hi everybody, joey here again and welcomeback. in today's video, i'm going to show you howto build a water bridge. this is a project similar to the upside downaquarium that i showed you how to make a while ago. they are similar in that they work thesame. simply put, a water bridge is a tunnel thatconnects 2 aquariums from above. it allows
under tank heater for snakes, fish to freely swim from one aquarium to theother. i wanted to make this video as universal aspossible, so i decided to go with glass, as you don't need any special tools to buildit like you would with acrylic. now there are many methods and ways to accomplisha 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 acrylictubing 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 videocan be applied to this video. for my water bridge, i recycled old glasslids i had. since it was only 6mm thick, it was easy to cut through. i started out by cutting out the pieces ineeded 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 fromthe top down. since we cannot really cut glass into specific odd shapes at home, i preparedmy side panels in advance. i needed them to be in the shape of a u and doing them in advancemade the entire project a lot easier. i used 3 pieces to shape my u. this u willdepict how long and how tall the bridge will be. i used enough silicone to insure i trappedno air bubbles in-between as this is something we will need to see through. when placing these together, i left a smalllip near the top to allow them to fit into
the next piece, which you will see more onin 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 twoof them. they will eventually be the front and back of my bridge. after 24 hours the silicone cured and i cleanedup the excess silicone with a razor blade. with these side panels now ready, i siliconedthe first one to the side of the top panel. the lip i created earlier allowed for me tosit the upwards facing panels on top of the top panel while the side panel silicone tothe side...
electrical tape held it together for me asi moved on. i then silicone an end panel on. this panelagain, was silicone to the outside of the top panel. i then flipped the tank around and added theother side panel on. then the last end panel. after each panel i smoothed out the siliconewith my finger. this is needed right after placing the panel as you will not be ableto do it later. finally, the bottom panel. this was siliconeand sits right on top of the front and back panels.
last was the inside side panels. these wenton the outsides. that was it, i waited another 24 hours anddid water test. to do the water test, i sat the bridge upside down and filled it up. ilet it sit for 24 hours to insure no leaks. when building your bridge, you can now seethat the inside will determine how far apart the tanks will be. while the diameter of thebridge 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 howlong the bottom piece will be. the diameter
and the bottom span combined will give youthe 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 inthe aquariums, and create enough pressure so that water cannot enter the bridge. as we remove air, a vacuum is created andthe bridge will start to fill with water. why does this happen?
the pressure created by water in an aquariumis always greater than the atmospheric water pressure. which is why water will push outwardson a regular aquarium. however, in the bridge, the pressure is lessthan the atmospheric air pressure. this allows water to stay in the bridge and not fall backout since no air can get back into it due to the bottom of the bridge being submergedin 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. meaningthat 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 waterlevel will drop and the less of a vacuum there will be. a quick example is that you can experimentat hoe is this: fill your sink with water, and submerge aglass in it. turn the glass upside down and slowly raise it out of the water, but notcompletely. 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 orempty, the end result on how to prime it will be the same. as the water level rises, it will rise tothe bottom of the bridge. it will then start
to trap air. keep filling the tank to thetop. once to the top, you can create the vacuumin 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 inthe bridge. that's it. now an interesting fact about the bridge isthat it will keep both tanks equalized with the same water level. so if water is removedfrom one tank, they will equalize on their own. so that means you can filter both tankswith one filter. preferably a canister filter with the intake in one tank and output inthe other. however, i have not personally
tested a bridge to its limits on how fastit 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 itsown during draining and filling. this is where the height of the bridge isimportant. to insure that water never goes below the bottom of the bridge, i like to calculate how largemy water changes will be. i then make sure the bridge goes down farther on the tank thenthe water changes will. if you do drain too much, and water goes belowthe 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 goingto clean this thing? to clean the bridge, you will need to usea 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 seeyou next time.
