll start looking in to a sump and I'll quit with the brine eggs. I have searched the forums and found so much good info. That is how I have landed here actually. What if I added a cheato soap dish and restocked it with mysis and copepods every month? Would I still have to get a sump? He eats frozen fine. I have started target feeding him in a baby bottle in one corner of the tank. He knows where to find it and as it thaws he goes to town. I know that nutrition is more than just weight, but I am proud that in two weeks he has really fattened up. Here's a photo...

Where are these custom knives I have heard about? I love making little things out of garbage(not literal digging thru a dumpster garbage) but I have never made anything as cool as a guitar!

heres the smallest custom damascus knife i've made.


to go with my miniture knife collection.



if you want to see more pic's, shoot me a pm and i'll dig up my disks.

[quote name='formerly icyuodd/icyoud2' date='Mar 1 2007, 10:58 AM' post='1063816']
well i have to say, after putting the soap dish on the shelf for a while, its once again proved it worth.

this has to be my fav. use for the $3 soap dish.
feeding times always a treat in the dish. for both the horses and spectators. )



Can we get a full tank shot??

click on the link in my sig. it shows the entire system from its creation to present. (last month) i'll be up dating the pic's very soon with the arrival of the new baby horses.

until then......
before

and after the most recent pruning

Firstly, that last post that has my name on it, is not my post. Huh .

Secondly, how is this soap dish fuge working out so far? It has been awhile now, does it do the trick or do you still have to replenish regularly?

i am IN LOVE with this soap-dish innovation.. imma run and get 2 tomorrow.. yay to new frags, chaeto, and possibly horses and mandarin

Gangsta with the re-up this is a dope post.

Great idea! I may try this in mine. There is no room to light the back of my 12gal cube, so my chaeto doesn't look so hot

Bump from the grave!

Figured a lot of the folks new to this hobby could benefit from this thread.

Lets see the BONSIA POT!

Timely bump! I dug my soap dish out today at lunch to hold a bunch of new frags until I have time to glue them into the aquascape.

haha I was thinking this the other day in the shower...

Bump. . . lol Well i went to my local walmart to find a soap dish but no luck. Where does everyone get theres? What department? Thanks guys!

I didn't go through the entire 5 pages of response, so there is a good chance this has been mentioned. If so, forgive the redundance here. Great idea with the soap dish and I especially like the mini frag set-up, BUT you guys need to be extremely careful with throwing in some of the Macro algeas in your display tanks. If your macros are not contained and spread into the tank, you can very quickly have a problem with it taking over. Take a look at the top photo, I see what I believe to be grape Caulerpa growing off the adjacent frag and stuck on the filter intake.
If I may make a minor suggestion, if you're going to have a mini refugium IN your tank, consider buying one of those square FW live bearer boxes that is covered in a very fine mesh. Would do the same thing without the risk of contaminating your tank with unwanted Macro growth. Chaeto ( Chaetomorphia) is one of the safer types but comes with minor risks if it spreads into the display. Just my humble 2 cents worth. You've been warned.

so how has the chaeto worked for you inside your aqu. like that?
im considering doing it!