I've looked at "algae scrubbers" before, but a few things crossed my mind when I say them.
"Wow, that's a short handle."
"Won't the little scrubber at the end get grotty and smelly after like, one use?"
"$10 for a glorified toilet brush? I think not!"
Anyhow, I guess I'm a semi-crafty person, and I saw a couple old window slider things in the garage. I'm not sure what their called, but it's what you sit a sliding glass window on, top and bottom.
So I took one, estimated a good squeegee size, and cut it with the hack saw. Used the hack saw again to cut some groves in the short end, and a file to make them just the right size, and just like that, I've got myself a home-made algae squeegee!
Pictures will help:P
So this is it all fitted together. This will help clarify what the window things are.
This is the long piece on top of the short piece:
You can see here how I cut groves out of the short one so I could slot the long one in.
I was going to use a dab of silicon on the joint, but it fits pretty tight, and I didn't feel like waiting 24 hrs + for it to dry
Plus, it will probably be easier to clean if it's not attached.
For the scrubber, a rag and a few elastics is all I needed...
The beauty of this is instead of a stinky scrubber sitting around, I can give the rag a rinse and throw it in the washer.
I'm quite happy with the results.
A general idea of what it looks like:
After just one use with the Magic BullDog Wand:
I couldn't get into the corners without taking down the atba, but it did really well on the front glass, which usually looks the worst (I don't have many pics from that side of the tank
)
The same general principle would work with any waterproof material you can make a 'T' with
Anyhow, just goes to show, with a little creativity you can make just about any aquarium supply that you need
