Well back when we were looking at designs for the header for the new homepage, Chris (I think) mentioned he got the idea for the orange from the site www.reeftime.com Well I went there and did a little digging. I found a neat little DIY project, a movable frag shelf. The one I have built is made of a thin piece of acrylic with a piece of eggcrate epoxied on its edge the length of the acrylic. below that an el cheapo cleaning magnet is epoxied to the piece of acrylic which completes the shelf. the other side of the cleaning magnet holds it against the glass. You can move it where ever you want in your tank. Here are a couple of notes. If you are thinking about using those really cheap cleaning magnets from Wal-Mart, think again. You have to scrape all of the felt and glue off, then you find out you have an exposed magnet which means you have to get a good seal with the epoxy. Next you will find out that that cheapy magnet will not hold your shelf up very well in a 55 gal, so if you have thinker glass than that, you are going to have to add another magnet. You could just use a more expensive mag-float magnet and opt to glue it or not. Also I used marine grade epoxy. It was the only one that did not have the warning about "Not recommended for drinking water use" on the back, so I figure it is safe. I have used it before in tanks. It needs to cure for a week though. I will post some pics when I get home and take them.
Ok, I have the shelf done and it has cured up for a few days. I took a few pictures for everyone to see how I did it. One thing I should have done was use a better magnet. I should have used a Mag-Float, so I wouldn't have had to seal the magnets or use two of them. Anyway, here are the pics: Magnetic frag shelf before it is in the tank: The shelf attached to the front glass: The shelf viewed from the side of the tank: Cool huh? I plan on attaching it to the back glass out of the way and off my sand bed.
Very nice. Ever thought of using a piece of acrilic for the shelf and drilling holes in it. I just don't like the white egg crate. Great DIY project
You could use Acrylic, but that is a lot of holes to drill and after a while with good water quality, calcium, and alkalinity you will have a purple/pink shelf in no time, no matter whether it is acrylic or egg crate
Your shelf is just the coolest thing. We have really gotton some great DIY stuff from club members this year.
My shelf just came in very handy last night when I completely reworked the right side of the 75 Gal. I put all the frags in/on it while I worked with the rocks.
An update to the frag shelf has happened. After quite a while in the tank, the frag shelf began to sag... The shelf slowly leaned lower and lower. I removed it and forgot about it for a while and just recently pulled it out and rebuilt it. This time instead of using the marine epoxy I used A LOT of super glue from my handy dandy frag kit. And here it is... I think it looks pretty good with all those frags on it
I will be using beanheads design for a frag shelf on my propagation tank when it is completed. Using magnets is the coolest thing - Great job Blake.
Right now I have one wedged in one of the corner's of my tank. I'm going to copy this idea as well. It would look better than what I have going now and easier to move so I can clean the glass. Thanks!
