All parts were in, ready for assembly. Take your time if you're planning for an activity like this; it's not over and done with in a rush. The end result is nicer if you plan carefully and take the time to work with the materials. 

First I drew out the acrylic parts on the acrylic. It has got protective foil attached. Leave it on there and you can use it to draw your lines with a normal pen. I then attached painting-tape to prevent the glass from breaking while cutting/sawing it in shape. I decided to go for the latter with an old, small-toothed saw. This is what it looks like:

The pictures above show the upstanding sides of the filter. I also created two squares to form the base. The two are to be glued on top of each other to form a solid base. The lower plate is slightly smaller, to allow for the silicone glue in the sides of the tank to stay intact.


I then used sanding paper to make the edges nice and even. I also created the overflows in the smallest of the upstanding parts. Note that you need to cut out the overflows quite deep, as otherwise the waterlevel will need to be fairly high for the filter to start working!!! (one of my pitfalls...)

I removed the protective foil and used a 'creme-brulee torch' we had lying around, the edge of an old table and a piece of spare wood to bend the sides in a 90 degree angle (along the table, flattened with the wood as the plastic becomes hot). The end result, already in combination with the base and the pump (for illustration purposes) is shown on the right:


As mentioned I used special purpose silicone kit to glue the sides and the bases together. This is a slow process and an ugly result - unless you're really good with this stuff. For future attempts I would prefer to spend a little more and buy 'welding-liquids'. These melt the plastic locally and 'weld' it together. The result is much cleaner and stronger.


I then cut the old cable guides to fit and glued them on the sides to hold the mat. I also used a spare piece of plastic to bend in form of the mat that is intended to keep the soil away from the filtermat for easier cleaning/removing. I then cut the mat in shape (calculations make this easy) and inserted it into the cable guides. A last photo before testing is shown in the pictures below:

The final test is to put the filter into the tank. Luckily I had done my calculations correctly and the filter exactly matches the tank. See the picture below. 

The next post will cover the tubing, installation and testing

Where it started

It all started with a birthday gift from my brother: a 10 liter Dennere Nano Cube. It is a really nice tank with all the things you need as a starter. I equipped it with some real plants -- instead of the plastic ones that came with it -- as well as some guppies. 

The guppies in the 10l tank

That all worked really nicely. We must have had the fish for more almost a year after they started 'leaving' us. As one of the guppies was definitely more dominant than the rest, he was the last to remain. Solitude didn't bring him happiness either as a short while later he left us as well...


All that being sad and all, it was time for some in-depth investigation as to how the perfect tank should look like and how I could bring maintenance time down a bit. The 10 liter tank takes up a fair amount of time as it is difficult to control algae. 


By now it was a year later so my brother gave me two books for starting aquarium enthusiasts for my next birthday. They were:

• The nano aquarium by Jakob Geck & Ulrich Schliewen (ISBN: 987-90-447-2361-8)
• Freshwater Shrimps by Reinhard Pekny & Chris Lukhaup (ISBN: 987-90-447-2256-7)

As you understand, putting shrimps in the aquarium was his advice for keeping algae under control. He also found it a low maintenance inhabitant that supplied a lot of entertainment.

In reading the books I soon found out that larger tanks take less time than small tanks since there is a more balanced environment in larger tanks. The tank thus was to become larger, but not larger than 35 liters due to spacing restrictions and my personal beliefs with regards to interior design. That sounded like an upgrade, which meant a whole new range of options and decisions. 

I didn't like the 20 and 30 liter Dennerle cubes, as their shape becomes a bit too bulky in these dimensions. I did some thorough searching on the internet and stumbled onto the tanks made by Aquatic Nature. Both the tanks in the 'Cocoon' series and the 'Evolution' tank had my attention. There are some alternatives, but they didn't seem to have the same quality standard after reading various reviews. 

Next choice to make: the fully featured, nicely built, but expensive Evolution? The cheaper Cocoon nr. 6 (7 is too big for me)?? Or a DIY alternative???

The Evolution soon quit the shortlist, as my girlfriend thought it looked like a deep frier. I then found a small company in the Netherlands that supplied the Cocoon in a tank-only delivery -- thus no filter & light. An ideal solution for me, as it brings the tank with the nicely rounded edges (as compared to squared glued edges of a DIY tank) as well as the freedom to experiment with the filter that was advised in the two books I had read: the Hamburger Matten Filter -- or short HMF. The link to JanRigter.nl shows you all the details!

I ordered the tank, as well as a LED light fixture from Superfish and a Aquapower 300 pump from Superfish. I am always conscious when it comes to energy usage, and both the LED light and the 3 Watt pump are the obvious choices in that case. 

I also sold the old tank on Marktplaats.nl (eBay). I've attached the promotional pictures at the bottom for the curious folks.

Time had come to wait for delivery and start to make a building plan for the filter up front.

Introduction

It has already been a while since I got the idea of upgrading my 10 liter Dennerle Nano cube to a bigger and more sophisticated tank that was better suited for shrimps and easier to maintain. It has also been quite a while since I started to draft the ideas for it and implemented it. It has even been a while since I started the tank.

Ever since I started searching for more information though, I found there was too little of it available for the specific tank I was about to build. Therefore I have carefully noted my findings during the selection of parts, suppliers and DIY actions in order to share them with other interested folks around the globe.

As you probably understand by now, I finally got myself to publishing my findings on this blog. It will be filled with a step-by-step description of how I chose, built and selected my nano shrimp-tank as well as my experiences along the way of keeping it in shape. It will be on a chronological basis, although it will not be timed correctly due to my late start.

I hope the information provided is useful for you. I sincerely believe that the more information becomes available, the easier it will become for shrimp- and nano-aquarium enthusiasts to practice their hobbies. Therefore I hope that if you have question or a comment, you feel free to post it to me personally or directly on the related blog.

Best regards,

Niels