So, a little history, The macquarium was originally designed by Andy ihnatko (though I’m pretty sure I saw it suggested in mad magazine ages before.)
And those plans are still online http://www.cs.tut.fi/~ace/macquarium.html they’re written by Andy, so they’re a laugh even if you’re not planning on building one.

Many people have built the macquarium since then and the design has evolved somewhat.

http://www.applefritter.com/image/tid/114

My version roughly follows the Mk.IV plans from this site with a few adjustments to suit my tastes.

http://techquarium.com/aquaria/index.html

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So here’s my macquarium.

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And here are the guts of my macquarium. That weird blue thing on the right is a tetra whisper air pump. I can’t recommend the whisper enough. it’s like… maybe 10% of the noise from even my nice rena pump.

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you’ll note how orange the water in my macquarium is. I added some bogwood because the tanic acid does a pretty good job of neutralizing our incredibly hard water. Unfortunately tannin looks a little orangey yellow, I might have to pull the wood out of the tank and boil it and soak it for a bit so that my aquarium doesn’t stay this way.

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Because, look there, that’s only a few days worth of orangey crap bubbling up out of the tank and it’s already stained the plastic.

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Speaking of plastic, you might have noticed how my mac classic doesn’t have that beigey old computer look to it, That’s because I spraypainted it white, here it is in comparison with a Mac SE. (i have other classics laying around but they’re not nearly as discolored as this one and the SE were.

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The inside of the case is this dingey grey color (seen bottom right) So I spraypainted the inside white as well (seen top left) I think it looks a LOT better than some of the macquariums that just leave it that natural grey color. I also left a few of the original case clips in, I sawed off most of them, in order to make it a little easier to pop the face on and off, but a few remain so that it stays on without help.

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If you’re wondering what very water-proof magical material I made the icons on the front out of. Regular old label paper printed through my inkjet. This is the second set that’s been applied already because as soon as you accidentally drip water on it, the ink just runs and basically turns it all black and yucky. I’ll figure out a better solution sometime in the future. Apparently you can get waterproof vinyl inkjet sticker paper… i don’t know how well that will work… but I’m willing to give it a shot… I’ll probably have to order it online though.

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I didn’t like how I could see through the vent holes on the back, so I formed a piece of acrylic light fixture plastic to cover the back of the tank. (that’s a second one that ended up bubbling after too much heat was applied (my damn torch kept blowing out so I wasn’t being very careful as I was too busy swearing. this is why extra material is a good idea.) The plan is that it will work like a laptop backlight diffuser once I find a better lighting solution (I’m thinking cold cathode or something) so that the tank will be backlit. I had a little bluish nightlight fluorescent lamp behind it before I put water in the tank and had it sitting next to my computer and it fooled people at first glance into thinking it was another working computer. [image:531:i] (ooh I did take a pic, bonus.

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All of the plans you find call for undergravel filters. These have sorta fallen out of fashion with aquarium enthusiasts, So that’s an external powered filter hanging off the side. Normally you’d mount it on the back. and I actually initially cut my macquarium to fit a miniature penguin biowheel filter (which would have been way too much flow for the 3 gallons of water in the tank I now realize) but then I calculated that my water level would be right in the middle of the screen if I were to mount that thing on the back where I initially intended. Now, looking closely you can see how I bent the rear acrylic so that it follows the back bend of the mac classic case. this gives just a wee bit extra room for water, but it also necessitates that I hang the powered filter from the side instead. oh well.

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Trouble with that is, if I want to use the original top I’m going to have to carve out a spot for the filter. So for the moment, I use a spare piece of that acrylic fluorescent fixture dropceiling cover stuff to keep all the water that bubles out the top inside of the tank. unfortunately acrylic, especially thin acrylic, doesn’t make the best aquarium top, because it tends to warp. (only on the top though, works great for the rest of the tank.)

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So, when you’re sealing the acrylic you want to have plenty of those long clamps around that the dude on techquarium has so that all of your joins are nice and clear and bubble free. I only had one, so some of my corners looked like this. That’s really not what you want. but I glooped a little bit of the thickened dichloromethane on there and we’ve got a nice strong seal now even if it looks a little rough.

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Something else I noticed. see all those little fractures? Those are stress fractures from when I jigsawed the long middle piece out. (No matter what anyone tells you, actually CUTTING the acrylic is the hardest goddamn part of this whole project.) It was completely fracture free as I was putting it together, but after you apply the solvent to weld it all tight, it exposes these things that you couldn’t see before. again, looks bad, but doesn’t really hurt the integrity all that much. I’m none too Concerned about the looks either because all of this stuff is hidden by the front bezel of the mac.

