So last night, as I looked at Frankie's tank, I was thinking, "There's no way I'm fixing her underwater platform for the fourth time tonight! She can just sleep on it like that!"
Since I just used dollar store suction cups, they've lost a lot of their strength and one side or the other slips down.
So I started thinking about hooks. First I thought of some stainless steal wire, but then thought about how hard it is to bend. Then I thought about some fishing line to tie it up, but I was stuck how to attach it at the top, other then suction cups. Next I thought about some dollar store hooks, but that would require going to the dollar store. Plus, it's hard to find cheap stuff like that that is water safe (ie doesn't have a wire down the middle which will rust). (We're getting close to my point, bear with me
). Then I thought about bending some plastic into a hook of some sort. But I couldn't think of any bits of plastic we had that would be the right thickness. I briefly thought about bending some egg crate. Though it melts easily it's hard to shape the way you want it. Then, wait a minute, duh! Egg crate! Even better, it still hadn't be properly put away from when I built Ralph's atba, and was right outside the door. I made a quick prototype, just by eyeballing it, decided to make the hooks a bit longer, and this is what I ended up with:
*
It goes around the lip of the tank, the runs down the glass on the inside, and clips around the egg crate platform.
You can see I've clipped a slot in the bottom square. It has enough flex that I can open it up, and slip the platform in.
Frankie says, "Hurry up. Turn out the light so I can go to sleep!"
Here's what it looks like clipped around the edge of the tank:
I left the suction cups on for now for two reasons. 1) I thought it would give some extra support, and more importantly, 2) I didn't feel like trying to cut them off at midnight.
Looking down:
You can see the little slot where I slipped the platform into the square.
Overall shot:
Frankie says, "What, did you change something?"
"Ok, Frankie needs her beauty sleep now. Turn out the light and stop taking pictures."
*Patent pending on Bulldog's magic egg crate clips. If you wish to use this design, you must pay one million bajillion trillion Reptomin pellets to Frankie, who is the brains behind the operation.
J/K
