Aquarium with own hands

Many of us, for sure, would like to have a big and beautiful aquarium at home. However, given the considerable cost of such pleasure, many are denied themselves.

If you still firmly decided to become an aquarist, and there is not much money to buy an aquarium, you can make it yourself. At first glance, the task may seem complicated. In fact, making a large aquarium with your own hands is a fascinating, interesting and in some way a creative process that requires precise calculation and of course effort. It is also important that a self-made aquarium, made by yourself, will cost you much cheaper than what you could buy at a pet store or to order.

In our master class we will share with you one interesting idea how to make a large aquarium with your own hands in the sizes of 1150x500x400. For this we need:

• a set of glasses with a thickness of 8 mm (see table below);
• silicone adhesive - 2 cans;
• mounting knife;
• a sheet of sandpaper;
• Painting tape;
• mounting gun;
• mounting gloves;
• alcohol (or acetone);
• self-adhesive in blue - 1500x400 mm;
• heater - 1500x400 mm;
• pieces of old PVC profile - 2 pcs.

Making an aquarium with your own hands

1. Once all the tools have been prepared, we start making them. The entire process of manufacturing our aquarium with their own hands lasts 4 days. First we take two pieces of PVC profile and place the bottom glass along them, so that the edges of the profile protrude a little.
2. We take the plates and put them to the bottom.
3. Degrease the patches with a cotton pad soaked in alcohol or acetone.
4. In an arbitrary form, we put silicone sealant on the lacquer. We glue them to the bottom along the entire perimeter and across the bottom.
5. The surface of the bottom is also lubricated with glue to reduce the likelihood of its damage to the ground.
6. We take paint tape and glue them edge of side windows. This is done so that after making the aquarium with your own hands you do not have to scrape off the glue from the glass.
7. Generously grease the side edges of the bottom.
8. Press the side windows to the edge of the bottom, we prop them with something heavy (in our case, these are cans with conservation) and leave to dry for a day.
9. Put our construction on its side, and apply a glass on it.
10. Again, we glue the tops of the glass with paint tape.
11. At the edges of the side windows, apply glue evenly.
12. We stack the glass and lightly press it down so that the glue comes out of the seams.
13. As we make a large aquarium with our own hands, so that the structure is reliable, we install on the front glass the stiffeners. Take the rear window and pasted the edges with paint tape.
14. Apply evenly glue on the side of the rib and apply it to the very edge of the glass. We leave our design for another day. The same procedure in the subsequent done and with the front glass.
15. In the same way as described above, attach the rear window.
16. Our aquarium with our own hands is almost ready.
17. Now we fix the cross ties to the stiffeners.
18. We make a few drops of glue between the screeds so that we can put glass covering our aquarium (coverslips) on them.
19. We put these glasses between the transverse ties, pre-glued to them handles.
20. Here we have such an aquarium with our own hands.
21. Now to the bottom of the aquarium we glue the heater.
22. We thoroughly wipe the aquarium from the outside and paste the back and side walls with a self-adhesive.
23. At this stage, the production of our large aquarium came to an end, and it can be installed on a prepared place.