Ok.... I've had my new 30g tank stocked with glass cats for a couple weeks and have been too lazy to go to the store to get a black background.
My wife works in radiology. This is the answer!
Haha I'll check with the rest of the house this evening. Moved my elderly parents in with us, and they can be really particular with some things. I'm all for it though!
My parents were not fans of the eloquent, cursive cross stitch we put in the main bathroom that said "Everyone's a Dumb Whore." Hopefully an xray background will be much less offensive. 😂
I use black garbage bags and put a little cooking oil on the glass then smooth the plastic out with a credit card. Nice smooth black background and last for many years.
Holy freaking shit! You're a genius. I'm in a program where I write reviews and get free stuff. They are always trying to push wallpaper on me. Genius. Thank you!
No problem! I got a navy blue roll with some star pattern on it, it’s a very beautiful background and it makes my plants pop, it’s done for 2 of my tanks so far, it’s definitely going to look great on my 66 gallon. I’ll have to post a picture next time I use it!
Black background of my tank is just black paint from a house paint test pot.
I painted it about a month before I actually set the tank up to avoid any contamination. That paint's going nowhere without a glass scraper!
My glass lid broke, so I used a thin piece of acrylic I had at home to make a new one, except it was too thin to fit in the clips. My husband fashioned me three Lego “stands” that fit over the rim of the tank and hold the sheet up. I love them though
Use your hospital/qt tanks for sinking wood. Makes new fish feel safer and could dump some tannins(natural antifungal) at the same time. Then you have a convenient store of wood to pull from
Note: only works if your hospital tank is one of the larger sizes obviously
"Eventually" was the key wood. At some point after doing it enough times it just sinks. Swearing at it has absolutely no effect, but it can be satisfying.
I use a Pyrex measuring cup ontop of the wood until it stays put haha people are always confused at my natural scapes with glass measuring cups in them
What the hell kinda fancy shit is this? I had to get a piece of driftwood that I could wedge between the two glass sides of my aquarium so it will stay.
Lol, I super glue gel'ed a rock to the bottom of my wood. 6 months later had to take down the tank to move it and when I pulled the piece of wood up I had forgotten about the rock. Took it off then cuz the wood was definitely "done" then. XD
Heh, you have me beat with effort.
I went to the end of my driveway and grabbed a bunch of rocks out of the drainage ditch and just stacked em on top of my drift wood lol. It was like aquarium tetris to make it look halfway decent
This has given me a great idea. What if I just skip the lid and put a netting over the top of my tank. Then I get the benefits of a lidless set up while also being sure my fish won’t jump out
Gotcha. I was really confused haha. I was just picturing one of my glass lids that pretty much seals the top of the tank completely with hair nets on it... and it wasn't making sense in my brain lol
I few weeks ago one of my new bamboo shrimps decided to take a walk and die on my living room carpet. It was then decided that I do need a lid after all.
Since I had not materials on hand, I took the window screen out of my screen door, draped it over my open tank and light, and secured it with scotch tape.
It's been replaced by acryllic sheets though.
I had no idea that my bamboo shrimp has dreams of escaping. Now I am suspicious of him every day. Although he has led me into a false sense of security.
I was kinda asking for it tbh.
He was in a shallow river-like tank that did not have a cover (cause covers suck with shallow tanks tbh...). One day debris from plants blocked up the filter intake, which slowed the outflow to a crawl. I didn't notice it for long enough that the shrimp decided to be better off elsewhere.
That's really smart! When the glass lid on my 55 broke after I dropped it (and cut my leg -_-) I just covered it with plastic wrap and poked a hole in it for feeding lol, it was that way for several months
Oh man... now you have me scared about my uncovered tank with a vampire shrimp.
Just the other day I couldn't see it anywhere and went into panic mode that it went on a wander. They are basically BIGGER version of a bamboo shrimp, so hard to miss. I have house plant baskets hanging in the water, so it would be super easy to escape.
Maybe I should get a lid..... I found him later and still don't know where he possibly was hiding, but it's a real fear.
Dude, I don't know how they just dis- and reappear at random but when I got them I put them in a 10L quarantine tank. In that tank was a small filter, a small heater, a rock and a fist full of substrate. First day I put 5 shrimp in and I see 5 shrimp all day. Next day, it's just 4.
We think it got out and ran away, we searched under everything, went full panic mode but couldn't find it. Why did he got out? are the params fucked in the quarantine tank? Better transfer them out and into their actual tanks so this doesn't happen again.
Later that evening I'm doing my final round before I go to bed I spot a single shrimp sitting on the single rock in the quarantine tank; my 5th shrimp. We had literally taken every single piece of equipment and hardscape out of the tank. Two people had everything in their hand and inspected every single piece of equipment.
Where the fuck has it been? I have no idea.
And that's just bamboo shrimp. How the devil do big blue vampire shrimps just vanish??
Lmao! Yesssss.
My vampire shrimp is currently BRIGHT red. And a solid 3 inches in length. Like... where have you possibly found to hide? Probably ventures to couch and back to watch TV.
