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How wide would that curve need to be to clear the braces etc?

Thanks. The idea with this setup was to have nothing touching the tank and the most minimal setup possible. So almost all the hardware is hidden, the only hardware visible is the pipe work and the ph indicator, which is a clear plug at the end of the inflow pipe.

No worries. I have this setup ready and waiting but not yet in use. I’ve acquired another child lately so this aquarium has had to go on the back burner again. Even so, they will get used hopefully in a year or two. The pic shows them as they are currently. The outflow is higher as it...

Has it got adjustable feet? If not I would put some on and level it that way

That’s awesome, such a cool idea and nicely executed. Are the ripples in your video that fast in person or is it sped up on Instagram? It was hard to tell. When reading through it I imagined the ripples to be more like a drop of water and the ripples would sort of fade or decay and then...

In all seriousness, if you are having a baby I wouldn’t take this project on for at least another 18 months.

Hi thanks for your interest. If you check my posts there is a thread where I detail building my aquarium and nearly everything from scratch, including the pipe work. Theres some info in there if you want to check it out. I’m fortunate enough to have a metal workshop so I have a mill to make...

Polycarbonate wouldn’t need sanding it will stick as hard as it does to glass

I’m loving your take on this, really refreshing to see something new (and mechanical). With the ripples, are you looking to make small ripples? First thing that came to my mind would be to have a drop of water land in the centre of the tank to create a ripple. Largely for simplicity of building

Silicone bonds very well to polycarbonate. It looks like acrylic too. Silicone will peel straight of acrylic

This is great, love it

well it’s a bit of a magical solution and you’re right, there’s not much out there. It’s quite advanced but someone has made it accessible. Check out simplefoc and look on YouTube for examples. It will run very quiet, won’t get hot and use much energy, will give high torque and low noise...

Have you considered field orientated control? That will give you high torque at low speed.

This is awesome. Out of interest does the stepper motor create noise an vibration?

Silicone needs the air to set and it won’t stick to anything wet. So probably no good if you can’t take this thing out of the tank

I was awake in the middle of the night thinking about this. I don’t know if it would suit your setup but as a general idea it could work for people. My tank, although currently empty is close to a radiator. I was thinking of wrapping copper pipe tight around the pipe work that goes to the...

Certainly worth playing with. I love the idea of getting free energy in this way and making a system efficient. It’s worth trying and seeing what results you get. Only thing I would really have to put thought in is how you would control the heat going in to the tank. It would either...

Something to consider here is the use of copper, it’s toxic to crustaceans et al. Not sure if there is such a thing but stainless steel heat exchanger would be safer. Also that cooler appears to release heat to the air through those plates rather than gather it. Unless it’s sat in something...

I’ve got a whole bag of them somewhere. Can sell some if you or anyone else needs some

Is there any failsafe against this? This is something I worry about, a hose popping off in the middle of the night or when I’m at work

I think you can do it with a fluid that you paint on, I think it’s an acid though so you would need to be thorough on the clean up. But I’ve seen frosted window sprays and films to stick over glass. Just a thought

How about etching the glass or putting in frosted panels. The dividers wouldn’t be structural so safe enough to take out and easy to reinstall with new glass

Tell the OH that grey is very 2019, it’s the new magnolia. Problem solved.

There is a paint called the blackest black which is the darkest black paint on the market, a good few coats on the back of your tank will get it black and keep the light mainly on the foreground will make it appear darker.

It largely depends on the depth, up to about 30cm you can get away with 4mm safely. I built a 50x50x31cm tank (documented on here somewhere) from 4mm glass and it’s all good. Tiny bit of bow to the glass but not much. It was previously 41cm tall and bowed about 5mm. Hence making it...

EBay is pretty safe these days, I wouldn’t hesitate getting a tank from there, or secondhand for that matter.

I’ve used the articulated feet on mine and another cabinet with a heavy load and they’re great. Cheap and effective solution.

What a great design and execution. Well done. We need more of this stuff!

On the other side of this, I built a stand and it cost less than £50 using a saw, set square, screws and a drill. You can easily buy lots of unnecessary stuff. In reality all you would really need to do it easily would be a mitre saw instead of a hand saw and some good straight timber.

