D+D Jump Guard - a lesson hard learned

[Wills]

Hi so a few of you may know I have an Aquascaper 600 which is an open top tank (like the cool kids off of YouTube). If you've kept up with my journal (don't worry its not mandatory) you'll know I lost my male Red Eye Red Tail Puffer who jumped out sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday night after I found him dried up in my maintenance bucket that sits to the side of my tank.

I've looked into a numberr of options for lids that would help prevent fish jumping but also not be too intrusive aesthetically. The options would be a piece of glass or acrylic but then you need some trim to support it or have it made exactly the same size. Then comes issues with external filter pipes, light clamps/stands etc, air stones etc.

So I found a product called jump guard from the marine brand D+D, which is an aluminium frame with a net mesh that fits between it all to make a secure lid. I had the kit for a while (annoying right?) but its been daunting to put together as you have to cut it to size and clip it together. The good part of this means what ever size tank you have you can make it work, you can also make cut outs pretty easy which means you can make space for filter pipes and other kit.

Heres how mine worked out.

As you can see I've cut out the front left and right corners to allow for all my kit to go in on either side, but it also gives me some flexibility in terms of moving equipment around. I can put filter pipes either side or I can rotate it so the holes sit at the back if I wanted to go that route.

If you have or are tempted by an open topped tank I would hugely recommend going down this route. It took me about 2 hours to assemble and this included a quick trip to a very LFS to get a spare back of corner pieces.

Wills

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

So what material is that mesh?
(If I was to go cabriolet, I'd still be concerned about those gaps around the piping and would look towards having that piping go through the mesh).
...On the other hand,perhaps not. I'd still remain unconvinced about airborne contaminants entering the tank).

 

[Wills]

So what material is that mesh?
(If I was to go cabriolet, I'd still be concerned about those gaps around the piping and would look towards having that piping go through the mesh).
...On the other hand,perhaps not. I'd still remain unconvinced about airborne contaminants entering the tank).

Its just plastic maybe nylon? The gap around the pipes fits quite close to the space I need to get them in, on the right it is a bit of a bigger space than ideal but I'm not too worried. Its about the same size as the access hatch you get from tanks with glass sliders. One advantage from this kit is that it all comes apart if I ever need to adjust it.

In terms of airborne contaminants I'm not too worried, where the tank is located its not going to be spraying stuff around I've told people not to spray bug spray, deoderant etc in that room and its pretty well ventilated because of where it is in the house.

Wills

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Very nice looking. Better safe than sorry.

 

[AquaBarb]

Sorry to hear about your puffer Wills

 

[Tez_20]

If you have or are tempted by an open topped tank I would hugely recommend going down this route. It took me about 2 hours to assemble and this included a quick trip to a very LFS to get a spare back of corner pieces.

Nice job Wills better than losing fish

On my new tank i have the sliding doors that are dark but run across a hard rim but you can remove them to get full access, thank god Fluval designed slot holes for wiring etc both ends at the back.