makeshift greenhouse

Converting the fish tank to a cat proof greenhouse, part 4: padded

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Today, I found the self adhesive felted pads that I wanted to use on the covers for the fish tank.

I found them while looking for something else, of course. :-D

Here is where, on the tank, I want them to sit.

The bar across the middle has extra surface area in the corners of the ledge the covers rest on. There’s lots of room, here.

The outer corners, however, don’t have that, so there’s a lot less margin for error in positioning the pads well.

The first step was to clean off the ledge the frame rests on. An old toothbrush worked very well for that!

Since the cross pieces of the frames have an angled edge, to better fit into the space, I figured it would be easier to place the felt pads in position on the ledge first, adhesive side up, then placing the frame on top.

The felted pads I have were from a larger package with mixed sizes of circles, plus long, narrow ovals. The larger circles were used up, and all I had left were smaller ones, and some of the long ovals. I’d hoped I still had some larger circles left. If I had, I would have cut them in quarters, and fit them right in the corners, but half circles would have to do!

Once they were in position, I lined up the cover and dropped it down, pressing just enough to make sure the adhesive stuck, then removed it to press the adhesive in more thoroughly.

In this corner, you can see the pad will protect the tank’s frame from the wire. This was the edge of the roll, so no sharp bits sticking out, like the edges I had to cut, so I didn’t trim it.

And this is why I lined the pads up to the corners of the tank, rather than the frame. Yes, there’s a likelihood that the pad will get pulled off where it’s overhanging, if I leave it like that (I will trim it later), but it also isn’t sitting on the screw head. It was supposed to be countersunk, but some of the screws simply stopped and would not screw in any further. I am not sure what was stopping them but, whatever it was, I was wrecking my screwdriver’s tip, trying to get them to go in further, so I stopped. The others were just fine.

So the corners are padded now, protecting the tank’s frame from being scratched up, should a cat decide to jump onto the cover.

When I was fussing with everything to prepare for this, I did have a kitten not only jump onto one of the covers while I was there, but also walk across on the light fixture! Not a problem for a light kitten, but a potential problem, if one of the heavy adults tries to do it. Thankfully, they seem to not like the new covers and are staying off. At least while we’re around to see! The few times I’ve seen one of the adult cats up there, they have stuck to walking on the wood and stayed off the wire and away from the light fixture.

Meanwhile, the baskets and other items stored in the tank have been removed. I’ll need to take a vacuum to the bottom to clean it, then see how my seed trays fit on the bottom. That will help me decide whether the rigid insulation will be lining the inside, or the outside, of the tank. Whatever I do with the sides, the bottom will have its own layer of insulation lining it, too.

It’s remarkable how handy that insulation has been. I’m glad my daughter bought so much extra!

I’m going to need the little step ladder to be able to access the bottom of the tank. I could barely reach to get the smaller baskets out!

The joys of being short! LOL

Another little bit of progress made! :-) I can hardly wait to see how this works for starting seeds!

The Re-Farmer

Converting the fish tank to a cat proof greenhouse, part 3: covers done!

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Yes! The big tank now has its cat proof covers!

The second one was much faster to build than the first. :-D

For those who are new to this blog *waves hello* you can catch up on the project with part one and part two. Links will open in new tabs, so you don’t lose your place here. :-)

Once the second cover was done, I unpacked the light fixture, which has been sitting in its box next to the tank since the move, and tested it out. Considering what a disaster the movers were, I would not have been surprised to find the bulbs shattered or something.

It worked just fine! :-)

Of course, as soon the covers were on, cats were on it! So far, they have not tried to climb on the light fixture, but there is no doubt that they will, at some point. Hopefully, it will hold up okay.

I was concerned that the frame would create shadows in the tank, but that does not seem to be an issue at all!

Now I have to figure out how to set the time and program it to turn on and off. It’s been years since it was last done! There is time to look that up, though.

We still need to cover the sharp edges of the wire mesh, and I still want to put felt pads in the corners to protect the tank a bit, but other than that, the covers are done.

We still have the original light that came with the tank, which rested right on top of the original covers. The tanks will only hold so many seed trays. With things like the onion seeds needing to be started so much earlier than anything else, I can see us rotating trays out from the tanks and into the sun room (which should be warm enough, by the time the next groups of seeds need to be started), and using the second light there.

