# DIY acrylic lilly pipes



## Curare (Sep 15, 2004)

I've always hated the look of the in/out pipes in my 10 gal, even green eheim pipe still looks wrong, and lets face it, a large proportion of our hobby has to do with aesthetics.










I'm a big beleiver in the three C's.

Conceal conceal and conceal.

So I set about making my own ADA style lilly pipes. 

These are made from 1/2" clear acrylic tube, and heat bent into shape.
For these sizes I tried sand packing but the problem is that the sand likes to imbed itself in the the acrylic.








but ultimately I didn't loose any area through the bends.

here they are.










The upline is just plugged with a peice of clear scrap and drilled to suit, but don't push too hard with that drill!










The flared outlet was just a nice peice of artistry, I don't think it helps much










they were designed to fit snugly together and they bend around each other, and also drop off the back of my desk so you don't see all the pipe connections. Thats also why they're a mile long.

















Tune in later to see what happens when they go into the tank!


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## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

AWESOME.

Where does one get inexpensive 1/2 - 3/4in clear acrylic tubes???

(instead of sand, try metal springs!)


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## bharada (Mar 5, 2004)

Wasserpest said:


> AWESOME.
> 
> Where does one get inexpensive 1/2 - 3/4in clear acrylic tubes???
> 
> (instead of sand, try metal springs!)


TAP Plastics. 

http://www.tapplastics.com/shop/product.php?pid=141&


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## Curare (Sep 15, 2004)

I did consider the coil spring method of bending the pipes but I chose not to, for one simple reason, if I mess it up I can pretty much kiss my pipe and and my coil bender goodbye as they will be forever bound in a metal/plastic union.

I went for the sand, cos it was easy and I knew that if I messed it up I can still pour the sand out again!


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## bharada (Mar 5, 2004)

I tried using a curtain rod spring but the coils are too spread out and the spring wasn't flexible enough. It ended up threading the inside of the tube. :icon_lol:

If you use a coarse sand you'll have little sticking to the inside of the acrylic. I was able to get the bend successfully, but you're right about the drilling. The first hole cracked the piece in two.


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## Curare (Sep 15, 2004)

hehehe, well the boss has gone out for a few hours, so it's time to add some more stuff to the tank!

Now you saw what the tank looked like before, so I ripped the top off it and got to fitting things.

Here's where the pipes wil be going down, you can already see what I'm trying to do.










And here it is in action during a water change, BEHOLD IT WORKS!










And here is the final install, neat enough and looks whole lot better










And the kids checking out the handiwork...


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## tazcrash69 (Sep 27, 2005)

Looks good. Not sure I'm up to trying that myself yet, but they do look good.


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## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

Looks great Curare. Actually, looks like my next project. After CO2 manifold. And new canopy. And auto water change. And... :icon_roll 

Bill ... thanks for the link!


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## Curare (Sep 15, 2004)

No worries, 

In fact I was so suicidally unhappy with those bends I set out to find a better way.

....and I did, more on that later...


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## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

Suspense... eating me alive. :icon_cry:


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## Curare (Sep 15, 2004)

hehehe, how do you keep an idiot in suspense?


I'll tell you later.


ROFL

Don't worry WP, I'll show you what I used on my 3gal nano, and that's real hard work! It's Ø9mm tubes!


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## Mori (Jul 23, 2003)

That's just cruel...I think you should tell him NOW!

Seriously, is it difficult to bend these things? What do you heat them with? Newbie wants details!!!!


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## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

Get in line Mori!!

(Acrylic pipes are on order...)


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## Mori (Jul 23, 2003)

They seem inexpensive...so do the polycarbonate tubes at that vendor. Is acrylic better? Seens the polycarb might be easier to work with...


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## Curare (Sep 15, 2004)

Sorry about the long wait peeps, I've been trying desparately to get my pics uploaded and only found some time today, so I can start with the re-learnin!!

If you can find polycarbonate at a good price it might be worth trying, I think you'll need more heat but in the end, once it's bent it's bent!!


you do use heat to bend them, and if you do it right, all will come out relatively well, around 300-340˚ works nice and quickly.

Here's my secret weapon.










It's a peice of silicon tube, it's flexible, doesn't stick to plastic, and keeps its roundness when bent.

I attached it to a peice of wire (press fit) and put it up the tube










I'd then set it in the position I want it to be in (you can see the black mark for where the bent centre should be) and then I heat up an area 2-3 times the diamter, so, say for 3/8" tubing I was doing about an inch, but for 3/4, youd be looking for at least 2 1/2" minimum.










Heat it by rolling the tube and making sure you have even heat, (wear a heatproof glove on one hand at least!) when it all goes soft, and starts to bend under it's own weight, put it in the position you want it, and wait till it cools.

you should have a nice bend if you got it right.









then, slooowly pull out the silicon tube, and you should have a nice clean bend.

Silicon tube is used in model aircraft as fuel tube and exhaust couplers, I fly planes so I have a stupid supply of this, and the thing is, you can do it again, and again, and again!!!


So there you go, 

Oh and to see the final piping run, this is what I did.










here's the intake tube.


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## sonaps (Jul 8, 2005)

That looks great!

How do you plan to clean the pipes? Do they get as dirty as the filter tubes?


