Steampunk Aquarium

After reading around the net about steampunk, some thing I do every once in a while. It occurred to me that I had never seen a aquarium in the steam punk style. Thinking it would be relaxing to have a very small fish tank to sit on my desk at work so I got down to planing the build.

Now there are a few things every good steampunk themed project has. Brass, copper, valves, cloth covered wire and gears. I decided I would focus on the details and try to let the rest speak for itself.

I have seen tons of glass jars and the like at walmart and hobby stores. I liked the idea of having some thing perfectly cylindrical so I decided to go searching. I found what I was looking for at hobby lobby for $3 U.S. While walking up to the front of the store to pay for the jar I happened threw an isle that had unfinished wooden boxes with brass fixtures. I got to looking at them and found one that was a rectangle that the bottom of the jar could sit on.

That's when it occurred to me to cut a hole in the top of the box and sit the jar in it. That way the sand that I wanted to use in the jar would be level with the top of the box. So for another $3 U.S. I bought it. The only down side to the jar is that the lid is brushed steel. It doesn't look bad but I am not sure it fits in with the whole steampunk feel.

After I got every thing cut and test fit the jar into the box, I had to start thinking about a way to filter this aquarium. Being so small and round there are really no commercial filters that would work. So I remembered an old filter that I had and how it worked via an air pump rather than by directly using a pump. The principle is simple really. You force air down a tube and into a water filled tube. As the bubble moved up threw the tube filled with water it creates negative pressure on the filter side of the tube.

I needed to find a direct current aquarium air pump. This is no easy task as most pumps are of course for use where there is AC. I managed to find one at walmart and took it out of it's casing. Lucky for me it was $14 U.S. so not much of an investment.

Once I had that all figured out it was time to start on making the filter. This is a very simple as it is only a small plastic box and a 1/4 inch plastic tube. I picked up the tube from an aquarium shop for $0.70 U.S. and the plastic box was $0.50 U.S. at hobby lobby. I drilled a hole for the 1/4 tube and glued it in with super glue. Make sure and let the super glue dry before it is put inside the jar. Then I drilled a few holes in the front of the plastic box and added some filter media.

The considerations I had to make with this type of filter is that it would need to use a ridged line to feed the air and had to make sure it was easy to remove so I could remove the top of the aquarium. With the details of that all done I could move to the electrical portion of the aquarium. The air pump I wanted to be direct current just in case the aquarium were to leak, same with the light source. I opted for a 3watt white led from hong kong, as it is cheap, far more efficient with less heat.

After looking at the wires for a while I decided that they did not fit in with the whole steampunk look and feel. So I cut a piece of para cord and removed the inside strands. Then I ran the wires threw that so the look like wire from the 50's. The only thing I don't like is the connector I used on the lid of the aquarium that is for the led. It just doesn't fit in and I am trying to think of some thing to replace it with.

I also thought it would be nice to have a brass valve to control how much air is going into the aquarium. A quick trip to lowes and I found a nice valve for $6 U.S. Next I needed a nice way to connect the direct current power supply to the whole thing. I found some brass 10-24 thread bolts and nuts at lowes. I drilled the bolts out so I could pass the wire threw the hole and tighten the nuts down on the wire. I also picked up some brass 6-32 thread bolts while I was there to use for holding the valve stand.

The electronics right now are about as simple as it gets. Power comes from a 5v 1Amp wall plug, it is from an old cell phone. There are two linear voltage regulators used to drop the voltage down to 3.3v and 2.3v. The 3.3v is for the led and the 2.3v is for the air pump. In the future I plan to add a light sensitive circuit that will turn the light and pump on when its light out.

All I can say is that I really like the way this came out. The only exception to this is the connector that I used to connect the led to the voltage regulator.