kewl and effective idea...

[Gh0ce]

I have a neat idea for a case mod that I have been working on for a while now... I want to mount an aquarium onto the side of my case. Use a water pump in order to keep the water in the tank fresh, and a water cooler to cool down the case and thus cpu. My case is an older design (ie not made of plastic, but of metal)... only the front panel is plastic. The interior is metal as well. The case weighs a LOT (I haven't actually weighed it before, but comparing it to my 19" monitor, they are fairly close in weight...).
I am not sure if anybody has tried this before, or what the lowest temperature that is good for fish (ie if using a water cooler will freeze my fish or not), but I am doing more research and I think that I could probably condition the fish slowly into it (just like with frogs)... or so I hope...
if anybody has any suggestions I would appreciate it (this is my first case mod).
thanks
The Gh0ce_>0

[DaveW]

I'd reccommend against this idea, mate-mainly because you'll be taking your computer to bits every week to clean the tank, every day to feed the fish, you'll be limiting the fish to a confined space, and the temperature fluctuations are probably enough to make your fish go belly up.

Just don't think it's a good idea.

-Dave

[f8l_0e]

Maybe you could have a two tanks. Since the plexi is clear, it would like one. The main tank could have the fish, gravel, and plants and the one behind (to cool the c.p.u) would have only water.

[tybrenis]

Are you planning on hooking up the watercooling to the fish tank? Not a good idea. All of the muck from the fish and the fish tank would get into your cooling pipes and all sorts of algae would start growing in your tubes. I can see this:

Maybe, you could give your case a "fighy" kind of paintjob, like an underwater scene. Or even easier, you could take that background stuff they sell for your fishtank in petstores, and adhere it to your case. Then, you could take a pre-build fishtank, even an acrylic one, and put it next to or on top of your case. If you wanted, you could put a window in your case and put cool fish decals or something on the window. You could light the inside, and then light the fishtank with the same colors using leds or cold cathodes. I think it would make for a pretty damn cool mod. I think we all would like to see that.

[r3n0z]

using a fish tank with fish in it for a reservoir would be a bad idea, fish make quite a bit of nasty...debris, also i'm assuming the water could get quite warm, and algae thrive in warm water

what you could try though, is maybe mod a fish tank on the top or bottom and put a seperate area in the tank for clean water for the cooling. personally i'd put it on the bottom, wouldn't want it to tip over

after you've done that you could throw some cold cathodes in there and have the coolest case on the block


If you don't like that idea since you're dead set on having it as a window, you could maybe make a plexi box that's about 4 inchs thick make that the window and put like a beta in it and have a seperate reservoir somewhere else, hidden. and then you could back light it with some cold cathodes

definately would need some wide feet on the case though so it wouldn't fall over, and i said a beta because they seem to do well in small spaces...or if you want multiple fish you could use a few gold fish, since they're cheap to replace

[AceX]

I like the idea, but do not think that integrating it into the cooling system would work what-so-ever. I'm working on putting a waterfall in my case that I'm on right now.

I'd put it ontop of the case. Makes for very easy access to everything and you could even make the rest of the case look like the support structure for a normal home aquarium. Some CCFL's would add a very cool effect, that's for sure.

I think that it is an amazing idea and would love to see it work. I'll be watching closely for this one.

Edit: You could also do some cool stuff in the tank itself, like instead of a sunken ship or little castle for decoration, use an old, dead modem, or maybe a CD with the hole in the center bored out enough for the fish to swim through.

[DaveW]

The CD would work, but be careful about putting old technology in with the fish. They've been known to give off dangerous chemicals in that sort of environment, we'd never notice, but i'm damn sure your fish would. You could cover it with plastic or something, that would probably work.

-Dave

[SaWBLaDe]

maybe u could attach one of those half fish bowls to the side of your case, u know the ones specifically made for japanese fighting fish. also these fish look great and can survive very harsh conditions. personally i have two of them in this little container fish tank thing with a separater in the middle (wouldnt want to put two together they tend to kill each other LOL) anyway they live in these little tanks with no problems at all as long as u keep them fed and keep thier water clean u shouldnt have a problem at all.

P.S you can find these fish in all sorts of colours like blue, red, yellow, orange purple etc so u could get one to match ur neons or case colour LOL. anyway good luck with it.

[DaveW]

Sawblade, that's nod a bad idea. Then you give the whole case a sort of 60's-70's look, with glass bulging and integrated fishtanks...i'll admit at first i disliked the idea, but i'm begining to warm up to it now. I'll be watching to see where this goes.

-Dave

[Nawl]

Poor fishes