Diy - Building Atlantis

[Phenz]

I got 8x 7'' greek pillars designed for wedding cakes in the mail today. they have holes through them and i thought it would be a cool idea if they had bubbles going though them. i could put them around the edge of my tank and have bubbling pillars framing my tank.

I thought i'd share this with the forum as i haven't really contributed anything of my own yet, just really been asking questions and reading everyone elses input.

i'll take some pictures of what i have so far and get them up in the next hour or so.

 

[Phenz]

just a few pics of the pits and pieces i'm going to use to make the decor. There are some other pillar ruins that i'm thinking i might include, looks a little crowded though, need to come up with a good idea for some atlantian/greek themed hiding places.

The tank measures 20'' wide, 14'' deep and 21'' tall, 20gallon 75 litre - its a completely blank canvas at the moment.

 

[Phenz]

i had a setback where i couldn't get all the pipes to bubble at the same time, but i've added airstones onto the end and the resistance sets a back pressure which forces the air out of all the tubes, so much for making sure all the pipes are the same length and symmetrical in every way, just needed to add a standard pressure resistor on the end.

i've cut up all the piping and the T points, but the shop only had 2 so i'll need to wait till i can get some more to complete it, but i've got one side working.

just need to attach the pillars at the moment, but the silicon i was going to use doesn't hold them in place. i'm going to look for other aquarium safe glue, it doesn't say on the aroldite tube whether its aquarium safe

 

[venom2112]

looking good m8, good idea!

 

[Lateral Line]

You want to be careful those things don't start leaching minerals into the water hardening it and raising your pH. Depends what you plan to keep of course.

 

[Phenz]

I'm keeping 2 blue rams, 1 angelfish and a few tetras at the moment, but i'm going to get half a dozren cardinals and few panda corries, my pH is around 7 at the moment but its a south american tank so the pH can be okay a little higher.

the araldite doesn't seem to be holding. At the moment i'm looking for a strong enough glue/joining method that will keep the pillars straight and inline.

I've been experimenting with roughening the bottom of the pillars and the top of the plastic, but the Araldite doens't seem to hold it.

I'm going to glue the pillars to the plastic base and burry the base with gravel and have the pillars rising though, so i'm thinking that the pillars need to be secured strong enough so that the base can be lifted out of the gravel by the pillars and not have the glue snapping. My experience is with wood and things, and its always the wood that gives before the glue - thats how strong i want the bond to be.

I remember when i used to do minature modeling we used polystyrene-cement which basically melts the surface of both items to be glued and bonds them together.

i have enough surface area for a good seal - i can't understand why it't not holding.

 

[Lateral Line]

All of the species you list are softwater fish. If those pillars start leaching Calcium etc., your hardness and pH will rise. Unchecked, it will ultimately go to well over pH 8 and 30 hardness, fine for rift valley tanks, (where minerals are added for that purpose). Of course your regular water changes will moderate this.

I'm just advising you to be watchful of them.

 

[iairj84]

the rams will do well with a little more cover as they're kind of shy. And the angel will probably outgrow the tank fairly quickly but other than that the stocking level seems ok for now... Very cool Idea. I might have to get a few for my cichlid tank, it's got a colluseum in it right now which makes an excellent hiding place. Where did you get the pillars?

 

[raptorrex]

All of the species you list are softwater fish. If those pillars start leaching Calcium etc., your hardness and pH will rise. Unchecked, it will ultimately go to well over pH 8 and 30 hardness, fine for rift valley tanks, (where minerals are added for that purpose). Of course your regular water changes will moderate this.

I'm just advising you to be watchful of them.

a good idea to be careful, but can plastic pilers leach calcium? i would have thought as these things were used to decorate Food, the rules on what they contain would be very strict. sorry its the old chef talking there.

 

[Phenz]

Had a lot of work commitments recently so the projects been put on hold for a minute.

Got a new ram so i've got 2 of them, picked the one who was sure of himself and chasing all the other rams around the tank.

The fish seem really happy at the moment in the tank with a few random slates and a couple of old roman pillar pieces. There aren't many places for them to hide but they are getting on swimmingly.

The pillars are the ones used for wedding cakes, like boboboy said, i figured kitchen stuff is designed to be used with food, dishwasher safe etc so i figured they'd be as good/better than most everyday plastics.

Changed from the lid i was using cause it was so shiny to a pimpled dvd box hoping the rough surface would bond better - but to no avail. If i held the base, it would break if i lent a paperback book against it. i was worried that araldite would hold with such strength that if i were to make a mistake i'd have to saw it off - not the case. i tried gluing 2 small pieces of plastic together as a test thinking it might just be the leverage of the pillars that made strong gluing unrealistic. But the small plastic pieces i could split between my thumb and forefinger.

At a loss of how to secure the pillars vertically.

 

[Biff0r]

could u not fill with something heavy on the bases? silcone to tank base, then u could get desired angles etc

 

[Phenz]

Had the ultimate brainwave.

took a few weeks - but here it is. No glue, no worrying about solvents etc.

Drill holes about 1mm in the plastic base, and 1mm holes in the pillars and use zipties to secure the pillars to the base! Genius!

can be undone at the drop of a hat.

The only problem is, at the moment the only zip ties i have are blue and although they aren't going to be seen i think if i can get hold of black/white/brown ones tomorrow it would look better, cause i can't be bothered waiting and its 9:20 at night think i'll use blue ones and if it looks bad i'll redo them. Thats how good a solution this is! can be snipped apart at the drop of a hat.

means that the pillars won't be as inline as i had originally hoped but think that might have been a pipe dream.

i want it to be in the tank already and bubbling away!

 

[Phenz]

I'll get some pics up when i've recharged my camera.

The zipties work a charm, i've secured a few pillars to the base already and i can hold the setup by the pillars whilst i'm drilling more holes, sawing off the sides of the lid etc, they're not 100% square, but i don't think that'll bother me.

there is a little give in all of the pillrs so its a possibility to brace them against eachother at a later date causing them to line up.

hopefully by this time tomorrow i'll have it working.

just need to get a few more T pieces for the tubing.

 

[Phenz]

Got half of it rigged together and sitting in the tank, some pillars have more air bubbling though them than others i think, but it might just be because of where the light is. Going to reorder tubing into the pillars putting the weaker jets at the front.

when i initially switch it on it looks really cool, with tiny spurts of bubbles coming ramdomly out of each of the pillars untill the pressure builds up and each one has a helthy stream.

None of the fish are swimming at the top of the tank around the bubbles but i think that will change as they get used to it. The air pump i'm using at the moment is quite noisey compared to the rest of the pumps i have so i might not have it on that much.

looks cool without the bubbles aswell though!