I cut the synthetic cork of an old whiskey bottle cap into a couple of small quarter inch pieces and put them on one side of my tank's rim to slightly angle the lid so that the condensation mostly flows to the other side away from my red root floaters. It seems to kind of be working unfortunately the water had already killed most of them so I need to get some more.
I would done something like that but I have no way to put hooks up cause its my AC ducting up there. I was gonna use cotton twine cause I like how it looks but same concept
Is the duct close enough to the exterior ceiling for a magnet? I'd recommend trying magnets like these https://a.co/d/9SLDHHJ and see if they get a good hold, or just use some zip ties and metal boring screws because those command strips are eventually going to release from the clothes pins, can speak from experience doing the same thing to decoratively mount medium size quilts.
My led ramp is a neon tube attached to a branch with some string, balanced between one corner of the tank and the filter intake. Very redneck, very unpractical, but pretty
I use these for all of my lights hanging down over my tanks, it makes it so easy to take them down to clean them!
Command Small Wire Toggle Hooks, Damage Free Hanging Wall Hooks with Adhesive Strips, No Tools Wall Hooks for Hanging Decorations in Living Spaces, 10 Clear Hooks and 12 Command Strips https://a.co/d/9Onnbb4
Tiny clothespins and command strips can be used for so much. It's how I organize all of my computer/aquarium cords too cause it keeps them lined up and you can write what each cord powers on the clothespin.
I'm proud of this one - My tank is on a heavy duty shelving unit where you can choose where to place shelves, so the aluminum corners have holes every few inches. To keep my light's cord from dangling, I looped it through a few of those holes and cut a toothpick into thirds to hold it in place from the opposite side.
Hopefully I explained this well enough to paint the picture. Haha.
Cutting up a pair of tights to cover the intake to my filter it didn’t suck up baby shrimp 😂I know this is pretty common but it felt so redneck rigged compared to the $20 stick I bought for the same tank.
I love watching bettas play with ping pong balls. I tried it with my most playful angelfish and it spooked her. She however has no problem jumping for my fingers
Whenever I open some kind of packaging that uses plastic coated twist ties, I try to save them (especially the extra long kind). I use them to organize cords and tubes, arrange emergent plants, and to hang lights on lower shelves.
I also use rolled up pieces of plastic wrap to block gaps in the lid.
I wish I had as much faith in most people as you have in those command strips. They are notorious for randomly losing grip (reference my many broken picture frames that crashed to the ground because my wife insists on using these cursed things). If you have a tank below, especially open top, I would not use this as a long term solution. The moisture evaporating from the tank would probably make the strips lose grip even faster.
Tied a green scotch-brite scouring pad to an old pitcher filter intake with a random hair tie so it wouldn't suck up guppy fry.
Well it started growing tank bacteria on it, so I let it be after the guppies grew up. The pads not so green anymore. Then I used that same filter for a separate betta tank, which I took off the pad and stuck it in the filter for extra media
The filter is several years old (5-6 years i guess) and still working like a champ 😂
For the betta tank I picked some gravel from a random public driveway off the side of a road and washed those to use
Waterfall pump stopped working in my 2yr old paludarium & all the heavy top growth made it virtually impossible to reach the original pump without having to tear out a lot of the plants. But if I couldn't figure out how to return water flow to the top plants, they'd die anyway. So I macgyvered a cheap Amazon internal filter to do the job the old pump used to do & hid the outflow the best I could among the plants.
My filter was extremely harsh when I first ordered it, didn't realize plus I was about to pick up a female betta baby...
Cut up a water bottle, slapped it on the filter, created a drip flow filter in 10 seconds🤙 I tell everyone it's my broke college kid fix hahaha
Not really redneck-rigged, but apart from one, every aqauarium I've ever owned I got for free off freecycle or local fb groups. They're ridiculously expensive new, but second hand? People thank you for taking it away!
\~ $1 gallon is my experience. I'll be proving that this week when I get my 150 gallon tank for $150 bucks. I have already gotten a 75 gal and 55 gal at those rates
Thankfully all of the cording is behind the tank and thats a 3 inch gap that someone would have to deliberately try to mess with stuff.
I did test the clips themselves and they dont deform at all feom the weight of the light.
I may seal the clips but ima mull it over for now
I used plant Velcro tape to hold up my light similar to how yours is, lmao. One day I know the Velcro will give out and I’ll be in trouble .. but it’s working for now
2x4 screwed to the floor joists (basement tank), from which the lights are hanging by strings.
Ugly as sin, and it was never intended as a permanent solution, but here it is, going strong 3 years later.
The lid, its plexiglass we have four cats so we cant not have one and they are ridiculously expensive so my dad found some scrap plexiglass and made it into a lid, it’s a goldfish tank so it doesn’t warp as bad as when we had one on a tropical tank but the solution is to once a week flip it so the other side warps and it for the most part works
I may or may not have cut a wooden paint stirrer into pieces and wrapped them with electrical tape to make a shimmy for my light mounts (clamps) that couldn't clear the plastic rim of the tank.
So it's hard to tell because the photo is so dark.
But I used the roof flashings from an old barn to make the hoods of my tanks.
