Pic's of an aquatic monster, new moss, and a PC open top DIY design

[plantbrain]

http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=2904032&uid=1473668

Regards,
Tom Barr

[Cearbhaill]

Interesting...
The open top driftwood top tank is awesome- those type tanks always take my breath away.
And I did a cypress bonsai years ago.

[jeffro426]

That open top is beautiful!!

[plantbrain]

Easy to make the wood version on the 20 gallon.
The glass method is a bit more involved but not that hard even if you do not remove the rim from the tank and add glass slats(you can still glue the glass to the plastic rim etc).

Open tops are sooooo much easier to work on.
The tank is a biotope(Florida) and there will be some Alligator Gar in there when the tank is finally completed and grown in well.

Then I'll rip it up and do another totally different biotope of Florida.

As a matter of fact, all my tanks including my SW are biotope tanks.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[Tim Bo]

Very interesting stuff. I especially like the underwater mantis. Thanks for posting the link.

[jread]

That mantis sent chills down my spine!

We have those where I grew up and I got one on me one time. I think I did more damage to myself than him, trying to get him off :eek:

[djlen]

The first year on one of my 55's, I kept it as an open top and really enjoyed working with it and the affects I could achieve with the open top.
But I lost too many fish from them jumping out of the tank and couldn't deal with all the losses.

Len

[plantbrain]

I guess your fish were not happy and wanted to go home?:-)

Yes, I leave about 1-2" lip to keep shrimp and others in the tank or simply don't keep jumpers. I don't lose many fish to this.

One good benefit is keeping the water temps about 2-8 degrees cooler due to the light heat with an open top design.

Also, a small clip on fan can be added during the summer to keep the tank cooler, much easier than with other hood designs using this type of lighting.

Regards,
Tom Barr