Rebuilding an old abandoned 29g

Quick, easy and harmless to human bone coverings way to keep fish in the aquarium, doesn't block out light, has a feeding flap....and dead easy/light to use....

Condensation covers made of strong but flexy clear plastic....either one to fit the entire top or two that can be lifted or can slide across onto the other

Extremely cheap to buy, can be cut with normal kitchen scissors to accommodate filters, heaters and cables

Thanks for the tip! I will probably still try to do a diy lid for the 29 just for fun, but it's a perfect solution for my 10g QT! Thanks!

I had never heard of that website, I definitely need to give them a close look!
 
don't think of having some sharp glass edges near of you please!
In terms of the glass edges, a friend suggested contacting local glass shops. They have whatever thickness I need, can cut the glass and polish the edges so they are nice and smooth, and my friend thinks they are not more expensive that Lowe's or home Depot. I have reached out to a couple to find out. Will keep you posted!
 
In terms of the glass edges, a friend suggested contacting local glass shops. They have whatever thickness I need, can cut the glass and polish the edges so they are nice and smooth, and my friend thinks they are not more expensive that Lowe's or home Depot. I have reached out to a couple to find out. Will keep you posted!
Interesting! 👍👍👍 Please do keep us posted.
 
I want to say something about that "Flourish Excel". Are you aware, my dear wgoldfarb, what kind of substance is this actually? In case you don't, I'll say it to you, it's called Glutaraldehyde which is a high toxic stuff and in my opinion shouldn't be used in normal aquariums, it's actually an algae killer that can also affect mosses and ferns, I've never used such things. Besides you can buy this stuff in the pharmacy for only 1/10 of the Seachem price (needs to be well diluted with water). My only fertilizer is "Profito" from EasyLife, an european producer from The Netherlands, contains potassium from the macros (no phosphat or nitrogen) and micronutrients as well as trace elements, more is not needed (in my opinion).

Just as Jenny do I find a good idea to have terrestrial plants with their roots in the tank (I have some too), I have read that the ivy the most recommendable is of all, even the NASA has made some studies about air-cleaning plants and they found out that ivy can absorb most of the poissons and chemistry that are in human dwellings, this plant is recommended to be cultivated in space! And for nitrate and phosphat the best, anyway.
 
You are most likely correct. The outside ivy will repay my kindness for rescuing it from the snow by dying inside. I‘ll pick up a pot at Lowe’s soon.
 
It is possible to polish the edges of glass with water sand paper, I've read this today and i need to buy a piece (not more than 80 cents!)
Yes, it's possible, and not difficult, just wear a mask and protective eye glasses because sanding glass turns it into very fine dust. See if you can find a "sanding sponge" , makes sanding glass a bit safer and easier.

Edit: and gloves too! So you don't get cut with the sharp edges you are sanding :)
 
Thanks for the tip, will hoard for future reference .
I‘ve decided to buy the 3 section glass hinged lid for the 125 G I’m waiting for. It’s so big, online video people were making lids for several 10 G tanks.

Please see my new thread on the tank protect & let me know if you have any suggestion. Stymied by the filters.
 
Thanks for the tip, will hoard for future reference .
I‘ve decided to buy the 3 section glass hinged lid for the 125 G I’m waiting for. It’s so big, online video people were making lids for several 10 G tanks.

Please see my new thread on the tank protect & let me know if you have any suggestion. Stymied by the filters.
You started a journal! Heading over there right now.
 
I started making my lid today following a design similar to the one in the videos posted above, but with a minor modification. I did make a few design mistakes along the way which were thankfully easy to fix. It's not finished yet, as I'm waiting for some small parts from Amazon, but here is what I have done, along with the mistakes I made, and how I fixed them.

The local glass shops were a no go. They wanted to charge me a minimum "service fee" of over $100 regardless of the size of the glass.:mad: Obviously this was a non starter, so I just got the glass from Lowe's, and they made all the cuts for free. The only drawback is that their glass is 3/32" thick. I would have preferred 1/8" glass, but Lowe's doesn't carry it and other stores wouldn't cut the glass for me (and I definitely did not want to mess with trying to cut glass). My tank opening isn't large enough for this to be an issue, but I would very strongly suggest using 1/8" glass particularly if you are building this for anything larger than a 29 gallon (but read ahead for a caution if you do use 1/8" glass).

All the videos I saw use this corner moulding piece to build the lid. I had two concerns. One was that the cut glass has rough edges/corners which could "catch" on the plastic while sliding. I was also concerned about the safety of handling the glass. So, I added this J shaped moulding piece to use on the sides of the sliding glass. The idea is to allow the glass to slide more easily on top of the other plastic piece.