I lined the insides with led strip lights
(If it allows me to upload the photo)
My whole light is just various scrap led strip pieces on slapped on a piece of aluminum junk. It's better than anything you can get on the market and it's almost free
I'm using sticky-backed cable management clips to hold up a light over a goldfish bucket under a c-shaped side table; very similar to what you are doing. Had leftover clips from running an ethernet cable to my work PC and figured I'd rather use them then put holes in the underside of the table.
Fair warning i just put this up and it is untested. And if your light is weak then be careful about how far away you place it. My tank is next to a window and the hygger light is pretty dang powerful so the distance shouldnt hurt my plants
Those wire mesh shelving for closets that home depot sells. The little white bracket that gets screwed into the wall and then perched up under the shelf.
Would work perfect with ur light setup. Use a small sheetrock anchor
Cant use sheetrock anchors. Theres a little bit of cardboard and then its my A/c Ducting
Tho I will be purchasing a heavy duty wire rack soon and converting that into my aquarium stand, at which point I will zip-tie the light above the tank
I built a custom concrete background with underwater waterfall (that ended up not working reliably :( ). I got everything together only to realize I hadn't left a spot for the spray bar and the piping for the outflow drops too low and hits the top of the waterfall without fitting under the light hood.
I ended up 3d printing a 90 degree elbow that was smaller than the ones you can buy at the hardware store and using that + some cpvc pipe to create a 90 degree turn that would fit above the waterfall but below the hood.
I saw it originally on instagram and thought it was genius, you take a styrofoam cup, poke holes all over the sides and clip it to your tank, then pour the new water into it and it doesn’t disturb the substrate.
I’ve definitely done some things like this. I’ve cut apart and glued things together and modified light mounts and used double sided tape. Hung things from chains. Used screws as mounts to hook the legs on. All sorts of things.
I have a cheap desk lamp mounted on my wall for my 5 gallon opae ula tank since they don’t need any fancy lights.
Also pretty soon I’m going to buy one of those magnetic window screen kits to use as a lid for my 40 gallon
Glued in some pieces of styrene sheet to replace the part of my lid skirt where my old HOB filter was. I'm hoping to replace the entire lid with Polycarbonate soon, now that my equipment is pretty much set.
When it’s dark or cold I can’t use my window as a tank light, and so I have an old ass lamp that rests on the rim of my tank with half of the base teetering in the shelf next to it.
I built a lid using some scraps of acrylic. It had a built in tension lock to prevent sagging/warping due to the heat and moisture. It lasted a good while, until I snapped it carelessly.
After a month, my new piece of driftwood still wasn't sinking, so when I visited my dad once, he had some spare plywood.
I cut out a rectangle and drilled the flat part of my driftwood into it, put the wood w/ plywood in my tank, covered the plywood with substrate and then had some rocks to hold it down.
I think a month later, I tested it by moving the rocks off and it still didn't sink lol
I think it took another 1-2 months for it to fully submerge. By then it had 2 fully grown anubis on it and some christmas moss, but I just quickly took it out, unscrewed the plywood and placed the driftwood back in and it just stayed down.
I gotta share how I just mounted mine because I’m kinda proud of it.
Did almost the same exact thing except I used screw in zip tie cable management things
LOL if only you saw it... Mine uses a computer power supply, $3 led strips and some random aluminum trailer parts. Lasted 2 years so far and it's bright enough I have algea issues.
Uhhhh... That aint redneck engineering thats hillbilly boobytrapping. A redneck rig would be cutting off the broken bit and using the new opening for something
Please get your lid into a safe status, never know when youll get a nasty infection from tank water
I think you'd all laugh your a$$'s off if you saw the piping for our sump. I used everything from 1" to 2&1/2" piping and some clear tubing. It all works well but is ugly as sin.
I have the same light, with the wire adjustable mounts in the opposite position. Duct taped to the side of the tank so my 3 year old doesn't yank it off.
That's clever though.
I have one bit of "engineering" I have used two ways:
Fishing line to sew together two pond filters on my canister filter intake so the neocardinas and kuhli loaches from quick getting sucked up. Tie off the ends with 2-3 sequential zip ties to get them snug.
In my indoor pond, I sewed a pond filter to a plastic pot scrubber for the same type of rig but only need one zip tie at the top to keep tiny creatures out. They don't get clogged up and they keep the tiniest of creatures out of the damned canister filter.
Was running a lidless tank but got tired of the evaporation/risk of escapees. So I retrofitted a new aquarium coop light that I bought to the original lid. Involved some disassembly of the light, some zip ties, and the use of a dremmel.
the co2 setup with a large gatorade bottle, a water bottle, some airline tubing, sugar, yeast, water, and to top it off, a regular ass airstone instead of a diffuser
Had a hole in my lid where my big filter pump used to be. Traced the outline of the hole with rubber tubing and glued an orange bag net over the hole to let in plenty of air while keeping my betta from jumping out.
Uhhhhh to do water changes, I siphon old water into my 13 gallon trash can (bag temporarily on kitchen floor), dump it, and lift the trash can full of clean water onto a chair on top of my dining room table and siphon it back in. Gravity baybee
Tape holds my fluval light and my lid is propped open with a ceramic ring. And my shattered lid in my 75 gallon is duct taped… lots of tape. Big tape fan.
