Magnetic Frag Racks - Looking for input!

I like the concept of the middle of the tank. I got a couple of the frag holding rocks and my frags love being directly under the lights on the tank! Lemme see a design and I will probably snag one from ya!

 

I think the reason you see frag racks the way they are is because they are made for display tanks. Generally speaking people don't have room in the center of their display for frags. Also depends on your lighting. My back wall is almost as well lit as the rest of my tank theoretically (I still have yet to get my hands on a par meter) and would personally prefer something that doesn't take up a lot of space.

 

How much did the magnets cost? I never got a hold of a scrap hard drive. Might buy some from you if they aren't too pricey for a DIY stir plate build /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/smile.gif

 

woah. Those ARE super cheap!!!

 

What size/grade magnets did you get exactly? Just curios, also the further away from the tank wall you get the further your center of gravity moves out so you will need stronger and stronger magnets to prevent the rack from tipping down. That's why the closer to the tank wall the better unless you start to add some sort of bracing to the design. If you have any questions just ask, I have designed and retailed several different mag racks over the past few years.

 

I want one! lol

 

Out of those magnets I would say 1/4" max wall thickness on the 6mm the 3mm thick ones 1/8" max. Also I would recommend using higher grade magnets the N38 is pretty low grade for neo material I would use at least N45 We only use N52 grade to maximize the strength possible for the size of the magnet on our racks.

 

I noticed Joe has started putting acrylic walls around his frag racks. boxing them in. see,s to help with feeding lps frags.

 

KJ magnetics carries many N52 grade magnets (they are our supplier) N52 does cost more but you get what you pay for, the more you purchase the better pricing you can get also(we typically purchase 5000 at a time). I would not look at pull force much every site you go to seems to have widely varying numbers based on how they test them, some use pulling 2 magnets apart some measure by pulling 1 magnet off a piece of steel, ect. Good rule of thumb is the thickness of the magnets should be at least the thickness of the aquarium wall you are putting it on with neo magnets. Width should be 3-4 times the thickness of the magnet for a good balance. Don't even bother with the cheap ceramic magnets you can get at walmart or big box stores they won't hold anything. Good luck!

 

Our frag racks are now using the plastic coated ones now which I don't see on their website in the N52 grade. Our pricing is a little behind until we place another order for magnets so they will most likely be going up on our site as well. The cost of neodymium material has more than doubled in the past year which is making prices on any products that use neo magnets go up drastically. I know that vortechs are going up in price a lot if they haven't already and I think this has some to do with it. We get some complaints about the prices of our frag racks but if they understood the cost of high quality magnets it might be a different story.