Here is a photo of both pieces so you can see their profiles, and a picture of how I plan to stack them:

IMG_20211129_193731_Bokeh__01.jpg
IMG_20211129_193819_Bokeh__01__01.jpg


They are sold in 8' lengths so you can make several lids out of one piece. Or, as I would discover, this gives you a chance to mess everything up and still have enough left to start over.😁

Next I needed to figure out exact dimensions. My tank opening measures 11.5" front-to-back. I wanted the two pieces of glass to overlap about 1/2", which means the total width of the combined lid pieces would be around 12". For the back edge of the lid I'm using this self-adhesive plastic weatherstripping, because it will allow me to cut openings for my filter hoses. The non-adhesive part is 30mm wide (1.18 inches) so the two glass pieces had to be: 12"-1.18" , which I rounded up to 11" (rounding up just meant I would have a slightly larger overlap of 0.68" instead of 1/2"). Instead of making two equal glass pieces of 5.5" each, I chose to make the back piece a bit larger so my light could sit completely above this piece and still be close to the center. So I made the widths 5" for the front piece and 6" for the back piece (I didn't want to make the front piece smaller than this to leave a comfortable opening for water changes).

The side-to-side dimension was trickier because it had to be more exact. The side-to side opening is 29 3/16". At the store I measured the thickness of the plastic pieces I'm using to be using just shy of 1/16". My design, as I mentioned, uses two pieces, so the total thickness of the plastic was a bit less than 2/16"on each side. That means the glass had to be 29 3/16 - 4/16 = 28 15/16 (I rounded up the plastic thickness to the full 2/16 because an error in this direction wasn't a big deal, but an error in the other direction would mean the glass wouldn't fit). So I had Lowe's cut the two pieces as 28 15/16" x 6" and 28 15/16" x 5".

The first thing I did was to sand the edge of the glass to make it safe to handle. I used a 120 grit sanding sponge (like this one). If you do this, wear a mask, safety glasses and gloves. The glass IS sharp from the cut, and sanding produces very fine glass dust you don't want on your eyes or lungs! Thanks to COVID I had masks at home.😷😁

I then used krylon fusion spray paint to paint the pieces black, which is the color of my tank frame. I figured I'd paint them before cutting, which was a mistake. All the handling I did to cut the pieces afterwards scratched the paint. So first lesson: cut first, paint later. But read ahead before you paint anything, because painting the pieces turned out to be another mistake.

I cut the pieces to the right lengths (using pruning shears!) and then assembled the moving section of the lid:

IMG_20211129_193508__01.jpg


The 3/32 glass fits nicely in the opening of the plastic pieces, but not snugly. It works well, but for added safety I will silicone the piece in place before I'm finished (CAUTION if you do this with 1/8" glass: the groove in the "J" shaped piece is narrower than the groove in the other piece. Check at the store to make sure the glass fits in the groove of the "J" piece, it might not! They do sell J shaped pieces with wider grooves).

Here is a detail view of how the glass fits in the groove:
IMG_20211129_194842__01.jpg

Then I placed the whole assembly on the tank. Even though the fit isn't snug, the whole thing is quite stable. Still, I'll feel much better once everything is siliconed in place (this is my old tank, which is why it's painted black 🙂):
IMG_20211129_195731__01.jpg

And here is when I realized my design had a significant flaw. The paint on the plastic pieces makes them stick to each other so they do not glide easily at all. I realized that the two surfaces of the plastic that slide against each other cannot be painted if they are to slide freely. Luckily I have plenty of plastic left so I cut new pieces, and this time I used them without paint:
IMG_20211129_200236__01.jpg

Now they slide quite easily! Tomorrow I will paint the pieces, but covering the surfaces that slide against other with tape so they remain paint-free. It means that if you look at the tank from the top you will see the white plastic of the bottom piece, but since the lid of my tank sits slightly above eye level, nobody will be able to see this. If your tank is acrylic or frameless you can just leave them white.

One drawback of using the two pieces of plastic this way is that it makes the gap between the two glass pieces wider. There is a gap of 3/16" between both panes. Probably not a big deal, bit I will use something like this to cover it. I will stick it to the bottom piece of glass at the front edge to "seal" the gap.

I will wait until I get the weatherstripping from Amazon to silicone everything in place and finish the lid.

One note: an advantage of the loose fit between the glass and the plastic is that the glass piece inside the groove (i.e. the bottom piece, which I placed in the back) slides very easily inside the groove. You could make the bottom piece the one that slides (i.e. make it the front piece) and put the top piece in the back, fixed. I was going to try this but it creates 3 problems: first, if you do this you won't be able to use the second piece of plastic (the"J" shaped piece) and the glass could "catch" on the plastic as it slides. Second, It would be impossible to remove the front piece without removing the entire lid. Third, and most important, if the bottom piece is the one that slides, the handle on the lid would prevent that bottom piece from sliding all the way back, and the opening would be narrower this way. If the sliding glass is on top you can slide it all the way back and have a bigger opening.

