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Everything DIY build

Neat idea, that’s great! Do you have any way to make the dark grey internal tube white? It’ll make it much easier to read.
 
Neat idea, that’s great! Do you have any way to make the dark grey internal tube white? It’ll make it much easier to read.


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 the back of the perspex tube white. will see how it goes, I would prefer not to paint any of it but I have plenty more material to make another and have ago with different ideas.
 
All looking good. Interesting album title in pink and black :oops:
That's got to be a collectors item :hilarious:
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I have been following this in awe of your DIY prowess and fully appreciating your perfectionist streak...
Thanks for sharing and please keep updating! I can’t wait to see this completed!
 
I have been following this in awe of your DIY prowess and fully appreciating your perfectionist streak...
Thanks for sharing and please keep updating! I can’t wait to see this completed!

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 masses of time, and I'm not following any preexisting plan. I knew it would take ages and putting it on here has helped push me to finish it. I hope to get it planted up soon, its feeling like I'm getting closer to the end of the making part.
 
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.

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I got a free fire extinguisher off the guy at work who does the fire extinguisher servicing.

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Then found 4x polished aluminium fire extinguishers on eBay!

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So a trip to the depths of Maidstone to collect them ensued. The bloke gave me some non co2 extinguishers too. One of them somehow went off in the car which was great fun. My girlfriend loved it and really enjoyed the trip out, she kept asking why I bought a load fire extinguishers and when am I going to stop bringing a load of random crap home. Then the fire extinguisher went off again. Those orange tags are not too strong it turns out and a pin fell out.

Also bought a dual stage co2 reg a while back. Some German brand but looks well made. The needle valve looks a bit inaccurate, despite the claim of being “highly accurate” on their website. So I will probably make my own if it turns out to be problematic.

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I feel like I’m getting to the stage which would otherwise be a normal starting point.
 
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.

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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 ever Ikea came from.


I spent a while ringing round kitchen builders and stone yards for a 50x50cm or more marble offcut to use as the top. even when its an "affordable offcut" marble or quartz is still hella expensive.

so I went a to local tile place that does marble tiles and ordered a 50x50x1cm marble bathroom tile to use the top of my plinthy stand.

I waited and waited but just like the money I sent over to the Nigerian prince a few years ago, nothing ever materialised.

then a massive stroke of luck, a guy locally wanted shot of a couple large bits of marble kitchen worktop he had sitting in his garden, totally free. I'm all about free so I was like...




after getting some obscenely heavy bits of stone in the car I set about finding someone to cut it to size. the stone masons were on £60 an hour and the kitchen people were worse, they made out it was a big job and will be looking around £100 minimum.

this wasn't looking good.

then I thought out of the yellow pages and went to a local head stone maker, just the guy for the job, he had no problem with it, was just like yeah sure leave it with me I'll do it tomorrow. £15, 4 clean cuts exactly to size.

this is what I have.

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this will be sitting upon a bit of MDF, the MDF spreads the weight over the stand, the marble sits on that nicely and hovers over the edge of the side panels, the marble top is scratched but that doesn't matter as won't be seen and is nicely polished with no bumps. theres a layer of zote foam to take up any imperfections and support the base of the tank, then the tank will go on top. It’s 3cm thick so a nice hefty chunk of Carrara marble
 
You're my kind of person @Dogtemple. If you're going to do it... why not do it with the fabulous real stuff - and as cheap as possible to boot.

I had my bathroom sink top cut from a raw bit of stone a few years ago, and came across the same bizarre unwillingness to help attitude & madly overpriced. It is worth it though, stone is just the best material, so beautiful.
 
You're my kind of person @Dogtemple. If you're going to do it... why not do it with the fabulous real stuff - and as cheap as possible to boot.

I had my bathroom sink top cut from a raw bit of stone a few years ago, and came across the same bizarre unwillingness to help attitude & madly overpriced. It is worth it though, stone is just the best material, so beautiful.

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 marble was an exception though. I knew I couldn’t cut it straight with a grinder and didn’t have the right tools for a good finish.

So far this build has cost me barely anything other than time. If I paid someone else to do all this I dread to think what it would set me back.
 
Today I have been mostly eating acorns.

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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, environmentally better (even if only by a small amount) and also for the simplicity aspect.

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The round white thing is a timer switch, this will turn the up and down outlet relay on and off. The idea being that it turns on at night, switches the relay to turn on the linear actuator that raises the outlet pipe. This in turn helps oxygenate the tank by causing surface agitation. In the morning when it’s light the switch will turn off and bring the pipe back down to its normal height.

The digital bits on the right are two countdown timers. They are somewhat elaborately wired to each other and another relay.

The bottom timer counts down from a given time, then when it reaches zero it turns on for say 3 seconds then turns off again. Then it starts to countdown again and repeats the cycle indefinitely.

The top timer counts down from a given time, when it reaches zero it will turn a relay on. This relay switches the polarity of the linear actuator. It will then count down again and switch the relay off, this will switch the polarity again the other way.

The effect of all this is that it will cause the outflow pipe to go from left to right and do so in incremental movements.

I plan to set it to turn the linear actuator on for approx 3 seconds (which will move the outflow pipe a small amount in one direction) then stay off for an hour. After an hour it will go on again for 3 seconds and move the pipe again a small amount. This will continue on a loop. The other timer will coincide with whatever timing it needs (still need to work this out) but let’s say it takes 12 hours to do all the incremental movements to move the pipe from left to right. After 12 hours the timer counts down to zero then switches the polarity on the actuator, and it then goes back the other way and does this over and over all day everyday. Moving left to right in small, barely noticeable movements every hour.

The idea of all this is to circulate the water in the tank giving the best flow possible and no dead spots. It also means no extra pumps will be required and may possibly make the filter more efficient. That’s just speculation though.

I hope to have a video of this working soon.

These are the relays, they’re hidden on the inside of the stand.

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I could have used arduino for all this but I preferred the cheap, simple and effective option of relays.
 
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..
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bought a length of acrylic tube and found a bottle that would fit in there. luckily my favourite chilli sauce had just run out and was a perfect fit. so cut the bottom off and jammed it in.

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the other end fits a multivitamin tube perfectly.

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that couples nicely to the other end. which is here. there is an existing hole in the top of the filter so I am passing the co2 tube through that and made another hole beside that to monitor the water temperature from an ink bird thermostat. the co2 on the foxfish designed one goes in the inlet and bubbles up the top in the bottle, where as this one goes in near the outlet but the tube passes to the bottom of the internal tube and the co2 bubbles up to the top of the bottle. so it just utilises the existing hole and the co2 hopefully will dissolve a little easier by floating from the bottom of the filter housing to the top.

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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

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This is far from finished but it’s very close.

I need to muck around with joining some pipes and doing the plumbing, a minor job. Tidy the wiring and make the luminaire. Bit of a bigger job but that’s ok.

Dare I say, in the meantime I can start considering scaping this thing?!!
 
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I know exactly what you mean! Reckon you should get going on the hardscape thinking - keep the momentum up!


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 a lot of negative space along with branchy wood coming out of the surface with loads of plants in the corner.

now I am thinking I may do this but only with java fern and moss. the only substrate being sand and no soil, with the plants getting their nutrients from the water column, if thats possible. I guess it would be with java fern and moss as they don't have roots.

I always wanted these plants, but these plus more stem plants etc.

I'm just thinking for the sake of easier upkeep and a minimal aesthetic that this could work.

any thoughts from those with more experience?
 
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