Now I need to figure out where to store my baskets, then line the inside of the tank with foil to reflect more light. Since this room is rather chilly, I plan to use pieces of rigid insulation on the bottom and around the sides, too. We will likely cover the insulation with foil on one side to make it easier to take it in and out, but I will see how the seed trays fit inside, first. If the insulation takes up too much space, I’ll put them on the outside of the tank.

Progress has been made! :-)

I am so looking forward to gardening this year! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Converting the fish tank to a cat proof greenhouse, part 2: changed plans

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Yesterday, I got started on making covers for our big fish tank, to keep the cats out. Today, I assembled the first one.

Of course, things did not go to plan.

Does anything ever? :-D

One of the things I needed to figure out was how to secure the hardware cloth to the frame pieces, for those inevitable times when a cat jumps on them. All I’ve got for materials is whatever we can find lying around the farm. While doing my rounds this morning, I went digging in the side of the garage where we store the lawnmowers and snow blowers. I knew there were some roofing nails in there, so I grabbed a while bunch and brought them inside.

Here is the first problem.

All of the nails were huge. There was only a single smaller size, and it was still too large. What I wanted to do was secure the mesh to the tops/bottoms of the boards making up the frame. Previously, we’ve used a staple gun to do that, but these were not for things where the wire mesh was expected to hold weight. Particularly not the sudden weight of a cat leaping onto it from above.

The mesh was going to have to be secured along the sides.

That meant cutting it with a half inch overlap on all sides.

I’m getting closer to the end of my roll of 1/8 inch mesh, and it really does not want to unroll at this stage! :-D I had all the boards on there to hold it down, and it still kept rolling itself back up again!

Once the mesh was cut to side and flattened, I affixed it to one side.

Normally, I would have used the staple gun to tack it in place, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Which is really weird, because I’m the only person who uses it!

So it had to be tacked in place by screwing in the cross piece, holding the wire as taught as I could in the process.

Then I took out one of the screws in each corner.

I had placed the wood in place on the tank and marked each one with pencil, but once the hardware cloth was in place, I couldn’t really see my marks anymore. Plus, with the cross pieces a fraction too long, I had to make sure I didn’t line the side pieces up to the other end, or the while thing would be to big.

So I quickly drilled a pilot hole in each of the other corners of the cross pieces, then went back to the tank.

This way, I could place the long pieces where they were meant to sit, line everything up, then add a couple of screws through the pilot holes to hold them in place.

Then it was back to the basement to continue.

Once each corner was secured with a pair of screws, it was time to bend the wire mesh. Since the sides would be bent in one direction, and the ends in the other direction, I first cut out the corners.

The wood pieces may have been lined up to the tank, but no matter how careful I tried to be, the wire mesh ended up uneven.

Ah, well.

Once the mesh was bent, I drilled pilot holes for each nail (to prevent the wood from splitting) and hammered them in. The flat tops of the roofing nails were perfect for securing the mesh. Very different from how I had to do it with the larger mesh on the screen “door” we made to keep the cats out of the old basement.

Time to test it out again!

Oh, dear.

The addition of mesh and nails – especially the nails – made it wider. It wasn’t so much that it no longer fit. I could have let it just rest on the nail heads, I suppose. They would, however, damage the tank’s frame.

There was a very easy solution to this problem.

Flip it upside down.

With the cross pieces being every so slight too long, I used my Dremel to take off the corners at roughly a 45 degree angle.

It now fits!

Unfortunately, the wood is a bit warped, so it doesn’t sit flat, but it should still do the job.

There are still a couple of things I need to do. One is to find some way to cover the edges of the hardware cloth, for safety reasons. I’ll probably just use Gorilla Tape, if we still have some.

The other is to find my self-adhesive felt pads. The kind that’s meant to go on the bottoms of chair legs or the like, to protect floors. Since the bottom is now the top, the screw heads are facing down, and each corner screw is sitting on the plastic ledge in the corners of the tank. It wouldn’t be an issue, if I weren’t expecting cats to jump on it, so a bit of padding would be a good thing. I haven’t seen them since we packed for the move, though. :-/

Aside from those 2 things, this cover is done.

The other one will wait for another day! :-D The earliest we should be starting any seeds is in late March, so we have time! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Converting the fish tank to a cat proof greenhouse, part 1: starting a cover

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I have spent some time thinking about how we can convert our big fish tank into a greenhouse to start seeds in, while also making sure the cats couldn’t jump in.

