Excellent DIY Aquarium Stuff

Throughout the years, I have come across some amazing DIY aquarium stuff in forums. However, some of the threads in the forum was removed after several years. Sometimes the link to a website was no longer valid. So, there's no way I can locate them back. In order not to loss them, I have decided to collect some of the interesting DIY aquarium stuff that I have encountered recently in my own blog.


DIY Acrylic Tube:

The first one is a DIY acrylic tube by Paul aka Jedishrimp from APC (Aquatic Plant Central) forum. With the right tool, it seems like a pretty simple DIY project. Here's some sample acrylic tubes he has made:


The most crucial part of this project is bending the tube. If not done carefully, the tube may break or simply looks ugly. You need some patience to heat up the acrylic and turn it around. Then bend it a little bit. Keep repeating the heating and bending process until it has turned into the shape you want. Have a look at the Paul's excellent video on the technique of bending the tube by clicking the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSj2c0lR-wc


DIY Aquarium Background:

In APC forum, I have also encountered another great DIY project by an Italian named Stefano aka Dabolox. Basically, the DIY aquarium background make use of some of the readily available material from your own backyard such as soil, dry branches and dry dead leaves. It looks very beautiful and natural too especially if you're keen in setting up a black water tank that imitates the nature.

The following are some of the items used by Stefano:



He also created a hidden compartment for filter and heater as follows:


From the ingredients above, he created the following aquarium background. The roots he used are grapevine roots. You may try other alternative roots as long as it's non-toxic to the fishes and plants.


After he moved the aquarium background into the tank, here's how it looks like at various stages:



To read about Stefano's original article with more detailed information, you can check out the following link:

http://www.acquarionline.it/acquari/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22&Itemid=1