Your idea has merit, this guy is using a 200 watt and about 4 gallons of water for his worms in an unheated garage An extra thermometer and it should be good to go. http://www.redwormcomposting.com/worm-composting/heating-a-small-worm-bin-in-the-winter/ Curt

IMO the biggest problem with the Under Gravel Filters (UGF's)is after a few years the plates gunk up on the bottom and need to be torn down and cleaned. If not a bacterial bloom is usually the case. There are still a number of people who use them and claim they have no troubles. There was a post here a while back, I'd say august-september, the post was an opinion on UGF's. The poster deffended his UGF stating it never had problems. Then later in the thread stated that all that was done besides good vacuuming was adding a liquid water clarifyer to clear the water when it clouded up. To me that is a problem. Anaerobic bacteria grows on almost any surface submerged in the water (gravel,decor,rocks,etc.) where it is dark and has a little water flow. The only problem with just using a UGF wont give you much surface area that is also dark, has good flow and air for aerobic bacteria to grow. The inside of an external filter (excluding canisters without a Bio-wheel) is a great place for this. It is often said that when there is an unbalance of aerobic and anaerobic bacterias that the bacteria blooms occur. This clouds water, poses possible infection to fish and could all together crash the biofilter. At least thats the way I understand it. IME using UGF's solely and along with hang on the tank filters is that the water would get somewhat cloudy after a while. I never new at that time to remove the plates once a year to clean them. It seems that since not using them I have had cleaner water then before. This could also be because todays filters are better quality then ones of old. With all this said, UGF is better than no filtration at all. I wouldn't use one ever again because of the maintainance involved compared to an external filter. To add they are not compatible with live plants either, rooting problems.

Well, I went with a 39 Marineland tall because of size, cost, & the fantastic hood--covered double lights, separate flip-top for filter access, a biowheel, etc. Yeah, I know, less O2 absortion area, but hey, only 4 goldies & a few cories, plus i maintain regularly. The 55 longs had crummier hoods & light set-ups & were too long for the ONE place I could put them--the dresser top. Plus, I hate the hang-on-the-back filters I've been using--even though they ARE good filters. They just bug me as far as accessing them from behind the tank to service. And finally, I HAD to make a decision (even if it was the wrong one!). I had four goldies in a cracked 20 gallon tank that could fail any minute. Got a slab of MDF cut to stretch across the full length of the dresser top. Then (couldn't find the #$*% foam) lined the tank edges with that thick heavy-duty stick-on foam to pad campers to pickups. So far so good, fingers crossed. Each of the 3-4 levels we have reads differently (!) but all have the bubble in the middle, a couple have it VERY *slightly* left/middle. But the best level we have, though a professional one, is visibly warped, sooo.... I'm watching carefully as things settle. Shimmed with heavy cardboard to the right, added gravel & a few gallons, rechecked level, added more water, etc. And y'all are quite correct: no floor is true level either! We have a slab foundation, so no problems there, as far as the weight. The goldies & moors are in hog heaven & the tank is a beauty. Ehh...so what if I now have to stand on a stool to pull out the filter foam (yup, I DIDN'T think about the height)! still wouldn't matter, because it came down to: the tank MUST go on the dresser, PERIOD. Thank you again for the great advice :)

Hi Mike, Spring came, then seemed to leave, but it's still months past January, the trees are budding and the last frost was weeks ago, so we live with the off-on chills, knowing that this too will pass. Meanwhile, we had a bit of a heatwave early in the week, so removed the solar pool cover from the greenhouse before it cooked inside, and of course; the next day, the temps plunged back down, but the heater kept it warm and as soon as it's above 60 deg. again, we will haul out the power washer and give the GH exterior a good spring cleaning before the sunshade goes up on it. You are right to be concerned about any fish capable of making a suicidal leap from a tank. One of my Wakin did it last year and I found it on the greenhouse floor too late to save it. As for transfering the kinders: It's not just temp that can shock a fish, but water chemistry, so mixing pond with tank water is a good precaution. For their size, I'd use 2 buckets; 3 actually. Fill one with pond water and let it sit inside to come to tank temp, then drain the tank down to about 10 inches and chase each of them into an empty bucket right in the tank, add pond water to fill it enough for the fish to be able to move about and proceed as you planned. Let the buckets sit next to the pond until the water cools down to pond temp., then release them into it. But cover the buckets, just in case. In just under two months, I too will be free at last, as my term will be up. But I still have an election to get through, although most of the work for it is done. Once all of the polls close and the ballots go to the County, I'm out of it, excepting only to turning my keys and records over to whoever was dumb enough to run for my office and be so unfortunate as to win. Then I'll finally have the time to devote to bringing in a backhoe to complete the drain lines to my own pond, for my own kinders. After which they will live outdoors permanently. With proper filtration, and it has more than it needs, a dozen Wakin can live nicely in 500 gal. Meanwhile, I'm in the process of setting up an oval, 350 gal. stock tank with a mud over gravel bottom that I'll plant heavily, dump in a pile of oak and magnolia leaves I collected last fall, let them rot for a leaf litter bottom, then add a few hundred red ram snails and by June, there should be lots of infusoria. Then I'll release 3 - 4 pairs of Red Line barbs into it and see if get babies. What I haven't settled on so far, is how I'll filter it, but am leaning to using a 36 gal. plastic storage container filled with media and drilled through the top and bottom for hoses, as an overhead sump filter. I was thinking of setting it up on a rack next to the tank, to have the bottom of the container just enough above the top of the tank for a gravity return, then use a big submersible pump with a sponge prefilter on the intake in the tank, to pump the water out from one end and return back through a splash bar at the other. Or, just buy a very large cannister filter and not worry about equalizing the intake to the outflow, but I've never tried a DIY filter and would like to see if I could- and make it work. Okay; table turning time: Any suggestions?