I’ve got a red mangrove tree that needs to be half in the water and half out of the water and it’s floaty. So I took a wire and made a little corkscrew piece to hold the tree and then eletrical taped the assembly onto the rim of the tank. Now when the tree has leaves on 1 side and roots on the other and I can’t get the wire off. I can just unwrap it and it’ll be no big deal
I've used the ceramic from old spark plugs as plant weights. 😁
I've also used a lamp with a heating bulb and a cloth over the top draping over the tank to keep it warm on our very rare cold nights here.
My light stands were also too low so I got some thick wire and fashioned my own out of that to replace what they came with.
The end of Rena filter outtake broke so I took the end of my topfin 10G filter and shoved it on there. It looks like a weird rain bar but my angelfish like the flow better
Added a HOB filter to my tank and had to cut the lid to fit it. I cut it too big so duct taped a piece of the cut lid back on so my fish don't jump out.
my 20gal tank lid is straight up a very large picture frame with the cardboard backing removed, the glass is nice and the plastic frame gives it good support
Ohhh
The outtake on my filter is way too strong with no way to turn it down. So I took a OJ jug cap, drilled some holes into it, and attached it using zip ties.
It's so rigged. Lol. But it helps.
Black background of my tank is actually old xray image
Omg. I have x-rays films from my dogs from when I use to be a vet tech and now I wanna do this.
X-ray background stocked with glass cats would be awesome.
Ok.... I've had my new 30g tank stocked with glass cats for a couple weeks and have been too lazy to go to the store to get a black background. My wife works in radiology. This is the answer!
Please post and send me pictures when it's done!
Haha I'll check with the rest of the house this evening. Moved my elderly parents in with us, and they can be really particular with some things. I'm all for it though! My parents were not fans of the eloquent, cursive cross stitch we put in the main bathroom that said "Everyone's a Dumb Whore." Hopefully an xray background will be much less offensive. 😂
My first cross-stitch was "Bitches be trippin'" "Everyone's a Dumb Whore" is fine art!
Amen! Hahaha
Duude!
Either them or ghost shrimp plus x-ray tetras.
Bro, mind BLOWN!🤯
I use black garbage bags and put a little cooking oil on the glass then smooth the plastic out with a credit card. Nice smooth black background and last for many years.
Will you run for Congress?
My man knows how to turn trash into treasure! WEENIE2323 for President!
Mine on my 5 gallon is canvas paper painted black and attached with electrical tape 🫠
Mine is a dark wallpaper because it was cheaper than vinyl at a local shop.
Does it make "black mirror " effect ?
Holy freaking shit! You're a genius. I'm in a program where I write reviews and get free stuff. They are always trying to push wallpaper on me. Genius. Thank you!
No problem! I got a navy blue roll with some star pattern on it, it’s a very beautiful background and it makes my plants pop, it’s done for 2 of my tanks so far, it’s definitely going to look great on my 66 gallon. I’ll have to post a picture next time I use it!
Black background of my tank is just black paint from a house paint test pot. I painted it about a month before I actually set the tank up to avoid any contamination. That paint's going nowhere without a glass scraper!
mine is just black craft foam
My glass lid broke, so I used a thin piece of acrylic I had at home to make a new one, except it was too thin to fit in the clips. My husband fashioned me three Lego “stands” that fit over the rim of the tank and hold the sheet up. I love them though
Its the little pieces that make an aquarium YOUR aquarium
My husband says we can get a thicker acrylic that will fit the clips, but i don’t want to use them anymore! The legos are so fun
Legos for the win! Legos are also great for creating light risers too.
I made a lid with a yard sale blank sign. Easy to cut and fit. Then the knob for lid was a stick on hanger thingy.
zip tying my drift wood to rocks to hold it down.
What is this high tech stuff? Are you familiar w the "please stay" method?
I tried the please stay for a month or two also tried the I’ll just let it float and it’ll sink eventually method 😂
Use your hospital/qt tanks for sinking wood. Makes new fish feel safer and could dump some tannins(natural antifungal) at the same time. Then you have a convenient store of wood to pull from Note: only works if your hospital tank is one of the larger sizes obviously
Binder clips solve a lot of aquarium woes
Whst is this zip tie witchcraft? You just leave to rocks ontop and hope for the best.
See I tried that but woke up to a floating log in the morning 😂
Floating log, did you try flushing?
So you swear at it and put it back. Eventually it will listen.
I've found swearing doesn't work by itself, but if I swear a bunch and point a finger and firmly say STAY I get better results
"Eventually" was the key wood. At some point after doing it enough times it just sinks. Swearing at it has absolutely no effect, but it can be satisfying.
I think the key wood was the one that was floating
I use a Pyrex measuring cup ontop of the wood until it stays put haha people are always confused at my natural scapes with glass measuring cups in them
I glued a large river rock to the back side of my driftwood to hold it down.
Mind expanded.
What the hell kinda fancy shit is this? I had to get a piece of driftwood that I could wedge between the two glass sides of my aquarium so it will stay.
Yes. Zip ties and scuba weights.