If seeking a low cost option I would use 20mm metal conduit and bend using a bender and the respective former. You can buy the tube in a long enough length to do in one go and it’s galvanised, so wouldn’t rust from the humidity of the tank. If you’re anywhere near Brighton you can...

As a stand alone frame it wouldn’t hold the weight and would wobble a lot but if the sides form part of the structure and are firmly fitted with loads of screws/nails, then it ought to be fine.

I made one of these to similar dimensions for a window sill years ago. It’s still sat in my bathroom with plants. Go for it. Really satisfying to make and gets lots of comments from visitors

Apparently there is a good aquatics store in the tunbridge area. Although I have never been myself. I would be keen to know of good aquatics places to visit in Sussex/Kent that cater for aquascaping etc

Found that with this set up being very top heavy (total approx 80kg without water and the marble weighing a lot) it had a slight side to side wobble. This is partly due to the small footprint and height but even so it would get worse when filled up. Just in case anyone else goes down the...

ha, no I've had enough of making stuff, should have just bought a tank last year and been done with it!

Got a few hours to myself today. So I’ve more or less completed the tank setup, the light fitting is the last thing to do. I guess I’m nearly at the normal starting point. I started to loose patience a little bit with the wiring and plumbing, I was going to make it all tidy and hidden but...

this looks great, really inspiring stuff here. the growth is so good it's kinda putting me off high tech ideas!

most fire extinguishers have a key to hold them open. you can get chrome extinguishers in 2kg that look pretty nice actually

Did a little bit of arranging last night and got the vertical bits of wood in a bit of a curve and the horizontal piece reaching out to the front just sort of hovers over the bottom of the tank. Happy with this so will be tying it up and siliconing it to make it one tangle of wood. Should...

good isn't it, I love negative space in a tank, don't see enough of it

looks like you're in to wabikusa territory, I've always liked this one Wabi kusa island

thanks guys, I am not seeking to have rare species that are hard to keep so I'm happy with ferns and mosses, I just want a really healthy lush looking tank with one species of fish and RCS. so moss and fern are great as I love the look of these plants. my tank is 50cmx50cmx31cm. I think thats...

cool that sounds good. ill likely go with something like that. I was going to use rotala as a background plant but didn't have much else planned beyond this. it was going to be a discovery and trying all different sorts of things. that will come later down the line now. I just need to think...

thanks thats some good advice. I would like to use a little bit of CO2, just as I bought all the stuff and designed it with CO2 in mind. surely using a bit of CO2 will help...? I am also thinking that in the future, if I just do sand and a choice selection of moss and java fern to start...

Instead of cutting the bottom off, you could drop a new panel inside on top of the cracked panel and silicone it up. That would be a solid repair

These are my options on hardscape. I’m thinking of tying moss to the branches, have some Christmas moss around the base and a big bushy lump of trident java fern in the middle with ada la plata sand on the base. Option one from the front. And looking down Option two (which I think I...

thanks, I have the eagerness I'm just strapped for time and circumstances are rapidly changing. but its ok I think about it quiet a lot, so not lost my mojo. with the scape I have always wanted it to be lush with added CO2 to help things along but yet be relatively minimal. I was going to use...

As part of the rushing I got it all pieced together last night, 1am on a school night. There is a slight problem with hoses not fitting the heater, but I have a way around this. Have some sketchy old iphone images This is far from finished but it’s very close. I need to muck around...

Hopefully this shows how it’s assembled better than my ramblings in the last post.

aarrrgh!!! long time no update... things have taken a bit of a turn and this has had to go on the back burner, I wanted this done by now so am scraping it together. so this bit is the co2 reactor, as done by foxfish on here. so I bought a 20" water filter canister thing.. bought a...

If you want easier, have you considered mounting the pipe on some sort of slider rail and have it fixed in position for up and down with a magnet? You would still need to move by hand but it would take the suction cups out of the equation

I have done something similar to the above but with relays and actuators. you can see in my journal. done it for the exact same reason, don't want the faff of doing it manually

thanks. just some tips on getting free wood, find a friend with a wood burner. these people seem to have scrap wood radars, as soon as you get a wood burner you will be able to sniff out any wood being chucked out within 5 miles. drive around an industrial estate where furniture is being...

