Stop me if I'm an idiot.

Wildisme

Wildisme

Active member
This is probably way more hassle then its worth. But here is an idea I've thrown around.

I know they make rails to get a light to move and cover more tank, and you can get small frag racks. But what about the people with small amount of space but want a lot of frags.

syqypyny.jpg


I've had this idea in my head of a small motor that hangs on the side of your tank, it has an extended shaft to run the length of the tank with 2 plastic spur gears. These in turn rotate a plastic chain that rotates frag racks much like the display case in the picture. Also designed differently to have hidden inside a canopy.

Now the math on it, without going custom built, a 29g glass tank is 30"x 12"x 18". Minus 1" clearance on each end of the tank, and 1/2" clearance between each rack and glass. You can fit 6 racks of 28"x5". This gives you a total rack space of 840 sq/in with 3-6" height clearance.

All ran with 1 30" light.

For comparison a 40b is only 648sq/in foot print. You only reach 864 sq/in when you hit a 75 gallon footprint. Or a custom tank of 36"x24"x8".

Is this a completely stupid idea? I kinda want to try it just to say I tried it. Even giving 1.5" on 1 side of the tank would be only 15sq/in loss and you could run an MP10 in the tank with it.
 
Ya it's all plastic.

Idk boredom I guess. For someone who would love to have say a 72"x24'' frag tank but only has 36"x18" to work with. Get the same amount of floor space for frags out of a 40b that a 6'x2' tank would give you.
 
I think it makes a lot of sense. The point being, it's the same concept of anything that utilizes vertical space over a given footprint. I've built racks to accommodate 9 sub adult boas in the same space people were keeping half that. In a 5x3' footprint, I could house 9 subadults and 72 neonates. Get on it, and then patent it, Buddy! That's going green in a big way.
 
I've been sourcing the material. It will slowly come together I'm sure. I really wanted to find a submersible motor or a high torque modified powerhead to run it. But I think I'll give it up and go canopy mounted motor. Already have sprockets and chain figured out. Just design an motor.

I've had a few people in person get into it and say it would be cool to at least see if it can be done at a reasonable cost. Figured I'd get some ideas flowing on here too.
 
It might be cool for a fragswap to sell from. I see potentially big problem with it leaking and with salt creep.
 
No leaking since no holes will be drilled.

Salt creep is a different story. However since the chain would constantly be In and out of water it would dissolve as soon as it started to dry. Only creep should be on the motor sprocket which could easily be wiped off once in a while.
 
I cant c how corals would get enough light with it rotating. Very imaginative prodject would be cool if worked i just c a lot of things that can go wrong and unless u have absultly nothing better to do looks like a build that can take lots of u time and still fail so not sure if its worth it jmo
 
Use lego elements for mock up. Maybe one of those self driving pool vacuums for the motor or run the rotation with an impeller like those scwds. I love ideas like this. If it rotated relatively fast i think it would get enough light for everything.
 
Reflectors along the entire back so that even they they don't get direct light at the top, they are still receiving some light as they rotate towards the bottom...?
 
I think it's a worthwhile idea for a frag display in an lfs. Get plenty of product in a small space, saving room for larger tanks of fish.

Not so practical for a hobbyist though...

I'd love to see it built, so get on that! :D
 
Really cool idea. But I do think the market for that type of tank would be really small so production costs would never come down.
 
Its essentially a rotisserie for frags.... Interested idea. One thing that came to my mind right away, When the shelf a frag is on starts its decent what is going to prevent the frag from lifting off the shelf?
 
i see what you are saying. I'm picturing something like thos huge chicken cookers at Sams and Jewel slowly rotating the chickens but with egg crate instead of chickens. You could also put a little dab of superglue on he really light frags to keep them from moving around. Or create an awesome shelf with special plugs that lock into place (why do I keep coming back to lego being the solution). Lego frag rack is going to be my next DIY. LOL
 
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