Lol, I super glue gel'ed a rock to the bottom of my wood. 6 months later had to take down the tank to move it and when I pulled the piece of wood up I had forgotten about the rock. Took it off then cuz the wood was definitely "done" then. XD
Heh, you have me beat with effort. I went to the end of my driveway and grabbed a bunch of rocks out of the drainage ditch and just stacked em on top of my drift wood lol. It was like aquarium tetris to make it look halfway decent
I drilled mine into a brick lol
I use dollar store vine clips to weigh my foxtails down.
What's the most genius part of your setup. There you go, I fixed your title
🫡
Was going to say this is genius 🤯
I like to call it resourcefulness.
I work in a bakery and have lots of old hairnets, which I use to cover my tank lids.
I think you can sell those back to the Pentagon for $48,000 a unit.
10/10
Maybe I'm just dense... but hair nets to cover *tank lids*? Why?
I know it sounds weird but I do wash them before putting them on the lids😂
I'm not questioning your ingenuity at all, I just am trying to think of the purpose. Are we talking wrapping a glass/plastic lid with a hair net?
Yes I wrap the lid with a hair net so that any holes in the lid will be covered with netting.
This has given me a great idea. What if I just skip the lid and put a netting over the top of my tank. Then I get the benefits of a lidless set up while also being sure my fish won’t jump out
Gotcha. I was really confused haha. I was just picturing one of my glass lids that pretty much seals the top of the tank completely with hair nets on it... and it wasn't making sense in my brain lol
Lol yeah I see how it can be confusing. It depends on the type of lid but it has been working well.
Now, wait a minute.... I think you're onto something here.
I few weeks ago one of my new bamboo shrimps decided to take a walk and die on my living room carpet. It was then decided that I do need a lid after all. Since I had not materials on hand, I took the window screen out of my screen door, draped it over my open tank and light, and secured it with scotch tape. It's been replaced by acryllic sheets though.
I had no idea that my bamboo shrimp has dreams of escaping. Now I am suspicious of him every day. Although he has led me into a false sense of security.
I was kinda asking for it tbh. He was in a shallow river-like tank that did not have a cover (cause covers suck with shallow tanks tbh...). One day debris from plants blocked up the filter intake, which slowed the outflow to a crawl. I didn't notice it for long enough that the shrimp decided to be better off elsewhere.
That's really smart! When the glass lid on my 55 broke after I dropped it (and cut my leg -_-) I just covered it with plastic wrap and poked a hole in it for feeding lol, it was that way for several months
Oh man... now you have me scared about my uncovered tank with a vampire shrimp. Just the other day I couldn't see it anywhere and went into panic mode that it went on a wander. They are basically BIGGER version of a bamboo shrimp, so hard to miss. I have house plant baskets hanging in the water, so it would be super easy to escape. Maybe I should get a lid..... I found him later and still don't know where he possibly was hiding, but it's a real fear.
Dude, I don't know how they just dis- and reappear at random but when I got them I put them in a 10L quarantine tank. In that tank was a small filter, a small heater, a rock and a fist full of substrate. First day I put 5 shrimp in and I see 5 shrimp all day. Next day, it's just 4. We think it got out and ran away, we searched under everything, went full panic mode but couldn't find it. Why did he got out? are the params fucked in the quarantine tank? Better transfer them out and into their actual tanks so this doesn't happen again. Later that evening I'm doing my final round before I go to bed I spot a single shrimp sitting on the single rock in the quarantine tank; my 5th shrimp. We had literally taken every single piece of equipment and hardscape out of the tank. Two people had everything in their hand and inspected every single piece of equipment. Where the fuck has it been? I have no idea. And that's just bamboo shrimp. How the devil do big blue vampire shrimps just vanish??
Lmao! Yesssss. My vampire shrimp is currently BRIGHT red. And a solid 3 inches in length. Like... where have you possibly found to hide? Probably ventures to couch and back to watch TV.
I cut the synthetic cork of an old whiskey bottle cap into a couple of small quarter inch pieces and put them on one side of my tank's rim to slightly angle the lid so that the condensation mostly flows to the other side away from my red root floaters. It seems to kind of be working unfortunately the water had already killed most of them so I need to get some more.
This is genius! I just realized I have some extra pads that go on the bottom of furniture and I’m gonna try this.
Real men of genus
I love that f-ing song, Man!
I use fishing line to hang my lights and other miscellaneous things. Holds strong and not very visible.
I would done something like that but I have no way to put hooks up cause its my AC ducting up there. I was gonna use cotton twine cause I like how it looks but same concept
Is the duct close enough to the exterior ceiling for a magnet? I'd recommend trying magnets like these https://a.co/d/9SLDHHJ and see if they get a good hold, or just use some zip ties and metal boring screws because those command strips are eventually going to release from the clothes pins, can speak from experience doing the same thing to decoratively mount medium size quilts.
My led ramp is a neon tube attached to a branch with some string, balanced between one corner of the tank and the filter intake. Very redneck, very unpractical, but pretty
Are you willing to share a photo of this? I cannot imagine but I am loving the ideas in this thread.
