illemonati
Community Member
Hi all!
Inspired by the R2R New Thread Challenge, I figured I would share something I have attempted a few times over, but have had continuous issues with and ultimately bailed on. I am calling this the "invisible" equipment build, which is ultimately disguising any equipment inside of rockwork and/or in the cabinet to end up with an aquarium that is just the inhabitants inside.
This is the closest I have gotten to really pulling this idea off, where the only thing you'll notice (if you are observant) is the wire of my ATO sensor attached to the branching rock sticking out above the water surface. This photo was taken with the tank running, and it had been established for quite a while like this:
The above build was an Ultum Nature Systems 45u, with three holes drilled in it for plumbing in the cabinet. There was one 1" bulkhead in the back left for the inlet plumbing, and two 3/4" bulkheads in the front left/front right for the outlet plumbing. The plumbing was hidden inside of holes drilled in the rock, and connected to an Ecotech Vectra S2 set to closed-loop mode. The heater, temperature probe, ATO water line, etc were all run inline, and I ran the wiring for the ATO sensor up through the inlet bulkhead to prevent the cable from having to go over the glass. Although the cable was visible, I figured it would get covered with coralline eventually.
This setup was running great for a while, but I had an issue with surface scum that drove me nuts, and the tanks downfall was me switching it to a overflow/sumped version that ultimately never helped eliminate the surface film and ended up being way too noisy/difficult to tolerate.
You can also see that I sacrificed a bit of the "invisible" side of things to get some more water movement going here, and never actually had a great solution to disguising either the overflow or the powerhead, since the tank was already well established at this point. Working with different dimensions probably would have allowed me to set this up right in the first place, but I used what I already had.
Here is a video of the tank running, just to show that it actually worked!
I'll have to dig through old photos to find previous attempts, including the one that started my obsession with this idea about 15 years ago! I may post up plans for what I would do differently, if I ever decide to try this again. I really do love the concept, but it was a bit of a pain.
What do you think, is this something you would ever attempt?
Inspired by the R2R New Thread Challenge, I figured I would share something I have attempted a few times over, but have had continuous issues with and ultimately bailed on. I am calling this the "invisible" equipment build, which is ultimately disguising any equipment inside of rockwork and/or in the cabinet to end up with an aquarium that is just the inhabitants inside.
This is the closest I have gotten to really pulling this idea off, where the only thing you'll notice (if you are observant) is the wire of my ATO sensor attached to the branching rock sticking out above the water surface. This photo was taken with the tank running, and it had been established for quite a while like this:
This setup was running great for a while, but I had an issue with surface scum that drove me nuts, and the tanks downfall was me switching it to a overflow/sumped version that ultimately never helped eliminate the surface film and ended up being way too noisy/difficult to tolerate.
Here is a video of the tank running, just to show that it actually worked!
I'll have to dig through old photos to find previous attempts, including the one that started my obsession with this idea about 15 years ago! I may post up plans for what I would do differently, if I ever decide to try this again. I really do love the concept, but it was a bit of a pain.
What do you think, is this something you would ever attempt?
. I think a shallow tank also works better than a taller tank. 