The original covers the tank came with would have been ideal, but the hinges on those broke long ago.

Since a piece of the filtration system broke during the move, it’s just been sitting in a corner. To keep the cats out, we cut pieces of foam core to fit across the top, then covered the whole thing with a huge table cloth. It turned out to be a great place to store baskets in, and the top became a favorite place for the cats to hang out.

Until they broke through.

We ended up cutting some rigid insulation to fit and taping it in place, which worked much better. With their jumping from the piano onto the top of the tank, though, they’ve knocked even that right off!

What this means is that the cats are used to having access to the top of this tank. If I set it up as a greenhouse to start seeds, they’re just going to jump in, unless I find a way to cover it.

The tank has a bar across the centre and, after thinking about it for a while, I decided to make a pair of wood frames with hardware cloth, that will fit on each side of that centre bar. That way, if I need to get at the seed trays inside, I just need to lift one smaller cover at a time, rather than struggling with one large cover.

I fully expect the cats to jump on while I try to do anything in there!

Today, I got started.

The first thing was to take a tape measure to the inside of each half of the top, as well as the lip the original covers used to sit on. Each side is 16 3/4 inches by 22 3/4 inches. The ends and centre bar have a 1/2 inch lip, while the sides have a 1/4 inch lip.

I then grabbed a couple of pieces of wood I’d salvaged from a shed and started by cutting the long sides. Once I had 4 of them cut, I double checked that they fit properly.

They fit just fine, with a little bit of play that will make putting them in and taking them out easier.

While I was checking the fit, my daughter came by. As we were talking, she reminded me of one of her Christmas gifts to me.

I wish I’d remembered them before I took the measurements! This thing is MUCH easier for me to read than the tiny lines and numbers on my tape measure. It made marking the distance to cut the short pieces a lot easier, too.

Another reason I wish I’d remembered them before I took the measurements.

When I checked the short pieces, they were just a hair too long! The difference is so slight, I could probably sand it to size.

But I shouldn’t need to.

This is how the frame will be laid out. The hardware cloth will be sandwiched between the top and bottom pieces at the corners. I haven’t figure out what I can use to secure the hardware cloth best. Ideally, the wire mesh would be sandwiched between wood all the way around, not just at the corners, but I just don’t have the wood to do that. Nor can I think of anything we have that could be used in a similar way. Whatever I come up with will have to not just support the weight of a cat that’s decided to lie on it, but the force of a cat jumping onto it from the top of the piano. All sorts of ideas some to mind, and get discarded just as quickly. :-/

The thing I’m holding in place in the photo is one of the supports for the light fixture. The L bars insert into ports at the bottom of the light’s frame, so where they are is where the bottom of the light fixture will be.

Once I double checked how everything was going to fit together, I moved on to the next step.

Washing the pieces of wood.

They were probably sitting in the shed I found them in for more than 10 years. My mother tells me that shed was full of lumber when she moved off the farm, some 7 years ago, so what little we found in there was the junk that wasn’t worth stealing, I guess. :-/ Still better than nothing, I suppose. Anyhow. There was a whole lot of grime on them, so I gave the pieces of wood a quick scrub. They don’t need to be really clean. I just need to be able to handle them without getting filthy, and trying to scrub them after the hardware cloth is in place is just not a good idea! :-D

So they are now all laid out in the basement with a fan on them, do dry. I will continue to work on the frames tomorrow!

One of the recommendations for using grow lights to start seeds is to have the lights very close to the soil, and gradually increase the distance as the seedlings grow.

That won’t be an option with this set up.

I’m thinking of lining the inside of the tank with aluminum foil to reflect more light onto the seedlings. It doesn’t need to be from top to bottom; just at seed tray height. Which means I could probably get away with lining all 4 sides with foil in the big tank. I will probably line 3 sides of the 20 gallon tank, too.

The other thing to consider is warmth. We don’t have grow mats, and it’s unlikely we will be able to get any. We do, however, have more pieces of rigid insulation that we can put under the trays, or even along the sides closest to the walls. The LED lights won’t generate heat, but I’m sure we could find some way to warm up the tanks enough for seeds to germinate.

Progress on the set up has, at least, finally begun!

The Re-Farmer