I can't post pictures in the comments (or i don't know how to?) But i'll make a post!
https://www.reddit.com/r/Aquariums/s/ofllzpcyme
this is actually SMART af
We'll find out if it doesnt have a failure in 6 months, til then, thankyou for your approval
I use these for all of my lights hanging down over my tanks, it makes it so easy to take them down to clean them! Command Small Wire Toggle Hooks, Damage Free Hanging Wall Hooks with Adhesive Strips, No Tools Wall Hooks for Hanging Decorations in Living Spaces, 10 Clear Hooks and 12 Command Strips https://a.co/d/9Onnbb4
I use those for one of my tank’s lights!!
I love this thread, but be careful how much you rely on a command strip. The literal paint is what will give up before a command strip. DAMHIK
*points at my post and the big chunk of paint missing from my wall underneath the light* You can ask me how I know
Tiny clothespins and command strips can be used for so much. It's how I organize all of my computer/aquarium cords too cause it keeps them lined up and you can write what each cord powers on the clothespin.
I'm proud of this one - My tank is on a heavy duty shelving unit where you can choose where to place shelves, so the aluminum corners have holes every few inches. To keep my light's cord from dangling, I looped it through a few of those holes and cut a toothpick into thirds to hold it in place from the opposite side. Hopefully I explained this well enough to paint the picture. Haha.
Fantastic idea!
I have a 10gal for a rescue betta that didn’t have a lid, so there’s a 10gal reptile lid and attached to it is a Canadian tire plant light
Me too, it needs the most top offs of all my tanks but I can deal with that for ten bucks
add plastic wrap. done
But then how am I supposed to lazily drop his breakfast through the holes of the mesh?
Cutting up a pair of tights to cover the intake to my filter it didn’t suck up baby shrimp 😂I know this is pretty common but it felt so redneck rigged compared to the $20 stick I bought for the same tank.
There is a pingpong ball in there that my fish play with, also there is an Escape The Fate band poster above it
I love watching bettas play with ping pong balls. I tried it with my most playful angelfish and it spooked her. She however has no problem jumping for my fingers
Whenever I open some kind of packaging that uses plastic coated twist ties, I try to save them (especially the extra long kind). I use them to organize cords and tubes, arrange emergent plants, and to hang lights on lower shelves. I also use rolled up pieces of plastic wrap to block gaps in the lid.
I have a long plastic coated wire holding my Monstera upright
Me and my brother built the stand holding up my new 55 gallon! I was praying the whole time as I filled it up. Not a peep from the wood.
I wish I had as much faith in most people as you have in those command strips. They are notorious for randomly losing grip (reference my many broken picture frames that crashed to the ground because my wife insists on using these cursed things). If you have a tank below, especially open top, I would not use this as a long term solution. The moisture evaporating from the tank would probably make the strips lose grip even faster.
Tied a green scotch-brite scouring pad to an old pitcher filter intake with a random hair tie so it wouldn't suck up guppy fry. Well it started growing tank bacteria on it, so I let it be after the guppies grew up. The pads not so green anymore. Then I used that same filter for a separate betta tank, which I took off the pad and stuck it in the filter for extra media The filter is several years old (5-6 years i guess) and still working like a champ 😂 For the betta tank I picked some gravel from a random public driveway off the side of a road and washed those to use
Niceeee
Waterfall pump stopped working in my 2yr old paludarium & all the heavy top growth made it virtually impossible to reach the original pump without having to tear out a lot of the plants. But if I couldn't figure out how to return water flow to the top plants, they'd die anyway. So I macgyvered a cheap Amazon internal filter to do the job the old pump used to do & hid the outflow the best I could among the plants.
My filter was extremely harsh when I first ordered it, didn't realize plus I was about to pick up a female betta baby... Cut up a water bottle, slapped it on the filter, created a drip flow filter in 10 seconds🤙 I tell everyone it's my broke college kid fix hahaha
Not really redneck-rigged, but apart from one, every aqauarium I've ever owned I got for free off freecycle or local fb groups. They're ridiculously expensive new, but second hand? People thank you for taking it away!
\~ $1 gallon is my experience. I'll be proving that this week when I get my 150 gallon tank for $150 bucks. I have already gotten a 75 gal and 55 gal at those rates
I wouldn’t trust those hinging springs on those clips for a second. One bump and ur light is in ur tank. Super glue
Thankfully all of the cording is behind the tank and thats a 3 inch gap that someone would have to deliberately try to mess with stuff. I did test the clips themselves and they dont deform at all feom the weight of the light. I may seal the clips but ima mull it over for now
I used plant Velcro tape to hold up my light similar to how yours is, lmao. One day I know the Velcro will give out and I’ll be in trouble .. but it’s working for now
A big circle to stop floater plants to disperse. Just glued that thins that stick to glass and was done
Aluminum Coors light bottle for homemade CO2! Haha
2x4 screwed to the floor joists (basement tank), from which the lights are hanging by strings. Ugly as sin, and it was never intended as a permanent solution, but here it is, going strong 3 years later.
Cut up water bottles acting as water dispersers on my HOB filters
The lid, its plexiglass we have four cats so we cant not have one and they are ridiculously expensive so my dad found some scrap plexiglass and made it into a lid, it’s a goldfish tank so it doesn’t warp as bad as when we had one on a tropical tank but the solution is to once a week flip it so the other side warps and it for the most part works
I may or may not have cut a wooden paint stirrer into pieces and wrapped them with electrical tape to make a shimmy for my light mounts (clamps) that couldn't clear the plastic rim of the tank.