Once I receive the weatherstripping from Amazon I will post the finished product!
 
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Oh my dear, I have still so much to work with the google translater! Isn't funny! But so I keep learning. Just to say you that, if you are using silicon for aquaristic purposes, you only can use this one which is exclusively made for this purpose, probably you know this already but just in case..., there is only this one kind of silicone that can be used and that is the one for aquariums (others may be and will be toxic). The same thing should be considered from the paintings you could use, I don't like to have some of this stories near the water of my tanks (excuse my wgoldfarb surely you know all of this issues PERO POR SI ACASO).

I've got a funny tank last (black) friday just from the alley (no costs), I've saved and brought it along to my home (y me duelen aún los huesos viejo!), I'm wating for some sunshine to shoot a couple of photos I want to show you and Jenny and whoever wants, it is a hexagonal tank with the bottom entirely made of thick plastic, 117 L and can be filled with 105 L net of water, I'll realize a little nice proyect out of it soon, maybe next year (probably the last proyect at all).

Well I'm hearing on TV right now the russians are coming to the ucranian border with masses of tanks (rolling, fire shooting tanks, not like ours), soldiers and a lot of everything, It's a matter to be a little concerned, the NATO is already in high alert, and you know that's really not far from here, well we'll see, possibly something is going to happen soon (in case you don't hear anything from me in the near future, you do know why). Don't worry. be happy, hasta la vista!
 
Oh my dear, I have still so much to work with the google translater! Isn't funny! But so I keep learning. Just to say you that, if you are using silicon for aquaristic purposes, you only can use this one which is exclusively made for this purpose, probably you know this already but just in case..., there is only this one kind of silicone that can be used and that is the one for aquariums (others may be and will be toxic). The same thing should be considered from the paintings you could use, I don't like to have some of this stories near the water of my tanks (excuse my wgoldfarb surely you know all of this issues PERO POR SI ACASO).

I've got a funny tank last (black) friday just from the alley (no costs), I've saved and brought it along to my home (y me duelen aún los huesos viejo!), I'm wating for some sunshine to shoot a couple of photos I want to show you and Jenny and whoever wants, it is a hexagonal tank with the bottom entirely made of thick plastic, 117 L and can be filled with 105 L net of water, I'll realize a little nice proyect out of it soon, maybe next year (probably the last proyect at all).

Well I'm hearing on TV right now the russians are coming to the ucranian border with masses of tanks (rolling, fire shooting tanks, not like ours), soldiers and a lot of everything, It's a matter to be a little concerned, the NATO is already in high alert, and you know that's really not far from here, well we'll see, possibly something is going to happen soon (in case you don't hear anything from me in the near future, you do know why). Don't worry. be happy, hasta la vista!
Looking forward to seeing pictures of your new tank! (The fish tank, not the tanks at the Ukrainian border! :oops:)
 
I started making my lid today following a design similar to the one in the videos posted above, but with a minor modification. I did make a few design mistakes along the way which were thankfully easy to fix. It's not finished yet, as I'm waiting for some small parts from Amazon, but here is what I have done, along with the mistakes I made, and how I fixed them.

The local glass shops were a no go. They wanted to charge me a minimum "service fee" of over $100 regardless of the size of the glass.:mad: Obviously this was a non starter, so I just got the glass from Lowe's, and they made all the cuts for free. The only drawback is that their glass is 3/32" thick. I would have preferred 1/8" glass, but Lowe's doesn't carry it and other stores wouldn't cut the glass for me (and I definitely did not want to mess with trying to cut glass). My tank opening isn't large enough for this to be an issue, but I would very strongly suggest using 1/8" glass particularly if you are building this for anything larger than a 29 gallon (but read ahead for a caution if you do use 1/8" glass).

All the videos I saw use this corner moulding piece to build the lid. I had two concerns. One was that the cut glass has rough edges/corners which could "catch" on the plastic while sliding. I was also concerned about the safety of handling the glass. So, I added this J shaped moulding piece to use on the sides of the sliding glass. The idea is to allow the glass to slide more easily on top of the other plastic piece.