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## Mori (Jul 23, 2003)

Clever. You could have just used a long piece of tube instead of using a wire, right? or am I missing the point once again? 

[Incidentally, the polycarbonate tubes listed at TAP (the vendor linked in this thread) don't come in the correct sizes, so I won't be experimenting with those.]


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## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

Thanks Curare, these last bends look perfect!


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## Curare (Sep 15, 2004)

Yeah, A long peice of tube would be just as easy, It jus so happens that I dodn't have enough!

Hehehe! Also the rigidity of the wire helps get it in the right spot. Ever tried to push a hose up a hose? Think chinese finger trap in reverse :|


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## Martin (Jan 15, 2005)

I've been told that they turn a nasty yellowy brown color rather fast... is this true for your pipes as well?


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## Curare (Sep 15, 2004)

I guess we'll see.

I can see that in a few years they will more than likely craze (hundreds of tiny little cracks about .5mm long but by then I'll probably have changed the tank around 10 times anyway.

As for going nasty yellowy brown, Time will tell.


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## turbosaurus (Nov 19, 2005)

What do you use to heat it? Blow torch?


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## Rhinoman (Jun 6, 2006)

It's been awhile how do your acrylic lilly pipes look now?


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## Mori (Jul 23, 2003)

_Mine_ look like perfectly clear acylic pipes full of brown sludge.  The material is holding up well. I only have low light on that tank, however.


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## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

Hehe, same here. I am pushing off the unavoidable disassembly and cleaning. 

Maybe next year?


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## pineapple (Jan 22, 2004)

Nice curves, friend! Quite an inspiring thread this one. My attempts with springs yieleded pretty poor results so I went back to the green Eheim in out tubes. I think I might give this another shot. I wish my favourite acrylic shop (Industrial Plastics, Canal Street, NYC) hadn't closed down recently....


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## Snazzy (Sep 24, 2006)

what do you use to heat the pipe up with to bend it?


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## Mori (Jul 23, 2003)

Gas stove, since it was next to my potholders.


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## Yzmxer99 (Aug 7, 2006)

Lol, you people are crazy. The heat guns, used to remove paint, work exceptionally well, I left mine at work this weekend and used my g.f. embossing gun which worked well too. The problem with the acrylic, is that if you don't get the right temp, it starts to bubble up. With the heat guns you can work a small area with a nice adjusted temp.


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## Snazzy (Sep 24, 2006)

lmao last night i had a bad experiance like soem people said to use boiling water to starilize your diy co2 2 liter it just kinda melted down into a mutated bottle mabe you can use boiling water to ben d it also


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

lol, I'd just swish a small amount of bleach and then thoroughly rinse the bottle to sterilize the DIY CO2 bottle....or....just get a new bottle and rinse out the soda. =P

According to this site: http://www.3d-cam.com/materials/acrylic.asp 
The melting point of acrylic is 266 *F. Water boils at 212 *F.

From Boiling Oil & Water 
"This is because it's hard to measure the boiling point of oil. The reason is that well before it reaches its boiling point, oil will start to smoke. This is called the 'smoke point'. The smoke points for some common cooking oils are here:

Safflower - 510 F (266 C)
Soybean - 495 F (257 C)
Corn - 475 F (246 C)
Peanut - 440 F (227 C)
Sesame - 420 F (216 C)
Olive - 375 F (191 C)
(from Tools and Techniques)
The exact temperatures will also depend on how pure the oil is."

You could try Safflower oil. LOL!


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## rlong (Jul 8, 2006)

Wow!
That is great!
Thanks for the tips and pictures of your work.
Randy


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## Mori (Jul 23, 2003)

It's hard to stick the middle of a long tube into a pot of water, unfortunately. I did not use a heat gun because I needed both hands to shape my tube while heating. A heat gun would work fine of course, but the stove has the added advantage (to me) of a convenient fume hood, as well as the best lighting in the house. My countertop is also impervious to heat so it's a nice surface to work on. I'm not crazy. I also wasn't doing itty bitty curves, though.


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## Yzmxer99 (Aug 7, 2006)

It just shows there are so many ways to "skin a cat" My hats off to all of the creativity here


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## Blacksunshine (Oct 11, 2006)

epicfish said:


> lol, I'd just swish a small amount of bleach and then thoroughly rinse the bottle to sterilize the DIY CO2 bottle....or....just get a new bottle and rinse out the soda. =P
> 
> According to this site: http://www.3d-cam.com/materials/acrylic.asp
> The melting point of acrylic is 266 *F. Water boils at 212 *F.
> ...


your not trying to make the acrylic melt down you are just trying to soften it. I think 212deg would be a good temp to use since it is lower then the melting point of acrylic. just hot enough to work with it tho.


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## Mori (Jul 23, 2003)

So, what type of cookware does one use to immerse the middle of a 4 foot piece of acrylic into boiling...anything?

I like my J tubes to actually be Us so they're clearish on the outside, too. I guess that's not really necessary. Less obvious than atomic green hose, though.


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## helgymatt (Dec 7, 2007)

And is this polycarbonate tubing available at local shops? I hate to have to order an 8' section of this stuff? How does everyone else get a hold of this? I'm sure a plumbing supply store could special order it if they don't have it...right?


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