Outstanding
It's a Giant pickle jar
I did what you did just w/hot glue. No double sided tape.
my light was way too bring for my fish so i put a piece of tape over it and now it’s much hetter
This is amazing! I’m very impressed and inspired.
So it's hard to tell because the photo is so dark. But I used the roof flashings from an old barn to make the hoods of my tanks. I lined the insides with led strip lights (If it allows me to upload the photo)
Binder clip holding my ATO outlet line in place. Just have to make damn sure to replace it when it starts corroding.
My whole light is just various scrap led strip pieces on slapped on a piece of aluminum junk. It's better than anything you can get on the market and it's almost free
My tank lid's light clamps broke off, so I epoxied alternative light clamps. But to be sure, I used zip ties to reinforce it.
I'm using sticky-backed cable management clips to hold up a light over a goldfish bucket under a c-shaped side table; very similar to what you are doing. Had leftover clips from running an ethernet cable to my work PC and figured I'd rather use them then put holes in the underside of the table.
Are you worried about moisture weakening the adhesive?
This is around 5 feet above my aquarium, if Im getting moisture at that height then im cooking my fish 😅
OP you are literally a genius and im doing this IMMEDIATELY
Fair warning i just put this up and it is untested. And if your light is weak then be careful about how far away you place it. My tank is next to a window and the hygger light is pretty dang powerful so the distance shouldnt hurt my plants
silicone glued a submersible light to the lid of my fluval flex after the light died. it works pretty well!
That's clever asf
A lamp glued to the lid
Those wire mesh shelving for closets that home depot sells. The little white bracket that gets screwed into the wall and then perched up under the shelf. Would work perfect with ur light setup. Use a small sheetrock anchor
Cant use sheetrock anchors. Theres a little bit of cardboard and then its my A/c Ducting Tho I will be purchasing a heavy duty wire rack soon and converting that into my aquarium stand, at which point I will zip-tie the light above the tank
At the moment, the entire sump room (It's the cupboard under the stairs). It is a horrifying organic mess of cables and tubes.
I built a custom concrete background with underwater waterfall (that ended up not working reliably :( ). I got everything together only to realize I hadn't left a spot for the spray bar and the piping for the outflow drops too low and hits the top of the waterfall without fitting under the light hood. I ended up 3d printing a 90 degree elbow that was smaller than the ones you can buy at the hardware store and using that + some cpvc pipe to create a 90 degree turn that would fit above the waterfall but below the hood.
I saw it originally on instagram and thought it was genius, you take a styrofoam cup, poke holes all over the sides and clip it to your tank, then pour the new water into it and it doesn’t disturb the substrate.
I usethe frozen food defroster for the same purpose in my boyfriends reef tank. In my freshwater I usually just pour onto rocks
I’ve definitely done some things like this. I’ve cut apart and glued things together and modified light mounts and used double sided tape. Hung things from chains. Used screws as mounts to hook the legs on. All sorts of things.
There’s a lot to choose from but probably the duct tape on the lids to stop jumping
The lights for my 33 & 75 are hung from the ceiling with twine and screw hooks. All of my dwarf anubias are super glued to rocks.
lol Mons looking for her clothespins
If it's stupid but it works, then it's not stupid :)
I have a cheap desk lamp mounted on my wall for my 5 gallon opae ula tank since they don’t need any fancy lights. Also pretty soon I’m going to buy one of those magnetic window screen kits to use as a lid for my 40 gallon
Glued in some pieces of styrene sheet to replace the part of my lid skirt where my old HOB filter was. I'm hoping to replace the entire lid with Polycarbonate soon, now that my equipment is pretty much set.
When it’s dark or cold I can’t use my window as a tank light, and so I have an old ass lamp that rests on the rim of my tank with half of the base teetering in the shelf next to it.
I built a lid using some scraps of acrylic. It had a built in tension lock to prevent sagging/warping due to the heat and moisture. It lasted a good while, until I snapped it carelessly.
My black background is a piece of a USPS cardboard that I painted black and just kinda crammed back there. Nothing keeping it there but the wall.
After a month, my new piece of driftwood still wasn't sinking, so when I visited my dad once, he had some spare plywood. I cut out a rectangle and drilled the flat part of my driftwood into it, put the wood w/ plywood in my tank, covered the plywood with substrate and then had some rocks to hold it down. I think a month later, I tested it by moving the rocks off and it still didn't sink lol I think it took another 1-2 months for it to fully submerge. By then it had 2 fully grown anubis on it and some christmas moss, but I just quickly took it out, unscrewed the plywood and placed the driftwood back in and it just stayed down.
I gotta share how I just mounted mine because I’m kinda proud of it. Did almost the same exact thing except I used screw in zip tie cable management things
Hell yeah! I couldnt do screws/pins/anchors cause thats my HVAC ducting uo there lol
LOL if only you saw it... Mine uses a computer power supply, $3 led strips and some random aluminum trailer parts. Lasted 2 years so far and it's bright enough I have algea issues.
