TJ's Tackle Cups

[Gill Fisher]

Does anyone here have a 2" fluid bed cup from TJ's Tackle? He sales fluid beds but then he also sells extra cups that hold the powder paint for about $4.50 each. The cup has the filter already installed on the bottom. What I want to know is if I build a fluid bed using 2" PVC, will the cup fit down inside the 2" PVC?

Thanks

GF

[ifish]

I have 40 of his cups . This is what you need. Be sure and seal the threads with silicone caulk. Good luck!

[WiCrappie]

Does anyone here have a 2" fluid bed cup from TJ's Tackle? He sales fluid beds but then he also sells extra cups that hold the powder paint for about $4.50 each. The cup has the filter already installed on the bottom. What I want to know is if I build a fluid bed using 2" PVC, will the cup fit down inside the 2" PVC?

Thanks

GF

2" PVC won't work for building the bed in the manner that TJ offers them. The cup itself will have an outside diameter of 2 inches. So if you use 2 inch pipe, then the bed and cup won't be a slip fit. You need to use PVC parts that have an inner diameter of 2 inches. So you'd need to use something like a coupler or a bushing or pretty much any PVC part that has an inner diameter of 2" that you can also cap off in one way or another. ifish posted pictures of threaded cleanout plugs and adapters. Those will work. You could get a 2" coupling and then glue a knock-out cap to the bottom of one end with PVC weld like TJ does. It's really up to you how to go about it. When I built mine I made sure to measure the PVC stuff so it would fit the cups.

My only concern would be that a bed that narrow wouldn't be stable unless it were heavy. Though...TJ sells 2" beds and enough people have built them so it must be O.K.

[ifish]

Hey Wi, I tried a lot of different designs and experimented with a ton of material in a test stand I made for measuring mean flow. I have worked in the automotive filter paper industry for 40 years and have access to labs and R&D facilities. TJ's cup perform pretty good but you get a few cups with some hot spots. I came up with the design above and so far have not spilled one but that does not mean it can't happen. The center of gravity is fairly low on these. The cups that Do-It sells are better but a little pricy. I made some for a commercial jig company a few years ago with a vibrating motor in the bottom of the cup like the old Do-It systems. Just take a piece of 2" pvc to a hardware store and see what you can come up with.

[Gill Fisher]

After a fruitless search, I can only conclude that an air flow regulator or an airline control kit such as ifish shows in reply #2 above can not be found anywhere in our area. To find one would be to drive to either Columbia, SC or to Charlotte, NC and either way is over an hour's drive from here, which means they are both at least 60 miles away. You can buy 2, 3 or 4 ganged together, but you can NOT find one that is a single, nor had the top guy in the aquarium department at Petsmart ever even SEEN one. He doesn't know if they even exist. He sent me to HOME DEPOT, of all places, looking for one. And the closest I found was a cut off valve for a Rainbird irrigation system. I don't know if it will even work or not. So, here is what I finally ended up with. Someone tell me if this will work or not. I bought an air flow regulator unit that is 2 units ganged together. It's supposed to hang on the back of an aquarium tank. Then I bought a splitter so that I can have 1 air line coming out of the air pump but then I can have 2 lines coming out of the splitter which will go to both sides of the ganged regulator. Then I bought 2 things called a "Check Valve," which is supposed to keep water from back flowing from the aquarium tank to the air pump in case of a power outage. I will use the check valve as the thing that mounts in the hole at the bottom of the fluid bed. And finally, I will build two fluid beds, each with its own check valve. So I will have 2 fluid beds, each bed will have a check valve. One end of the check valve will go through the side of the fluid bed & the other end of the check valve will have an air hose that goes to 1 of the 2 sides of the ganged air regulator. The other side of that same side of the air regulator will be connected to a hose that goes to the splitter and the single end of the splitter will be connected to an air hose that goes to the air pump. Of course the air flow will go in the opposite direction of my explanation. And I will build 2 fluid beds and each will be connected to its own side of the ganged regulator. Do you guys think that will work before I go to all the trouble of trying to build it? I have ordered some cups from TJ's Tackle and I have bought a piece of 2 inch PVC, a female adapter and an end cap for the fluid bed. I couldn't find a FLUSH clean out valve. So I bought the end cap and will use a short piece of 2 inch PVC to attach it to the end of the female adapter. The guy at the hardware store told me that's the way to attach the end cap to the adapter. So, what do you think?

[Gill Fisher]

Maybe someone who has access to all the parts needed to build a fluid bed needs to start offering a kit of parts for sale to those of us who live where they can't be bought. Just an idea. It would have saved me the aggravation and wasted miles driven trying to find what can't be bought here.

GF