Bay Area Reefers

I use this and I love it: http://www.aquariumspecialty.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=115_222&...

As for diy... I'm no stranger to working with acrylic, but the amount of hassle involved in making a nice, polished top-down box just isn't worth it to me.

That one is nice but I prefer the clean bottom panel to be recessed (how I make all mine)... That way it's far less likely to get scratched AND the biggy for me, it won't pull light into the box. I use 4" ABS and glue acrylic in it about 1/2" up from the lip.

I went DIY.

My original design
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/5/aafeature2
see figure 3. Was cheap, easy, and I just made it spur of the moment with stuff lying around. The downside because the two plastics are different something like weldon couldn't hold onto the tupperware/cup, so I had to use superglue, which isn't a bad thing BUT over time it does become brittle and eventually did leak some years later.

My second one
see figure 2. (note: that is not mine) basically used a tube from Tap Plastics, cut to length of the camera barrel. They'll chop a piece to your size on the spot and maybe cost me a couple bucks. I highly recommend going that route as opposed to the "ghetto" method, simply because you can use weldon to attack the face to the container so it'll be good and strong for years to come.

I opt for these methods of only covering the barrel of the camera because I like to still hold onto my camera just in case something bad happens. The way my hand wraps around it, if my knuckles are wet, I know don't go any further down

I was looking at that top down box Jess. I don't see any dimensions for the box. Any chance you can give me the dimensions? Also that one is cheaper than Melev's.

Gresham, that's a great idea for preventing scratches.

Mike - nice pics! The DIY tube method looks nice but seems to be more expensive then buying the one Jess mentioned.

More expensive? HA! Surely you don't know me very well John.

I think I got the 3" wide tube, which at Tap's is $30 for 6 feet, but they cut about 4 inches for me, so that translated to a little over $1.50 for the piece of plastic. The other piece I had sitting around, but if you wanted a nice round disc that'd be another couple bucks, plus cost of weldon (again I have this stuff, maybe used 2.3 cents worth? )

So really excluding scrap & material I had sitting around less than $2.

You have to buy the whole 6' tube right? You can't just buy what your need? I wouldn't know what to do with the rest of the tube if they sold the entire thing.

If anybody needs odd / precise stuff cut out of acrylic, just ping me. the edges don't come out quite square, so not useful for making boxes, but near anything else should work.

Nah, they'll cut what you need. Just like anything at Tap, you don't need to buy an entire sheet of acrylic, you ask them what size you need and they'll cut it. One of the benefits of them, even though their prices are higher than other plastic sources, you get what you want. The price they list is the end cost for a whole sheet/length but they do price by the inch.

Learn something new everyday. Thanks Tony and Mike for letting me know.