marc111
12/31/2009, 06:54 PM
I really do not like the sight of exposed pumps in the tank. While I like the Tunze Rock idea the cost and restrictionto one shape bugged me. Soo I decided to make my own. I first tried a plastic bowl as a form and attached rock with fishing line. Un fortunately this made the shape too regular.
What worked was to use the nylon web that is used for needle point. This is flexible, cheap and can easilly be cut with sissors. You can shape it into rounded shapes by cutting slits and overlapping things. Then you tie the piece in place with some fishing lline. Once you have the basic shape you attach rocks with some more fishing line. The idea is to use the foam and rock approach to create the housing. Make sure to use lots of rock so you do not create something that floats.
Once foamed your housing will look something like this. Here is the front view.
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f218/marc_david/Fish%20Tank/PumpHousingFront.jpg
And a side view.
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f218/marc_david/Fish%20Tank/PumpHousingSide.jpg
Finally this is the inside view. Here you can see the original mesh support strcture. The nice thing is that once this sets up you can clip and pull out the fishing line and trim off any excess mesh so that the only thing that shows is your rockwork.
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f218/marc_david/Fish%20Tank/PumpHousingInside.jpg
One other thought. As a stand alone pump housing you want areas for the water to enter. These are easy to create by simply not foaming some of the holes between the rocks and then dremmeling out the mesh from the inside to match. Likewise areas of the bottom edge can be cut away as Tunze does to create additional water inlets. One advantage of this approach is you can make more surrounding and / or two part housings that allow for more possibilities that the original Tunze approach.
This housing as a stand alone should probably be a bit bigger. However it is designed to integrate into my rockwall and that hs defined its shape and edges. If you would like to see the full build you can see it here.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=16300474
Hope this helps,
Mark
What worked was to use the nylon web that is used for needle point. This is flexible, cheap and can easilly be cut with sissors. You can shape it into rounded shapes by cutting slits and overlapping things. Then you tie the piece in place with some fishing lline. Once you have the basic shape you attach rocks with some more fishing line. The idea is to use the foam and rock approach to create the housing. Make sure to use lots of rock so you do not create something that floats.
Once foamed your housing will look something like this. Here is the front view.
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f218/marc_david/Fish%20Tank/PumpHousingFront.jpg
And a side view.
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f218/marc_david/Fish%20Tank/PumpHousingSide.jpg
Finally this is the inside view. Here you can see the original mesh support strcture. The nice thing is that once this sets up you can clip and pull out the fishing line and trim off any excess mesh so that the only thing that shows is your rockwork.
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f218/marc_david/Fish%20Tank/PumpHousingInside.jpg
One other thought. As a stand alone pump housing you want areas for the water to enter. These are easy to create by simply not foaming some of the holes between the rocks and then dremmeling out the mesh from the inside to match. Likewise areas of the bottom edge can be cut away as Tunze does to create additional water inlets. One advantage of this approach is you can make more surrounding and / or two part housings that allow for more possibilities that the original Tunze approach.
This housing as a stand alone should probably be a bit bigger. However it is designed to integrate into my rockwall and that hs defined its shape and edges. If you would like to see the full build you can see it here.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=16300474
Hope this helps,
Mark