Diy frag rack for show tank

[cilyjr]

Hi all.
I recently purchased a frag tank from advanced acrylic. I priced out building my own from a local acrylics store and it was actually about 25 bucks cheaper to buy built!

I made a few quick racks to test my set up and breakdown which went well. I set up at the December meeting. But some of the corals fell out during travel and a few even broke off of their plugs.

I had an idea to sandwich a piece of epdm liner between acrylic sheets and the rubber will hold the plugs firmly in the holes.

1st stop my local plastics shop (shout out to laird plastics in Warwick they always have cut off scraps for 20 bucks or less!

Then off to my friends (@jason401) machine shop to mill the acrylic as these need 100% identical.
Here's the computerized Bridgeport milling machine

There they are done. I'm going to punch the rubber this week. Originally I was going to thread the small holes and use nylon screws but it became easier just to buy nylon nuts ($ 6.00 for 100)

More to follow when I punch the epdm pond liner

 

[WoodRiverTroutBum]

Woohoo glad to see fellow Rhode islanders, especially ones in to building stuff! I will have to check out laird plastics, I just ordered two intank media baskets for my Fluval evo but wouldn' mind making my own.

 

[Phinfan]

Jason401 great guy

 

[jason401]

Looking forward to seeing finished product!!

 

[cilyjr]

I got 1 done. I Used a leather punch to put the holes in the epdm. 1/8 for the screw holes and and 5/16 for the plug holes. The acrylic was bored out at 17/32 rather than 1/2 inch to allow for the rubber.

The main reason I wanted to make these was because they fit perfectly into these white tubs that I get fish delivered to the restaurant in. They seal watertight and two of them fit perfectly into a foam cooler that I have. Here it is snuggly fit into the white tub with all the holes punched.

 

[jason401]

How does the plug fit with rubber clearance?

 

[cilyjr]

Perfect. I didn't even need to cut slots in the remainder.

 

[cilyjr]

Finished and in display.

 

[cilyjr]

I'm also changing my home connected frag tank to a tank that will fit 4 of these side by side. I'll use the old ones that were not machined and maybe jay will let me mill 2 more regular ones in a few weeks?!

 

[jason401]

Absolutely, we'll set something up. They look great!

If you put some frags in it and hold it upside down, will they hold?

 

[cilyjr]

Yes. This is upside down.