While cleaning out filter socks this afternoon I started thinking about how often I've been doing this and how much food is ending up in the socks and not in the bellies of my fish.
When I visited Edgar Diaz's place in the past he had a creative solution to this problem but his drain pipes were configured differently than mine so I couldn't do the same thing. After a bit of thinking I came up with this solution... I'm calling it a food barrier. Not sure what Edgar calls his.
The idea is to prevent food from being drawn into the drain pipe before the fish can eat it. I use a plastic mesh around my drain pipes to keep the fish out but it's too big to do the same for food. All you need is an empty 2L soda bottle, a few zip ties, scissors and a razor blade.
First, cut off the top and bottom of the bottle using the razor blade, or utility knife, leaving you with a cylinder. Using the scissors, cut the bottle length-wise. Next, cut out horizontal strips around the bottle. I made mine about 1.25". You should end up with these:
Determine what diameter you require and punch a small hole in each end as shown above.
Now you can attach the clear plastic ring to the plastic mesh guard and have something like this:
Replace the mesh guard on the pipe:
This little device will allow water to flow freely but food will stay on the surface until it's eaten.
<message edited by Fishtal on Saturday, November 6, 2010 7:34 PM>