As you start to take in all that was involved with building these two aquariums it boggles the mind. At the time of writing the forum thread is 56 pages long and it’s not just filled up with the adoration of [Big Mr Tong’s] fans. He did so much work that every page is packed with progress pictures that cover the range of topics: plumbing, electrical, mechanical, artistic…. wow!
The curse project was sparked by a friend giving him a couple of huge acrylic cylinders which were a perfect size for custom aquariums. [Tong] even had a couple of ideas in mind for underwater artwork to fill them with. One is a replica of statue ruins that give you the feeling that the tank is a piece of Atlantis capture for your own entertainment. The other is a fascinating replica of a plumbing stack. You know, the large cast-iron pipes that carry away waste? But these are actually PVC parts with modeling clay accents. They were broken, cut, melted, sanded, and who knows what else, to arrive at this look. The different aquariums feature different lighting techniques. There’s custom-made filter baffles. We could go on and on but we won’t so check out the link at the top for all the details.
In the end he went beyond the original cylinders and built his own square tank for the pipe design. It’s a steam-punk piece so there’s even analog dials to display the vital signs of the habitat.
Just looking to maintain a tank you already own? How about building an automatic chemical dispenser.
Really nice, especially the “cast iron” tank.
The steampunk version is awesome! As far as the one with Venus statue, as soon as you put fish in there, they start to, err… live and muck it up. There will be a lot of cleaning needed. Not so much with the steampunk one, so it’s clearly a winner!
That is exactly what would happen to anything in an aquatic environment with living organisms that urinate and defecate where they live. However, scavengers live on that waste and an aquarist could bring some balance to the habitat by adding scavenger species that are compatible to the rest of the species in the habitat to help manage the buildup of crud. One place to see what species are compatible with the others in your aquarium is http://www.fishprofiles.com Aquarists often add real live plants to the habitat to help control the any waste which adds even more balance.
I haven’t gotten a chance to look at the build log, but I am interested in how the builder managed the filtration. The pics here look amazing.
Wow… the pipework tank is just incredible. I think the statue tank would be better with some aging and maybe growth on the statue… and not white.
holy aquaboxes of the holy lord of mother nature OO! no words for it!
“At the time of writing the forum thread is 56 pages long”
Which is why Forums SUCK as a tool to write your build log.
Looks interesting, but I’m not going to wade thru 56 forum pages to dig out the important build info.
Just click only show starter posts.
They look very nice, hopefully he sticks to very small fish species as these tanks are a lot smaller than they look.
I like how he used modeling clay! Printing 3D is nice but there are other ways to go!