[Airedale]

Does anyone have a good way of making a DIY vivarium cover? I have an empty fish tank that is perfect for hatchlings, but I have no cover for it. Any ideas? The tank is awkwardly shaped too. It is almost an ellipse shape, so I can't really make a wooden frame. Any ideas?

[AeroWRX]

What about just buying wood from Lowes/Home depot and making a frame that fits your tank. And then fastening window mesh OR substrate mesh over it with screws, washers, or even epoxy/super gluing it.

The cheaper/easier solution might actually just buying a terranium tank mesh cover at Petco/petsmart... depending on cost of all materials and gas money

[bwoodfield]

If you don't care that it doesn't match your tank you can build a squared off cover, if you want it to match the tank shape exactly then it gets more difficult. I have some ideas how you could go about doing it but a lot depends on how hand you are and your tools available.

[Airedale]

The main problem is the curved part of it. I suppose a square cover over it would work, even with the over lap from the corners.

[Riverside Reptiles]

You can buy a piece of lexan and cut it to fit the tank. Or, look up the tank manufacturer online and see if they sell a top for it (which they likely do).

[rx7master]

you could attatch velcro to the outside of the upper lip of the tank, then cut a piece of flexible screen or mesh to fit. then fasten the other side of the velcro to the screen so the screen will fold over the outside of the tank & attatch at the velcro. They used to actually sell pre-made screen tops like this to fit regular sized aquariums. You would just peel back the velcro & roll the screen back to get access to the inside. Im not sure how handy you are, but if you found a suitable adhesive to join the screen with the velcro, it would surely work & probably not look too bad.

[ILikeItSideways]

First off, I'm doing this on my iPhone, I only have so much time to review so please forgive any errs there may be.

I needed a new cover for my Betta fish's tank, so I used metal coat hangers, screening, a little tape and staples. First I bent the coat hanger into a frame, it took more then one coat hanger to make the frame big enough, so I used tape to attach the coat hangers together. I attached the screening to the coat hanger frame after I got it all perfect using a small stapler. I made sure to put the staples in from the bottom side so the smooth edges were on the fish side and the sharp side of the staples faced up. Neither side of the staples were really that sharp after stapling, but it just makes sense to put the staples in from the bottom side just in case. You could make whatever shape you want. I made this as a temporary cover with ideas in my head of making a slidding glass top cover. Now I plan to stick with this sort of cover because it works. Only one catch this being something I planned to be very temporary, I didn't select the best coat hangers which had their plastic protective coating in perfect shape, so the coat hanger is already getting a small amount of rust. Also I didn't use stainless steel staples and some of the staples above the filter where water touches are also rusting. For a dry low humidity tank this wouldn't be a problem, but still I would pick coat hangers that have a complete plastic coating over the metal and use only stainless steel staples wheather your making it for a Aquarium, Terrarium or Vivarium. That way you get some good years out of it. I'm going to redo mine now that I like it so much and don't feel the need to make a slidding glass cover right now. Another tip is to not pull the screen too tight when attaching it to the coat hanger frame because you will shift how the coat hangers are bent, shaped, positioned, and weaken where you have the coat hangers taped together if using more than one. On my cover there was a small gap after between the coat hanger cover and the aquarium top. It was only about 1/8". If you take your time to get it perfect or you have a plastic rim you are putting the cover into you may not have any gaps. I just did because I planned to use this cover temporaily, coat hangers can be stuborn to get to sit perfectly and I didn't want to spend a lot of time playing with it considering I planned for it to be temporary. All I did to fix the small gaps was add a little weight to the two affected corners that wern't coroperating. To do this I used magnets, they stayed in place on the coat hangers and are heavy enough. To be honest I was probably just paranoid about eliminating such a small gap, but if you have crickets in there for feeding there would be a good reason to be paranoid about any gaps however small they may be. Also I used plastic screening mesh, if you habe crickets I'd use the aluminum, I have had crickets chew through plastic. With a little time and patience I know I could have eliminated the tiny gaps by spending more time shapping the hangers so I didn't have to use the magnet weights, and I plan to take my time on the next one.

Please excuse the green tape around the top of my aquarium, its temporary, will be taking off when I get my glass side braces back from the glass shop and silicon them on. Also excuse the picture quality, it was down graded from its original quality due to the uploading process. Also excuse the power cord behind my Betta's aquarium, I'm doing renovations so it's not hidden under the carpet and behind the stand totally.

Completed Cover:


Tools & Supplies Used:

Heater Area of Cover:


Cover off of Aquarium:


Magnet Weights for Corners:


Showing the Magnets and the Water proof bag I put them in:


Filter Area of Top Cover:

I also just made a cover for my Cricket Housing using a different approach. I cut a sheet of scrap wood so it would fit snug inside the top black plastic rim.
You could do any shape to make a cover, just cut it. I found the handle in our plastic recycling, but you pick from a huge selection at a hardware store for a pretty good price. I wouldn't go for wood though if you have water or humidity in a tank, unless you use something non-toxic and safe to seal it before use.

Picture of Cricket Bin Lid (Wood, aluminum screening and staples or stainless steel staples.):









Cheers

Andrew