DIY Contest

Joe I gotta say your fish trap works well! Its now ditch proven And the kids had a blast!

Fern... ya need to expand on the "ditch proven" statement!.. Bill

We went ditch fishing and used his trap and caught a male marble molly for my female.

The 3 adults and 4 kids in the ditch..... a whole lot of fun! I even caught 2 crayfish!

We have some geniuses on this site and your ideas can pay off! Lets see some of those ideas. Filters, lights, tanks, unusual items turned into fish stuff! LOL

$75 gift card to Home Depot/Lowes at stake here guys! Are any ideas for projects? Have some time but don't procrastinate (like me LOL) on this one.

Bump.. For all the newcomers that don't know about the contest. There is still time

So how many people have a DIY project going on? If you don't have one yet there's still about a month to do one I think. Lets see all the creative minds we got here.

I am always rigging something up but admins dont count on this

Can we submit one that's complete? Bill

If you did one and it's done PICS please lol. "Pics, progress and outcome of the project is all you need."

It's a fluid bed filtration system. Capable of clearing about a 1500 gal tank or 100 lbs of fish byproduct, cost 25.00 plus usage of a canister filter. Joint build by Nphocus and me...and some dumpster diving.. Bill

Go for it

zeketaz wrote:So how many people have a DIY project going on?

You are killing me, I have such a great idea but I'm saving it for the build a tank contest if that one ever gets done. I might just have to do one more project quickly, just for this contest.

Well the build a tank will not be until this contest is over so in October.

I'm going to start a new thread in Off Topic with the Fluidized Sand Filter information that I've gathered over the past couple of months.

This project started almost exactly a month and a half ago. I will post the data that I've gathered and progress pics and final results...

Actually, here are the final results:













After about 45 days of waiting for it to cycle properly. Those are the water tests from today on my 75G planted tank. The tank houses over 20 small cichlids, 9 kuhli loaches, a cory and a pictus catfish, a zebra loach, two large snails, and 3 algae eaters.

I would consider this tank heavily stocked and the FSF handles the load with ease. I'm going to build a second FSF for my 90G koi tank in the living room.

Can you expand on the build of it.

FishVixen wrote:Can you expand on the build of it.

Doing that now over here:

https://fishaddicts.forumotion.com/t444-fluidized-sand-filtration-systems#4373

Sept 30th is the dead line where are all our projects? $75 gift certificate just think of the things you can get with that!

ok here is my latest DIY: (multi tank rack)

This was made out of one sheet of plywood and (6) 2"x4"x10'

The plywood was cut into two pieces at Lowes 96"x22"
Then I used a table saw to cut a 3/4" groove in the length of 4 of the 2x4's
I then cut the 2x4's to 96" for the long sides of the plywood and 24" to cover the short sides.
I used the pieces above to make two trays that each hold ( 10 gallon tanks. Then I took the last (2) 2x4's and cut them in half to make 4 legs for the trays.

I had a couple pieces of thin plywood scrap from another project and I used them to make braces for the two ends of the unit. Total cost (under $100)

JF... not to be critical.. but how many tanks are ya going to host on each level?..Did ya measure the bottom of rail to floor on each span before adding weight?..
Those 2 X 4's are going to be bearing a lot of load.... I tend to over-engineer so I used 2 X 6's for a 75!..
Clarification: I take it that the plywood was 3/4", the grove you ran the length of the 8' 2 X 4's... was that cut on the edge so that the plywood seated at the exact surface of the rails?
Last 2 Q's...How many tanks in total will that rack be hosting and what the heck are ya going to put in them? Bill in Va.

nice stand

One more clarification on my part.. I used 2 X 6's for my rails because I was concerned of the droop that might occur with 2's. causing a severe flex in the length of my 75..You'll not be facing that problem with your tank orientation.. Just curious.. Bill

Bill, here is my math and now that you raised questions I hope it's right.

1 gallon of water = 8.35 pounds
9 gallons per tank x 16 tanks = 144 gallons
144 x 8.35 = 1202.4 pounds
1202.4 divided by 4 = 300.6 pounds per leg

Flex isn't that much of an issue because there are so many smaller tanks. My plan is to fill the top shelf and see how it works out. If It can go a few months with no sag then the second shelf will get filled.

What I plan to put in those tanks is a whole lot of swordtails. I'm trying to do some breeding but just don't have enough room to sort fish for grow out. I want to seperate the fry from each mated pair rather than my current system of all fry mixed together. Right now if I get fish I like I don't know which parents they came from.

It's a work in progress, both the breeding and the tanks/shelves.