The Romaurie Effect:

The Romaurie Effect:
"So Simple the Cat could do it!"
Many, many moons ago, Sony ran a commercial for their new remote programmable VCR. It showed a cat setting-up a weeks recordings by pressing the "remote" with its paw.
One evening, me and my friend Graham Melly, were watching the TV and my pet cat "Snagglepuss" was asleep on the carpet in front of TV. At the end of the ad, the cat rolled over and tapped the eject button on my VCR cancelling my recording.We couldn't stop laughing.
I use this little "episode" to illustrate a point. I, and quite a few other folks, have been looking for a way to provide aeration to vacuumed aquaria.It seems the answer has been staring us in the face all along. Next month will be 4 years since I set-up the first vacuumed system. From the outset, I noticed a by-product of "pulling" the vacuum was if the water level dropped below the inlet to the upper aquarium, air would be pulled in displacing enough water to "seal" the inlet to the upper aquarium. If you were to drill 1 or 2 small holes, say 3mm, about 2cm. above the level you wanted to maintain in the lower aquarium, air would be drawn in all the time the vac-pump operated thus providing aeration and maintain the water level. If you attached air stones to these holes, the air would be diffused, producing a myriad of fine bubbles.
The Aquarist community has always been very much a "do-it --yourself" fraternity.Many, many moons ago I attended an open aquarist society event in a hall across the road from Southampton common. This was very close to "The Dell" football grounds of the "Saints" football club. One member had a tank displaying Axolotls', albino and black. I had been collecting "smooth newts" for my garden pond in the model yacht lake on Soton common. I asked where these "big newts" came from, hoping the answer would be "The Common". As it turned out it was a bit further away than that. Mexico city lakes. The help and encouragement I received from those club members started me on a life-long hobby.




Mr.Ho of "Fishfreedom" open bottom aquariums welcomes comments to improve his system. I have sent him 3 e-mails detailing findings on this system, I asked if he uses a vacuum pump or oil-less air pump to produce the vacuum. I have not received a reply.
The Romaurie Effect was first displayed some 4 years ago on "The Fishkeepers Forum" . Just over 1 year ago, I published the glass tunnel video clip.Shortly after this the first "open-bottom aquarium appeared on "youTube". Now, if Mr.Ho is using a system other than a "vacuum" to fill the upper aquarium, I think now would be a good time to let the aquarist community know.
Of course, this is only a suggestion.
Romaurie

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• Romaurie
• Effect:Vacuum:Aeration.

[romaurie]

Maybe as this clip of the "Romaurie Effect" is the most popular, I could post an open question to aquarists.

Nano aquariums are compact aua-life set-ups.If you have seen recent developments of mine, then the system of utilising a vac-pump to increase air flow to the inverted part could effectively double the effective volume of an aquarium whilst occupying the same surface area.

I have marine aquariums in the past and quite familiar with most of the equipment.

[romaurie]

Well I "borrowed" it from a mathematics teacher when I was at Twynham Secondary Modern School, and that's more moons ago than I care to remember!

[romaurie]

For details of construction go to "Instructables".

[romaurie]

The cat "adopted" me and our our 2 dogs as surrogate family.She takes no interest in other cats and fusses so much over Xena, the older of our dogs, she [the bitch] finds it a bit overpowering.

[romaurie]

Exactly! In fact it was your comment about Mr,Ho's system that maybe he had a timer as the air coming in seemed to be random that made me realise he was using the natural effect of air beeing pulled in as the vacuum pump removes air from the top.

[botchalism]

I think your cat is confused by such black magic.

[orangeduckster]

"many moons ago" lol I'm going to use that from now on.

[0YtsanBlowout0]

Perfect cat feeder!

[colin776775]

so im guessin its hard to clean:P

[IndividuallyWrapped]

huh? where?

[kengho]

Cute cat! What breed is it?