NWA's oddly shaped nano.... From scratch 01/29/13 update

[NWA-Planted]

So this is going to very curious to see how it turns out :-)

Dimensions: 16"x12"x6"

I like the big foot print low height big tanks... Soo I thought why not build my own! I am just using regular pane glass didn't want to invest to much if it turns out to be a flop!! so here begins the journey... Scaping, still undecided, it will house my office betta and some new shrimp

Yes the betta is shrimp friendly!!

Laid out



Rough mock up






I am pretty freaking excited, will start making the mess tomorrow mwahaha


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[Only One Haze]

Looks pretty sweet! Cant wait to see how it come out

[Pooky125]

Yay! You did decide to put pictures up with this! It looks great so far! When I rebuilt my 25 gallon tank, I had to tear it back down like that. A few helpful hints I learned along the way.

1. A helper to position and hold things is indispensable. Even if all they do it keep it square while the next piece goes on, so worth while.

2. Before siliconing, put all the hold it together bits of tape on all the bits of glass. This is probably common sense, but makes it easy to get it all together. When I did my taping, I did some from the bottom piece onto the side pieces as well, to help keep it all centered while it dried. It may have been redundant, but it made it go nice and smoothly.

3. Wet paper towels. Seriously. 3 of them on a plate ready to go. You WILL get all sticky and you don't want to leave finger prints in the middle of your front pane.

4. Straight seams can be achieved without tape. If you think you can hold a steady, even, quick pressure, then it's not worth doing, and a whole lot more effort to take apart.

5. Pick which pieces you want to be front and back. Theoretically, there should be no scratches on them at this point. Check anyway, mark with a sharpie. The last thing you want to do is guess when it comes to putting it together.

These all seem like stupid, common sense things. Until you have silicone all over your elbow and keep sticking it on your panes of glass and cursing.

[Cobfreak]

I'm interested in that shape tank recently.

How/where did you get the glass?

[fnkxican]

This looks fun. I've been wanting to build a small office tank for awhile.

[DogFish]

I like the size, looking forward to seeing this planted.

+1 on plenty of paper towels, rubber gloves are not a bad idea either, like a box of them. You can't stay clean enough building a tank.

[ayobreezie]

Love the dimensions. That's definitely perfect for a betta tank.

[NWA-Planted]

Well I ended up doing lines of silicone on the base piece then setting/ rolling onto the beads to make sure it has silicone between the panes, all of the sides look good, no bubbles. I tried doing it this way to keep from having to much silicone on the inside of the tank (some areas will still need to be trimmed but hey! it should hold water, any silicone that squished out got finger smoothed back against the joint, just to make sure


Extra tape


Oh and 15 gallons of wine going haha

And Frank before you ask, I did not drink before hand

Siliconed up


The edges






This was actually pretty fun and relatively easy. I think I may have started something with myself here, all the silicone squished out on the outside will be shaved off.

Woot! silicone fumes wweeee
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[Cobfreak]

Did you get the glass cut at a home depot or something? Or did you cut it yourself?

Looks great, by the way.

[NWA-Planted]

Originally Posted by Cobfreak

Did you get the glass cut at a home depot or something? Or did you cut it yourself?

Looks great, by the way.

sorry forgot to answer that earlier for you! there is a local glass shop that I got it from, they charge by the square foot they also sanded the edges which is nice... For not bleeding!

Guess tomorrow evening we will see if it holds water.

Now to figure out lighting

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[Pooky125]

Oooh, that came out really nice! Can't wait to see where it goes from here.

[NWA-Planted]

Originally Posted by Pooky125

Oooh, that came out really nice! Can't wait to see where it goes from here.

Yea... As mentioned hopefully with water staying in it haha.

Now.... How to scape, sadly I think building it was the easy part

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[somewhatshocked]

The slightest substrate slope from front to back will look tremendous in a tank like this… along with thin pieces of manzanita.

Since you're going the shrimp route, you could always just use pool filter sand and larger black lava rock with lots of moss.

[NWA-Planted]

Originally Posted by somewhatshocked

The slightest substrate slope from front to back will look tremendous in a tank like this… along with thin pieces of manzanita.

Since you're going the shrimp route, you could always just use pool filter sand and larger black lava rock with lots of moss.

Was thinking using black diamond to really help the shrimp color pop.

Almost like a iwagumi (don't think I spelled that right) kind of style?



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[somewhatshocked]

Wouldn't necessarily have to be iwagumi. You'll be able to come up with something that looks amazing, I think.

There's a Fluval Edge that has a great sand + lava rock scape in one of the journal threads. Countless shallow tanks with driftwood and/or manzanita.

Even manzanita covered in fissidens would look great.