If this is in the wrong space, let me know, and I’ll publish further steps of construction somewhere else.

I had a productive weekend, and things worked the way they should have.  I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked, but there you go.  That’s doing things for the first time for you.  You learn all sorts of stuff about unrealistic expectations.I built the stand for my hydroponics.  It is now wired.

It will sit directly on top of the 25ish gallon fish tank I will attach via siphon to my main fish tank (which produces ~20ppm of nitrates per week, for a 55gal tank).  The foot print of the top of the tank worked out to 24.25″x12.5″.

Surprisingly, I nailed those dimensions perfectly.

Wiring was fun as well and, luckily, almost 100% idiot proof.  I have documented this process.

The tanks (‘sump’ tank is the smaller one.  Perhaps a better name would be “interface” tank).

A siphon will maintain water levels between the two tanks.

Note the woefully over-germinated seed bags on the main tank.

Now, a closeup of the interface tank (iTank, hereafter).

The blue bottle on the left there, kind of hidden, will contain the Hydroponics Fertilizer water, for the 3rd treatment group.  That’s likely going to be a huge pain to get the flow ‘equal’ to the flow coming out of the iTank.

I tried to make the wooden stand as simple as possible, because I don’t like the idea of loads of weight sitting on something glass.  As it is the moving water, the clay beads and eventually the plants will add enough weight.  Yerg.  It gives me the creeps just thinking about it.  I’ll likely rig something so that if there’s a huge drop in water level in the iTank (read: Tank explodes/breaks) then the siphon gets yanked from the main tank.

So basically I made a box without corners that matched the foot print of the iTank.  The vertical members (giggle) I extended beyond the lip that will rest on the tank, to give stability, and to add a bit of friction.

Mission freakin’ accomplished.  It slid on perfectly, and it was as tight as it could be without being a pain in the ass to get on to the tank.  Here’s how it looked.

Note how there is no 'shelf' on the bottom. I'm going to just put in a floating board, and remove it when I need to do water changes.

I then looked at the internet for 2 hours to see how to wire up the extremely simple lights.  I mean, they’re made for amateurs to wire up, but I was still full of fear.  It’s electricity that will be only inches from water!  Oh the fear.

I wanted to put 4 light bulb in such a way that each column will get equal amounts of light.   I managed to get it to work.  Quite well in fact.  Eventually, at any rate.  I performed a “no bulbs” test that ended with NO sparks, so I felt safe testing with a couple of bulbs.
I should have taken a video of me tapping the metal fixture boxes to see if there was live current going through them. Brilliant, eh?
Here’s a couple of docu-vids of me testing.
Slight language warning – One bulb test

Slight language warning – Two bulb test – A PROBLEM IS FOUND!

Slight language warning – Two bulb test – Not as bad as first thought

May be boring for you, BUT IT WAS PART OF THE PROCESS.   Turned out the problem was in light socket 2, and that it was just the ‘carry the current forward’ connection had gotten loose.  No problem!  Fixed, and then that lead to …

There are 4 lights!

Sweet Glorious Success!  And then,

It fits! It Works! I'm Awesome!

So, yeah.  That felt pretty damn good, I won’t lie.

This week, as I prepare for a puppet show, I must also put holes in the bottles, fill them with clay beads, and get the seeds all in and going, along with the airlift… etc etc.  That’s the boring part.  The exciting part is I made light!  Huzzah!