Aiptasia Zapper
 

I had read about zappers on another forum a while back but only recently did i get a large enough number of aiptasia to justify spending the 30mins to build it... seriously its ridiculously easy and could be made to look a lot better than mine with a little bit more effort but i just wanted to test the theory with materials i had around the house. A reefer from another site is manufacturing and selling them, his look very pro but cost $100.

materials
- couple feet of 1/2" pipe
- mechanical pencil
- sewing needle
- a few feet of 18 gauge wire
- silicone
- lead from carpenters pencil
- 12v DC powersupply at least 500mA
- push button switch

Instructions kind of suck but it is really very straight forward.

1.Take apart mechanical pencil
2.Put needle through tip of mechanical pencil
3.Feed wires from DC power supply through 1/2" pipe
4.Attach positive wire from DC power supply to needle
5.Cut open carpenters pencil and take out lead
6.Wrap negative wire from DC power supply around lead
7.Silicone the mechanical pencil and lead to the end of the 1/2" pipe. Ensure that the wire wrapped around the lead and needle is not in the water.
8.Cut positive wire and install push button switch in line wherever its comfortable.
9.Let silicone cure overnight, plug in the 12v and fry some GLASS ANEMONES! and really anything else you want

Touch the tip of the needle to the glass anemone and hit the push button to complete the circuit. The needle emits a ton of hydrogen bubbles which really don't seem to hurt anything but anything that touches the needle fry FAST. It turns anemones into what looks like a spitball in seconds, and Trumpet corals dont seem to like it either... oops... but it looks like its making a quick recovery.

My tank is embarrassingly dirty as its overdue for a cleaning but here are some pics.

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2..._1311Large.jpg
Zapper

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2..._1310Large.jpg
Business End

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2..._1309Large.jpg
Bubbles

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2..._1308Large.jpg
Bubbles

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2..._1312Large.jpg
What was a large glass anemone

Cheers,
Ken

I decided to make one of these today. Great article above. I use a glue gun instead of silicone, i'm too impatient for silicone :razz:

I used just a pen case like below. Wire was soldered to the needle and wrapped and glued around the lead.

http://applications.ccusa.com/martin/killer1.jpg

This it what it looked like glued into the end of some plumbing pipe.

http://applications.ccusa.com/martin/killer2.jpg

Put a button in the circuit

http://applications.ccusa.com/martin/killer3.jpg

I used a little DC jack on the end

http://applications.ccusa.com/martin/killer4.jpg

Some electrical wrap for a handle.

http://applications.ccusa.com/martin/killer5.jpg

Complete

http://applications.ccusa.com/martin/killer6.jpg

Now time to kill some things. Also thinking about zapping my roommates when they are noisy hahaha :mrgreen:

Oh one more thing. I found that it was the negative that had to be attached to the needle. Otherwise I got bubbles coming out of the lead and not much happening in terms of zapping things.

Martin

Make a video when you killing them :biggrin:

help!!!
 

So I have way to many apitsia and majanos that I would love to zap iam looking forward to making one of these and have all the required materials ,, so what iam wondering is were should I be putting the negative wire that's wrapped around the lead?? Jus some were up by the handle taped on ??