If you have the materials and know how it will cost you very little. If you go buying wood at retail and buy new tools etc it will be expensive. I made my stand 1m high for a 50x50cm tank, used salvaged wood for the frame and clad with 3x new pine sheets from a timber merchant. The whole...

I like your approach, quite refreshing and probably will be of use to people for years to come. like the bible

Today I have been mostly eating acorns. This is the control panel for the inlet and outlet pipes. They’re powered off a car battery which will be kept topped up with a solar charger. Having this bit separate from the mains means it should have an element of being more dependable...

Yeah totally, if you can then why not. Always end up exactly with what you want and a standard you’re happy with. I can’t justify paying anyone to do a job anymore when it’s usually quicker to do it yourself and sadly it’s usually done to a better standard than when trusted to a pro. That...

couple of years ago I built this sideboard. its made with IKEA's finest marble look kitchen work top and mdf black wood laminate-esque doors. the stand is sort of matching this, although I am using actual materials rather than the make believe stuff that comes from Neverneverland or where...

This is mildly momentous, it’s all back home and peeling the protective film off the platform bit to reveal a shiny bit of clear plastic was the first job. I got a free fire extinguisher off the guy at work who does the fire extinguisher servicing. Then found 4x polished aluminium...

I had a large and full CO2 gas bottle go off when I was at work once, it was stored on my balcony, thought it would be ok there but it must have heated up enough for the pressure release valve to go. my neighbour heard it and gave me no end of grief about it, as though I did it on purpose...

Just something to keep in mind, I fed my two guppies these years ago, my first fish as it happens, and they got some bacterial infection and one died. Pretty sure it was due to the larvae or the water they were found in. Getting them from the egg sacks is probably the most sterile way of...

Some scape shopping today

Be great to see what you guys come up with. I don’t even need one but feel compelled to make one too!

check this video out, you can get all the parts you need from an old telly, and luckily this guy tells you how to put it all together to make a light screen

are there any views on the powder mixes sold on eBay, such as this - DIY NPK MACRO AND MICRO CSM+B TRACE ELEMENTS AQUARIUM FERTILIZER FISH TANK UK | eBay edit: ignore that, just saw the link Zeus posted, i'll go with that, looks ideal.

thanks! hopefully will have the rest of it back home later in the week

The panels are done, couple coats of varnish and they feel smooth and surprisingly hard like glass, which is nice. Also an extra appearance for Tim Harrison

thanks thats great to hear! a large part of putting it up on here is to try and keep the momentum going. I don't post very much of what happens with the build as theres lots of making tools in order to make other things, having to work things out, redo it, try again type processes so it takes...

Ha well spotted! I think that record came with a poster. When I’m home after the weekend I’ll dig it out and take a photo for you.

thanks, I have considered painting it but its adding more into the mix, my aim is to have minimum amount of everything on show in the hope that it blends in. the tube in the middle is stainless steel, so I could either paint it or more likely, I will polish it. the other option is to paint...

Varnished all the panels up, I’ll take it all home next week after work when dried fully. Also did this, another drop checker to improve on the first I made. The first drop checker I made is on the right, it’s a bit too small. Made it twice as long to allow for a bubble to form in the...

I was think doing this but running a filter along side it too. Only say this as it would be easier to have it set up in a spare bathroom or something running out of sight and would be easy to empty and refill. Just a thought of course. When I do this I won’t be using a large amount of...

I’ve done this but had to disassemble it. Just take it as an opportunity to improve on the first one. I did a thread on my one DIY Optiwhite tank build

Do they have a social media presence? Complaining through twitter or something like that can get companies to move pretty sharpish. Threatening to make a youtube video of the issue will probably get them in to gear too

just to make it easier, could you not chuck the substrate in a bucket (or a few buckets) and top off with water. and just skim off the ammonia rich water, refill every couple of days? might be a quicker and easier way to do it

Managed to grab another hour or so after work. Painting with a blow torch today. This is the front panel. A coat of satin varnish and it’s pretty much done. Might need another coat. Quite happy with how it turned out. Just need to do the two side panels now.

A kitchen done this way would be something to see! You could reuse the existing doors if needing to do your kitchen on a budget. Thanks for checking it out, it’s all starting to come together now. When I have all the electrics hooked up I will try sort out a video to show it all working

thanks, I appreciate the feedback! i'll be going with the knot showing look I think. if this wood wasn't pine the crackle look would probably have come out better.

