kien's 150g Room Divider Mixed Reef & Stuff

[kien]

Just cuz it is Saturday :-)

[fishytime]

coral tease!

[lorenz0]

those zoa's are killer

[lastlight]

Question is will YOU accept kidneys?! Very nice stuff =)

[Leah]

Nice Zoa's

[bryceschutte]

Well being a completely new to saltwater guy it just took me 4 hours to read thru and pretend to understand everything that is going on here!

I wish there was a better word than WOW! But I cant think of one. My mind has been blown. I cant wait to come see your set up now. It will most likely ruin me forever.

Crazy enough, I even laughed out loud alot reading thru this build.

[tinman]

Originally Posted by kien

Just cuz it is Saturday :-)

where did you get those awsome zoas what are they called how can i get some! (drool.........drool......drool...)

[kien]

They are definitely striking, especially under actinics. I have to desaturate quite a bit usually but this time I decided to shoot with actinics on and through a lens filter which created the more saturated effect.

This zoo is one of my very few surviving frags from Frag-a-lot.

[lastlight]

I'll keep my kidney then!

So whaddya say...$10?

[kien]

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.