Here is a photo of both pieces so you can see their profiles, and a picture of how I plan to stack them:

View attachment 149043View attachment 149049

They are sold in 8' lengths so you can make several lids out of one piece. Or, as I would discover, this gives you a chance to mess everything up and still have enough left to start over.😁

Next I needed to figure out exact dimensions. My tank opening measures 11.5" front-to-back. I wanted the two pieces of glass to overlap about 1/2", which means the total width of the combined lid pieces would be around 12". For the back edge of the lid I'm using this self-adhesive plastic weatherstripping, because it will allow me to cut openings for my filter hoses. The non-adhesive part is 30mm wide (1.18 inches) so the two glass pieces had to be: 12"-1.18" , which I rounded up to 11" (rounding up just meant I would have a slightly larger overlap of 0.68" instead of 1/2"). Instead of making two equal glass pieces of 5.5" each, I chose to make the back piece a bit larger so my light could sit completely above this piece and still be close to the center. So I made the widths 5" for the front piece and 6" for the back piece (I didn't want to make the front piece smaller than this to leave a comfortable opening for water changes).

The side-to-side dimension was trickier because it had to be more exact. The side-to side opening is 29 3/16". At the store I measured the thickness of the plastic pieces I'm using to be using just shy of 1/16". My design, as I mentioned, uses two pieces, so the total thickness of the plastic was a bit less than 2/16"on each side. That means the glass had to be 29 3/16 - 4/16 = 28 15/16 (I rounded up the plastic thickness to the full 2/16 because an error in this direction wasn't a big deal, but an error in the other direction would mean the glass wouldn't fit). So I had Lowe's cut the two pieces as 28 15/16" x 6" and 28 15/16" x 5".

The first thing I did was to sand the edge of the glass to make it safe to handle. I used a 120 grit sanding sponge (like this one). If you do this, wear a mask, safety glasses and gloves. The glass IS sharp from the cut, and sanding produces very fine glass dust you don't want on your eyes or lungs! Thanks to COVID I had masks at home.😷😁

I then used krylon fusion spray paint to paint the pieces black, which is the color of my tank frame. I figured I'd paint them before cutting, which was a mistake. All the handling I did to cut the pieces afterwards scratched the paint. So first lesson: cut first, paint later. But read ahead before you paint anything, because painting the pieces turned out to be another mistake.

I cut the pieces to the right lengths (using pruning shears!) and then assembled the moving section of the lid:

View attachment 149050

The 3/32 glass fits nicely in the opening of the plastic pieces, but not snugly. It works well, but for added safety I will silicone the piece in place before I'm finished (CAUTION if you do this with 1/8" glass: the groove in the "J" shaped piece is narrower than the groove in the other piece. Check at the store to make sure the glass fits in the groove of the "J" piece, it might not! They do sell J shaped pieces with wider grooves).

Here is a detail view of how the glass fits in the groove:
View attachment 149053
Then I placed the whole assembly on the tank. Even though the fit isn't snug, the whole thing is quite stable. Still, I'll feel much better once everything is siliconed in place (this is my old tank, which is why it's painted black 🙂):
View attachment 149054
And here is when I realized my design had a significant flaw. The paint on the plastic pieces makes them stick to each other so they do not glide easily at all. I realized that the two surfaces of the plastic that slide against each other cannot be painted if they are to slide freely. Luckily I have plenty of plastic left so I cut new pieces, and this time I used them without paint:
View attachment 149055
Now they slide quite easily! Tomorrow I will paint the pieces, but covering the surfaces that slide against other with tape so they remain paint-free. It means that if you look at the tank from the top you will see the white plastic of the bottom piece, but since the lid of my tank sits slightly above eye level, nobody will be able to see this. If your tank is acrylic or frameless you can just leave them white.

One drawback of using the two pieces of plastic this way is that it makes the gap between the two glass pieces wider. There is a gap of 3/16" between both panes. Probably not a big deal, bit I will use something like this to cover it. I will stick it to the bottom piece of glass at the front edge to "seal" the gap.

I will wait until I get the weatherstripping from Amazon to silicone everything in place and finish the lid.

One note: an advantage of the loose fit between the glass and the plastic is that the glass piece inside the groove (i.e. the bottom piece, which I placed in the back) slides very easily inside the groove. You could make the bottom piece the one that slides (i.e. make it the front piece) and put the top piece in the back, fixed. I was going to try this but it creates 3 problems: first, if you do this you won't be able to use the second piece of plastic (the"J" shaped piece) and the glass could "catch" on the plastic as it slides. Second, It would be impossible to remove the front piece without removing the entire lid. Third, and most important, if the bottom piece is the one that slides, the handle on the lid would prevent that bottom piece from sliding all the way back, and the opening would be narrower this way. If the sliding glass is on top you can slide it all the way back and have a bigger opening.

Once I receive the weatherstripping from Amazon I will post the finished product!
Looking good! 👍👍👍
 

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