DIY Frag Shelves (adjustable height and relocatable to front/side/back of tank)

Nightfall

Member
Well got bored today and decided to try a little DIY (still doing rock but it has to cure, then dry, then ph leech and then can do something with it). This was a simple project and cost very little. It was to make some frag racks so when I buy them I can put them in the "rack" in the tank they are acclimating into OR when I have it doing the 10 gallon frag tank to QT them and one day who knows store them for trade/sell.

So I went to Kents and bought some eggrate...plastic screen some old light fixtures use as a screen...and then went to freshwater fish store nearby and turns out they had deal there...buy anything and get a marina mag-scrub for 5 bucks. So I bought 3 things one at a time to get 3 of the mag floats.

Then I measured small racks and using cutters cut them to size.



For sake of storage made a lot of large shelves for future use IF needed (left side)

Then I glued the mag-float onto the edge of the shelf so the velcro part was facing out....when dried can place it IN tank where you want as high or low as you want or need depending on the frags on the rack and the other part of it on outside anchors it in place.



With a HUGE piece left over but small enough for the 10 gallon bottom or 20 if wanted took parts too small for shelves and used them as legs and glued them onto bottom of larger piece to make a stand that sits on glass bottom OR sandbed.




I got to stop getting bored lol. Next will be sump tank maybe lol.

I know I am not the first to do this this way but figured I would post this for others new to this like me.
 

PSU4ME

JoePa lives on!!!
Staff member
PREMIUM
Cool project. Will the magnet hold with some weight on the rack?
 

Nightfall

Member
Well to be honest I dont have the plugs or corals to test weight with it, only tank it fits in is the 10 or 20 gallon but 20 is not cycled so don't want to kill a coral. will try taking weights or something heavy and place it on it and see how much it can hold. At work atm so will check that tonight and post results.

The marineland scraper used is not as good as mag-floats but it will definitely hold several plugs . The 10 gallon tank has a base in it and will hold ALOT of plugs/frags even large colony bases (gonna use 10 gallon as frag/QT tank, only time fish in it is if needing QT).
 

Nightfall

Member
Ok so I tried to put weight on it but the marina scrapers while may be ok for cleaning glass SUCK at being anchor material for the shelves. BUT!!!!! They do support some weight....so if made small enough could make a shelf that can hold of the disc plugs say....6-8 frags approximately. That means if making a longer shelf for along back wall or from of tank need to use 2-3 marineland mag-scrapers or 1 large mag-float

I can live with what I have cause it was 5 bucks a magnet.

Plus made a bottom shelf which can hold easily 20-40 plus of various sizes and weights as it will sit on glass bottom or sandbed.
 

Snid

Active Member
What about maybe gluing on some acrylic dowel rods as legs instead of using the marina scrapers? Or even not gluing the dow rods to the shelves, but instead to smaller pieces of the egg crate screen at varying heights to serve as shelf platforms that you can rest the egg crate screen shelves on? Just brainstorming out loud, so don't take my response as a rejection by any means... I like DIY projects and they always get my brain rolling.
 

Nightfall

Member
Good ideas, I think if you used a larger actual MAG-FLOAT it would work better than what I have now.

The stacking shelf idea is good idea or using round rod legs that would fit through the large base I already have on bottom of tank to stack shelves onto but that would limit the ability to control what frags go on each shelf. So if you have it high only frags that need high light can go on it...but then thats what the bottom shelf was for.

Gonna keep brain storming on it. Overall though even with limited side shelf ability the majority would be on bottom rack so can live with it.
 
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