TV Fish Tank (inventive title, huh?)

A short while ago, I was surfing around on the Internet looking for interesting things and found this page on which a guy details a project where he turned an old, broken TV set into a fish tank. One of my roommates, The Boy, happened to walk by while I was reading it and took a liking to the concept. A few days later, he called me from work, asking me to bring a truck over to scavenge an old TV they were going to throw out. I knew immediately why he was asking this and, figuring it would make for an amusing day or two, drove right over there. As you'll see from the post-deconstruction pictures below, it's old, clunky, and beat up, but it has a lot of character. It also swivels! (admittedly, while a swiveling TV fish tank affords one a lot of bragging rights, it doesn't really lend any real utility to the project)

I suppose I should add here that there are big, powerful capacitors inside the case of every tube TV set. Capacitors are used in electrical circuits sort of like batteries - they are charged and discharged as determined by the circuit to make magical things, like free Internet porn, work. When taking apart a tube TV, wear insulating gloves, unbolt all the circuits from their mounting, clip all the wires that prevent the circuit removal, and throw the boards and other techno-viscera away immediately. I've never personally seen anyone get shocked by TV guts, but apparently it's no joke. These capacitors will hold charge for months or years (even if unplugged), I'm told. In any case, you've been warned. Back to the narrative.

The Boy is pretty motivated once he gets inspired - especially when his inspiration involves building stuff. While I take forever doing even the most mundane projects, The Boy tends to work around little problems like "aesthetics" or "physics," preferring instead to hack it together, get it done, and start enjoying it immediately. This time, however, I got caught up in his enthusiasm and forgot to bust out the camera and take a couple of pictures of the TV before we ripped in to it. After virtually completing El Desko! without snapping any shots, I had resolved to pull my act together and provide myself with material to post on this stupid page. Obviously my resolve is a little shaky sometimes, especially when presented with a sanctioned opportunity to break stuff. carefully take things apart.

Given these shortcomings, this picture probably gives the best idea of what the original TV looked like. A fine, US made (some parts manufactured in Mexico), Montgomery Ward television of indeterminate age.



Before attempting to battle this project, we first had to gird our loins with the proper tools for the job. As you can see, I chose to arm myself with Bud Light, while The Boy was mixing beer and Gimlets for some reason. I think he made it to about 9 PM before he passed out. Oh yeah - we also used a screw gun and an angle grinder, but those aren't nearly as important. It's sort of a Zen thing. My state of mind is more important than the physical environment around me. Plus, my power tool hand runs a little steadier after a couple of drinks...



This is entirely unrelated to the above-discussed philosophy of mental lubrication (I swear!):



As you can see, we left the speakers in the TV. There was some discussion about running our main stereo system through these, but if I learned one thing from Deuce Bigalow - Male Gigolo, it's that you don't tap on the tank and say "fishy, fishy, fishy." I figured that blasting Slayer or D12 right through the walls of the tank wouldn't be a great idea either.



The Boy had jumped in to this thinking that we could modify the TV tube to act as the tank or build one like the guy who's original project inspired us. Using the tube was out of the question - there's apparently a lot of lead used in constructing these things (especially the older ones), not to mention that it's a vacuum tube and they tend to implode when shattered. All-around bad idea.

I also impressed on him the fact that building one from scratch would take cash (on top of the money we knew we'd have to spend on filters, pumps, fish, and whatnot) and time. It would take several days to accurately cut, reinforce, and seal - especially a tank of the size required to fill the void in the now piecemeal TV.

It so happens that I had recently gotten a bigger tank for my snake, Fluffy, so we decided to clean up his old tank and see if it would fit. Turns out it was nearly perfect! The tank nestled right up to the front of the cabinet and has about 1/4" clearance from the speakers on both sides. This also gives us room on the sides and the back for the water pump, cords / power strip, etc. Also, notice that we removed the top (with some difficulty - they screwed and glued the shit out of that thing). This was so we could make a hinged lid, detailed below.



We needed to keep the top together because we wanted the cabinet to look like it was still in one whole piece, even though the lid would hinge up for easy access. Unfortunately, although the individual pieces of the top were heavily secured to the front and sides of the set, they were barely glued to each other. In short, they came apart when we were banging the crap out of the top with a rubber mallet. I also split the wood at one corner when I missed a couple of screws and tried to pry it off of its mounting. We reglued all the pieces and clamped them together. Even the corner I busted came out looking pretty damn fine in the end.



Once the glue on our broken top had properly set, we screwed a board in to the back of the cabinet. The board added to the sturdiness of the frame and gave us a base from which to hinge the lid. A few pilot holes drilled and screwed later and we had a nice looking, flip-top lid for our TV tank!



Although it looked good closed, the action wasn't smooth because the top was never intended to be opened at the angle that the hinging requires (or at all, really). I took a couple of thin slices from the lid with the band saw while The Boy used the angle grinder to remove some of the offending material from the top of the flashing that borders the hole where the tube once sat. Once we put it back together, it worked real nice.



In order to keep the lid from falling backward and ripping out the hinges or smashing the wall, we added this this cable, nicked from the decomposing planks that our landlords generously call a gate. "Safety first," was our mantra as we cropped and mounted the line. Turns out not really to have been needed, though. Where we placed the aquarium, the lid hits the wall just past 90 degrees before the cable is pulled taught.



Finally, we were ready to start setting up the actual aquarium. We went to the local Petco and picked up gravel, filters, bubbler, pumps, water conditioner, heater, and fake plants. We were advised to put all that stuff in with the water and give it a couple of days for everything to reach a neutral balance or some other such crap.



You can see from the picture below that the top of the tank appears a little low in the TV tube frame / flashing. We considered shimming it up, but the water pump (seen on the right side, just above the TV control buttons) just barely fit under the closed top, so we had little alternative but to leave it as is or build the top up higher. We didn't have any wood that would have matched (or chucked) and we thought it would look crappy if we tried, so we're just going to have to live with it. It's not that big of a deal, really.



After waiting 3 days, we took a trip to a specialty fish store where this fish nerd told us how we could only put a couple of little fish in for the first 3 weeks so they could increase the nitrate level of the tank. This shit is taking forever! Who knew an aquarium would be so complicated? I have a beta that's lived in a tiny little tank for about 2 years and he seems indestructible. In any case, we added a light, a rock, a plastic skull, and a mold of a tyrannosaurus rex claw that my mom gave my brother, along with 3 little fish called striped something-or-others (one of which is an albino striped something-or-other). Once the tank is all nitrated up, we plan to add some more exotic stuff. Maybe a small eel, those bottom-feeding sucker fish - they even have freshwater prawns. Can't do anything yet, though.

Here's a shot of the fully completed tank with all the room lights off and no flash. You can see that there is a little light leakage around the lid and on the floor. I really never really noticed this until I looked at the picture, but I think a little cleverly placed black foil will take care of it if it starts to bother me.



For a better view of the inside, I turned on the flash. Here you can see a couple of our little fish. They're mildly interesting, but really only when they're fed. One of the non-albino striped ones is kind of a bully, chasing the others and nipping at their tails.



So there it is. The only thing left to do it wait the required time and get some more fish. I'll post an update once we do. Overall, the project was really easy and fun. The only downsides are the cost to equip the aquarium and the amount of time it takes for all the neutralizing and nitrating and other foolishness. The most important thing is that it looks cool in the house and people dig it.