Plywood desk aquarium

[Donblank3]

Hi all, after years of lurking on this site I finally decided to create an account and share one of the

DIY tanks I built. I love building functional furniture and have a huge passion for aquaria and this is the marriage of those two passions. This is my third plywood tank build and for sure the oddest of the three. I made this desk to function as an aquarium. It is simply a prototype of a much grander design I have but i didnt want to devote a ton of time or money on a prototype thus why it is so bland and simple.This tank allowed me to work thru a lot of issues with the design and really taught me quite a bit. My biggest concern with the build were the viewing windows and how the desktop would react to all that water pressure pushing up on the glass. The build took me about a week and i estimate the tank to be about 75gal or so. The fish are free to swim everywhere they please its built sort of like an L so they swim under you while you sit at the desk and infront of you. I have had it set up and running for about 8months now with no issues and I am very pleased with it and will hopefully soon move on to a much more grand version. The plywood is coated in clear sweetwater epoxy and that was done so i could see how well i would be able to see thru the epoxy once it was dry and filled with water. I would like to hear any thoughts/criticism/ideas anyone might have. Thanks

 

[Lawlboom]

Very cool! How do you get under the desk part to clean the sand?

 

[wednesday13]

Very cool! are the glass pieces just siliconed on the outside of the wood/sealer? no fiberglass?

 

[Donblank3]

Thank you . Well the goldfish really keep everything very clean and i have a golden dojo that does as well but I also took a very small submersible pump and attached it to a piece of pvc that has an elbow so it shoots under the glass and i just kind of hoover it over the sand and it sucks any debris out. Its pretty simple to do. I use a magnet cleaner for the glass. I had some grass placed under the glass for decoration but the goldfish quickly dug that up and I have yet to replace it.

 

[Donblank3]

Very cool! whats its sealed with? and is the top glass/desk piece just siliconed on top of the wood/sealer?

I used Ge window and door i believe( something like that) I put silicone on all the edges of the sealed plywood and then ran a bead under the glass and smoothed it out just like you would any glass joint in any aquarium. It was very difficult to get that bottom piece in and luckily it was leak free the first fill up. Silicone sticks amazingly well to the sweetwater epoxy. I did some tests with it and it seemed to stick almost as well as glass.( maybe an exaggeration but I was happy with the seal). I did not use fiberglass on this build but I did on my 150gallon. My thinking was since it was so small the fiberglass wouldnt really be necessary and also i didn't want anything obstructing the view of the wood grain. In my newer design the wood grain isn't important and i will be fiber glassing.

 

[Homer Siped]

Man that is freakin awesome!!

 

[Lawlboom]

Is it loud?

 

[HEMP111]

That is awesome!! How thick is the glass that you used? Same thickness on both?

 

[Donblank3]

That is awesome!! How thick is the glass that you used? Same thickness on both?

Both of the glass pieces are 3/8" ,I think i could of gotten away with 1/4" but i didnt want to risk it since it was such a weird design.

 

[Donblank3]

Is it loud?

I will post some pics of the filtration later so everyone can see that( i designed that too) . But it is not to loud, if the water level gets low from evaporation it has some noise from the return and some sucking noise from the outflow but for the most part its not really noticeable.