Drop in inserts for the Red Sea Reefer

JDowns · Oct 28, 2018

A recent @BRS episode on "nutrition" reduction (sorry had to poke a bit of fun) and talking with a buddy of mine convinced me to get rid of socks and go with filter pads that can be easily and inexpensively swapped out every few days.

So I created a very simple drop in trays that can take 4" x 4" filter pads that easily last a couple days and just throw them away for pennies a day, and no longer have to mess with sock cleaning. I've never really had a problem with nitrate as I like to keep it in the 20 -25 range anyways but I did see a reduction on phosphate from 0.1 to 0.05 pretty quickly, which is the range I would prefer to keep it anyways.

Antics · Oct 28, 2018

Very cool!

Citycop89 · Oct 28, 2018

How did you make those trays?

JDowns · Oct 28, 2018

Citycop89 said:
How did you make those trays?

3d printed

Citycop89 · Oct 28, 2018

Dang. Love the idea of that and no socks! Great work.

bo0ks · Oct 29, 2018

Would you mind posting the models for those of us with printers ?

JDowns · Oct 29, 2018

bo0ks said:
Would you mind posting the models for those of us with printers ?

Sure thing. I'll get it up on grab cad later today.

JDowns · Oct 30, 2018

https://grabcad.com/library/red-sea-sock-insert-1

IGES, STEP, and STL files in the zip. If you need other formats I'll see what I can do. It's a very simple model and you can adjust off the dimensions if needed.

The top piece is meant to glue to the bottom. It's keyed so it slides together. You may need to adjust the ledges based on your tolerances. It's pretty loose to begin with. I use Loctite Liquid Super Glue in the blue bottle. This stuff will bond any 3D printed plastic. There are two pieces so you don't have to print extensive over-hangs.

I'll upload photo's later to illustrate.

JDowns · Oct 30, 2018

I just run a bead of super glue along the bottom piece inside ledge. You have a bit of working time, but once pressed together that's it. Then you should have something that looks like this.