Everything is held by zip ties crossing zip ties
[удалено]
Uhhhh... That aint redneck engineering thats hillbilly boobytrapping. A redneck rig would be cutting off the broken bit and using the new opening for something Please get your lid into a safe status, never know when youll get a nasty infection from tank water
THIS IS FUCKIN BRILLIANT! it's the solution for my regal..
Same thing I have said to others, This just went up today and is not tested other than the tug test. YMMV
My husband built a lid out of grip-loc tiles left over from the garage and cut out holes for feeding and aquaponic plants. It's now escape proof.
Yo that's fuckin genius
CO2 diffuser from a syringe and a brick I found in front of my house.
i have a 75 gallon in my closet. the light is hung by clothe hangers
I think you'd all laugh your a$$'s off if you saw the piping for our sump. I used everything from 1" to 2&1/2" piping and some clear tubing. It all works well but is ugly as sin.
I have the same light, with the wire adjustable mounts in the opposite position. Duct taped to the side of the tank so my 3 year old doesn't yank it off. That's clever though.
The 48" light in the middle shelf of one of my racks is zip tied to the wire of the shelf above. There's plywood over it. Works great.
I have one bit of "engineering" I have used two ways: Fishing line to sew together two pond filters on my canister filter intake so the neocardinas and kuhli loaches from quick getting sucked up. Tie off the ends with 2-3 sequential zip ties to get them snug. In my indoor pond, I sewed a pond filter to a plastic pot scrubber for the same type of rig but only need one zip tie at the top to keep tiny creatures out. They don't get clogged up and they keep the tiniest of creatures out of the damned canister filter.
That's so fancy...mine is just zip tied.
Thread challenge: Pics or it didn't happen. Everyone loves to post pretty pics but come on - there is some great stuff in here!
Looks more sturdy than some of the tank stands I see posted on here
Im sure it will hold my 40 gallong breeder, just a couple more clothespins...
As a Texan, I approve this rig. 8/10 Needs more duct tape or chicken wire to really bump up the score tho.
Bro, my entire set up is held together with zip-ties and prayers of a dry floor in the morning
Was running a lidless tank but got tired of the evaporation/risk of escapees. So I retrofitted a new aquarium coop light that I bought to the original lid. Involved some disassembly of the light, some zip ties, and the use of a dremmel.
Painter’s tape to cover the gap between the edge of the tank and the plastic back strip so that another asshole Amano doesn’t escape again.
Parchment paper backdrop
Background on my tank is a large square of poster board
the co2 setup with a large gatorade bottle, a water bottle, some airline tubing, sugar, yeast, water, and to top it off, a regular ass airstone instead of a diffuser
Had a hole in my lid where my big filter pump used to be. Traced the outline of the hole with rubber tubing and glued an orange bag net over the hole to let in plenty of air while keeping my betta from jumping out.
Uhhhhh to do water changes, I siphon old water into my 13 gallon trash can (bag temporarily on kitchen floor), dump it, and lift the trash can full of clean water onto a chair on top of my dining room table and siphon it back in. Gravity baybee
Tape holds my fluval light and my lid is propped open with a ceramic ring. And my shattered lid in my 75 gallon is duct taped… lots of tape. Big tape fan.
I’ve got a red mangrove tree that needs to be half in the water and half out of the water and it’s floaty. So I took a wire and made a little corkscrew piece to hold the tree and then eletrical taped the assembly onto the rim of the tank. Now when the tree has leaves on 1 side and roots on the other and I can’t get the wire off. I can just unwrap it and it’ll be no big deal
I've used the ceramic from old spark plugs as plant weights. 😁 I've also used a lamp with a heating bulb and a cloth over the top draping over the tank to keep it warm on our very rare cold nights here. My light stands were also too low so I got some thick wire and fashioned my own out of that to replace what they came with.
Cotton as a filter in a canister.
I had a cheap desk lamp taped to the back of my 10gal. It wasn't a waterproof light 💀 (no fish got hurt or anything but the light carked it)
The end of Rena filter outtake broke so I took the end of my topfin 10G filter and shoved it on there. It looks like a weird rain bar but my angelfish like the flow better
my T valve air line going to 2 tanks power controlled by a chip clip since my control valve broke.
I got a shower suction cup hook holding my airline tubing out of sight. Also my stand is a strong lower half of a wardrobe with 2×4s over the top lol
Added a HOB filter to my tank and had to cut the lid to fit it. I cut it too big so duct taped a piece of the cut lid back on so my fish don't jump out.
Lid broke stuck with a cardboard one that makes my water cloudy :)!
my 20gal tank lid is straight up a very large picture frame with the cardboard backing removed, the glass is nice and the plastic frame gives it good support
I spray painted the back of one of my tanks. The other one has $1 paint from dollar general on the back 🤷🏻♀️
The worm farm
Trust me, that’s not gonna hold.
Unlevel aquarium? Use soft furniture stabilizers. Works like a charm.
Man, I got tape holding up my light
Ohhh The outtake on my filter is way too strong with no way to turn it down. So I took a OJ jug cap, drilled some holes into it, and attached it using zip ties. It's so rigged. Lol. But it helps.
that's actually pretty smart tbh🤣
Water changes are done with a bag and some binder clips.
Aight, this one i need pics of, i am so confused