A touch more done today. Drilled the hole and fitted the outflow pipe. There’s nothing more to do on the stand, thank god. Except the aesthetic finish. From the start I always intended to do what’s called “shou sugi ban” to the wood. Shou Sugi Ban is a technique used for centuries by...

Finished off the little jamming problem with the orange rollers earlier today. The bottom two rollers guide the pipe left and right where as the top two guide the whole little fixing that the rollers bolt to. The fixing that holds the rollers is just a 10mm bit of polycarbonate with a...

You should see the state of my carpentry on this thing. It’s not great. DIY in its most amateur sense.

Got quite a big bit done today, cutting the slot in the side panel. It required figuring out where it needed to go and routering an angle to the inner side. This was to allow the pipe to swing and not hit the edges. I have been putting it off as it’s a new panel of wood and could have...

Ok so today I got the door sorted and got all the panels to line up with equal panel gaps all round. The door solution has worked out pretty well and I’m rather happy with it. It was a bit of a bugger to line up but got there in the end. I had to put a brace on the top edge of the front...

Still been doing things with this but nothing much to post. It’s been a bit slow as other projects and life has got in the way and a fair amount of time has been spent scratching my head and trying to overcome some oversights. This is where I’m at currently, finishing off the stand, which is...

I could custom make you a set in stainless steel if you wanted a particular height/length. 1/2" OD which is only a tiny bit bigger than 12mm by 0.7mm. its essentially the same as 10/12mm pipe work.

You could make the divider removable. It could be screwed in from inside the cabinet. It would still be somewhat structural and support the centre of the base of the tank

ok thats good to hear, I spent all yesterday evening designing a needle valve that should be pretty precise. ill make one and see how it goes. on the basis that a regulator has to meet a standard (which makes sense) I might even buy the cheapest dual regulator I can find just to test it out.

thanks for the input, I probably didn't word it quite right though. I'm trying to find what the weak link is in the regulator set up that makes some better than others. from what I've been reading today I'm starting to think the needle valve is the bit that lets it all down if the quality...

just been reading the recent thread talking about needle valves and how the needle valves on even the decent brand regulators are not entirely up to scratch. just wondering, as someone who is yet to buy a regulator for aquariums and prone to wanting to improve on things, what makes a good...

They probably have that auction left open but don’t have any stock. Easier just to put the price up to a point no one will buy it than to take the auction off and repost again in a few days. And if someone does buy for that price, I’m sure they could find a portion to send off for £99

yup, thats the stuff. surprised they can get away with doing that. how shady

sorry I didn't get a photo as I thought this was a common plant, but I saw a bunch of these plants in the pet section of a garden centre yesterday which looked a bit like Java fern or some sword shaped type plant, was green with bright pinky/purple edges. I've looked for ages and can't ID it...

Small bit of progress after work today. The last post showed how a bit of wire will be attaching to a luminaire. The bit I did today is to attach the other end of the wire. The wire will be feeding through a thin stainless tube. The wire I’m using is stainless steel gear cable for a bike...

I got a free VW Passat once, no mot but fixed the exhaust and it passed.

I got a little time in to do another little job today. I have this Lumini asta pendant lamp that I will be using for this tank. It will be suspended by a cable. The original fitting would require the cable to be tied or gripped with an Allen key type jobby and introduces another “thing”. In...

I’ve not posted much on here lately just as I’ve been doing small and not very interesting things like working out the routing of the pipework and making brackets etc. Since this is a bit more relatable though I thought I would post a bit about the hardscape. I’ve been scratching all the tiny...

Could anyone tell me the on/off frequency of a Twinstar nano please?

Sulphuric acid will melt it out

I'm curious about this removing filter media suggestion. if removing it surely that only increases the volume of water in the set up. if that's the case, what would be the choice of media to optimise the filter in a planted tank?

Did a bit of foraging, my workshop is based on a small holding farm and all the heating is done by burning wood. So there’s stacks of logs everywhere. Just so happened that someone had split a load of ivy clad wood and left the ivy behind. Pretty lucky, found exactly what I wanted straight...