Fluorescent sump build

[DOJOLOACH]

Who here has seen Instagram user, polyppuddles sump? Pretty wild and I'd like to do something similar. 

 

Anyone else here have a good source for acrylic sheets that will sell fluorescent colors? How about plumbing and fittings? I'm very excited to start my 20g long sump upgrade for my 40 breeder.

 

I've tried to find this guys forum posts but can't find him by that name

[Matteo]

4 hours ago, DOJOLOACH said:

Who here has seen Instagram user, polyppuddles sump? Pretty wild and I'd like to do something similar. 

 

Anyone else here have a good source for acrylic sheets that will sell fluorescent colors? How about plumbing and fittings? I'm very excited to start my 20g long sump upgrade for my 40 breeder.

 

I've tried to find this guys forum posts but can't find him by that name

For cheap I would honestly try Etsy. Plenty of people with on their with 3D printers and laser cutters

[jservedio]

4 hours ago, DOJOLOACH said:

Who here has seen Instagram user, polyppuddles sump? Pretty wild and I'd like to do something similar. 

 

Anyone else here have a good source for acrylic sheets that will sell fluorescent colors? How about plumbing and fittings? I'm very excited to start my 20g long sump upgrade for my 40 breeder.

 

I've tried to find this guys forum posts but can't find him by that name

Have you tried shining UV light under your stand to see what it looks like to begin with? For things like fittings and PTFE tubing, you can use UV reactive paint. Krylon makes some really cool UV flourescent spray paint (including clear) and what I suspect most of her tubing is coated in. You can buy colored acrylic sheets pretty much anywhere online - even my Home Depot sells a few colors. Getting them cut is more of a trick - you can either DIY it with a router, jig, and drill press or have them laser cut. If you are having them laser cut, you'd have to have some technical know-how because you'd need either a CAD file or at the very least a vector file.

[DOJOLOACH]

Hmm the laser cutting would be easy to model, I work with cad everyday. Finding a laser cutter though I'm not sure.

 

Have you guys seen uv reflective airline tubing? Like for ato and dosing lines?

[jservedio]

7 minutes ago, DOJOLOACH said:

Hmm the laser cutting would be easy to model, I work with cad everyday. Finding a laser cutter though I'm not sure.

 

Have you guys seen uv reflective airline tubing? Like for ato and dosing lines?

Perfect! Finding a laser cutter isn't that hard - you can try calling arts and crafts type places, lots of those places have cutters that'll do 1/8" no problem. We have a paint-your-own pottery type place by me that has one and a few friends/family who work in various engineering fields with access to heavier duty things. @Matteo is spot on with Etsy if you can't find one locally - I'm sure you can find hundreds of people with a laser cutter that will gladly cut a user-supplied file and ship it to you and probably not be all that expensive.

 

The red dosing tubing in the instagram posts you mentioned that are red, but glow green/yellow under UV are just painted with a clear UV reactive paint. Home Depot stocks it for like $5/can.

[DOJOLOACH]

1 minute ago, jservedio said:

Perfect! Finding a laser cutter isn't that hard - you can try calling arts and crafts type places, lots of those places have cutters that'll do 1/8" no problem. We have a paint-your-own pottery type place by me that has one and a few friends/family who work in various engineering fields with access. @Matteo is spot on with Etsy if you can't find one locally - I'm sure you can find hundreds of people with a laser cutter that will gladly cut a user-supplied file and ship it to you and probably not be all that expensive.

 

The red dosing tubing in the instagram posts you mentioned that are red, but glow green/yellow under UV are just painted with a clear UV reactive paint. Home Depot stocks it for like $5/can.

Thank you very much! Gonna start buying some supplies, I may not even need to do laser cutting if I don't make things too intricate. Might as well just buy the colored lines and do clear UV like you said

[jservedio]

Just now, DOJOLOACH said:

Thank you very much! Gonna start buying some supplies, I may not even need to do laser cutting if I don't make things too intricate. Might as well just buy the colored lines and do clear UV like you said

NP. You can find UV reactive stickers, film, and tape all over the place too. You can slap on skimmers reactors, etc. and working with UV reactive nylon film and tape is WAY easier than custom cutting acrylic since all you need is a pair of scissors. So much cool stuff out there.

 

Check out some of the crazy things people do with their PC cases if you want ideas of what you can do. You can also wrap dosing lines and cords with UV reactive mesh which looks awesome.