kien's 150g Room Divider Mixed Reef & Stuff - Page 2

kien · #1 06-16-2010, 07:19 AM

So I've been putting this off for far too long. The 131g FOWLR is in desperate need of a cover since it is a completely open top. Not even a canopy like the 150g mixed reef, so I know I've been rolling the dice.. Well, finally, here we are with the tank screen cover DIY project.

First up, here's a laundry list of materials you'll need.

1. Some sort of mesh of your choosing. I used a polyproplene mesh that I got off of 'acroholic' from Reef Sanctury. Just PM him if you want some. $0.85 per square foot and $5 shipping. UPDATE (June 12, 2013): Bulk Reef Supply sells the screen and kits as well: http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/sumps-...reen-tops.html
2. Screen door building materials (all from Home Depot in the window isle) including Aluminum rails,
3. Corner attachments
4. Screen spline
5. Screen application tool.
6. Tape measure
7. Hack saw (or similar).

Here is the mesh..

As you can see, it is a pretty small weave.

=======================================

So first up, we need to cut our rails. Just measure the lengths you need and cut away! I used a hacksaw to cut the aluminum. I did however have a tricky bit that I had to account for, and that was my return plumbing that comes up and over the edge of the tank like so..

To deal with this I had to cut the corner tabs so that the inserts were shorter. Plus, these tabs had small guide rails that slid into the hallow aluminum which I had to cut as well so that I could reverse the direction of the tabs. Once again, I just used my trusty little hack saw and cut away!

And so there we have the opening for the return pipe. That was actually the hardest part of the entire project! After that I just went around the rest of the frame with the aluminum rails and ended up with this.

kien · #2 02-05-2011, 02:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lastlight

You should post new videos of both tanks. Just saying =)

Okay here ya go. Something I just slapped together real quick, so nothing fancy.

kien's mixed reef 2011 - Part 1

Sorry about the particulates and micro bubbles. My goby was having one of those days and my skimmer, well, it needs to go into the recycling bin soon.

lastlight · #3 02-05-2011, 03:17 PM

Nice man thanks for posting. Love the 4-stripe of course lol.

Your PBT is looking really good...thick too!

fishoholic · #4 02-05-2011, 04:12 PM

Looks great

mseepman · #5 02-05-2011, 04:31 PM

Looking great as usual!

kien · #6 02-12-2011, 05:10 AM

Okay, so this evening marked the first treatment of interceptor for The Red Bugs. Here's how it went down..

First, another thank you to my supplier

I was able to obtain a few Interceptor tablets ranging from 5.75 mg to 2.3 mg. Fairly small pills. From my research on various sites, including canreef , I was able to determine an appropriate dosage for my system. According to Melev, one large (23mg tablet should treat roughly 380 to 400 gallons). I'm probably at about 320gallons so I'd need roughly 21(ish)mg, give or take. I went ahead and dosed 23mg anyway because I didn't have a scale.

So here we have my pills ready to get crushed into a fine powder.

fine powder!

Once I was satisfied with my interceptor powder I dumped it into a container of tank water and started to mix it. It actually mixed fairly well. This is before I actually stirred it.

After mixing it all I simply dumped it into the return section of my sump. I removed the skimmer cup from my skimmer to allow it to overflow and I took my carbon off line. The next step is to wait 12-24 hours to turn my carbon back on and put my skimmer cup back. After that I will likely do another dose next weekend. The new school of thought seems to be that you only need one treatment since Red bugs don't lay eggs. From what I recall reading they are live bearers so the fear of eggs hatching in your tank seems to be a false concern. I'm going to do another treatment anyways just in case I got the dosage wrong on the first go round

So that's about it. Not terribly exciting but hopefully tomorrow's inspection should reveal a lot fewer red bugs, if any at all.

es355lucille · #7 02-12-2011, 05:31 AM

Really nice system kien! Cool video.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kien

Okay here ya go. Something I just slapped together real quick, so nothing fancy.

kien's mixed reef 2011 - Part 1

Sorry about the particulates and micro bubbles. My goby was having one of those days and my skimmer, well, it needs to go into the recycling bin soon.