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So yeah, that’s the macquarium.
pictured here sitting on top of another project made out of the exact same material, light table made from Plexiglass and acrylic light fixture drop ceiling diffuser stuff.

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Here’s one of my ghostshrimp, happily sitting on a cabomba plant. I figured what could be more suited to a white apple product then a see-through nonstandard aquarium critter? I bought three of them guessing at least one of them would probably fall victim to that really tough period when the biological filtration system of the tank is just starting to take hold. Sadly i was correct. Hopefully the other two will survive. I don’t know if I can afford to replace them at the 89cents a piece the petstore was askin’. Eventually I’ll stick a single fish in there, probably just a nice green or blue betta, but I want to find the right one. I found one I liked at Big Al’s (fishstore in Edmonton.) but it was a specially bred show-betta. So instead of $5 it was $50. So… it wasn’t meant to be.

-dean

So, the score: according to brain age.
Enamel spraypaint fumes=good for the brain
Methylene Dichloride=really really bad.

So I finished my macquarium yesterday, (I’ll take pictures when I put fish in it, maybe sooner if I think it’s gonna be awhile before I can track down some ghost shrimp and a dwarf platy.) I built it out of acrylic that I bent into shape with a propane torch and then fused together with IPS Weld-on #4 and IPS Weld-on #16 (aka. Methylene Dichloride and thickened Methylene Dichloride)

Things you should know about dichloromethane;
It’s illegal in california.
Environment canada has mandated that they phase out its use as the active ingredient in paint stripper.
It’s a known carcinogen.
Its apparently for industrial use only.
I had to order it from the states, because even the specialty plastics suppliers I called in Edmonton didn’t carry it.
Its warning label reads “if breathing stops, contact physician.”
It goes great with a nice chardonnay.

All that is besides the point that it made me wicked dizzy and I had to take a little nap in the middle of the floor after I finished sealing the thing.
So I did some research. Apparently, in rodent studies, they’ve found that it causes brain lesions.

Ah the lengths I’ll go to to avoid paying the 30 bones for an organic chemicals respirator.

All this aside I actually think being out in the hot sun and having a touch of heatstroke was more to blame for the aforementioned wicked-dizzy. I mean… I was wearing safety goggles, and after I finished sawing a long portion of plexiglass I stood up and… Ever worn a scuba diving/snorkeling mask? know how they get that line of water inside of them that you have to clear your scuba mask? yeah… well it was like that… but with sweat.

man… a lot of my posts are about sweat these days.

-dean

Dug up an old video we did for some school thing way back when.

I’d have done it much differently today. Anyone want to re-shoot it with me sometime?

-dean

For Veg folks;

So, some of you might not know this because you’re never up as late as I am. But, whenever you’re out for a walk down to the 7-eleven, or what have you, after around 1 am. The default for the cops is to pull up next to you and ask you what you’re doing out at this hour. The other night, they actually took down all of our information.

“so what? You’re a suspicious looking guy walking with two incredibly shifty-looking girls.” you might say.

Well it’s kindof annoying considering they started out the conversation with “What do you do for a living”
“Color Comics”
“(sarcasm) there’s enough work in that industry out here is there? (scrinched up nose ‘you’re full of shit’ look) ”
“all done on computers and that series of tubes we call the inter-web in this day and age my good man.”
“How long have you lived in Vegreville?”
“Grew up here, but moved back about 3 years ago cause housing was so affordable and it doesn’t really matter where I live for my work.”
(Reading between the lines on that should be “and you’ve never even seen me in the bar or much less had a run in with me except the tens of times you’ve stopped me on the side of the road for walking after dark.”)

“lets see some ID”

“here you go” (If it weren’t a small town I’d likely have said I didn’t have any and given you a bunch of fake info.)
So he takes all my info down and I’m sure he goes and runs a background check on me just for the hellofit (clean incidentally).

Anyway, the point of the story is that Steph asks me “what do you think that was about?”
and immediately I just said “I dunno, they just do that all the time.”

I just think that’s sad, that I’ve gotten completely used to being questioned by the police just because I’m not driving a car after it gets dark.

I don’t really blame ‘em. I mean, there are a lot of retards with nothing to do on a monday night that they have to cope with I’m sure and that’s gotta suck to take care of. But on the other hand (sarcasm) I’m equally sure none of those jerks drive vehicles. (/sarcasm)

man… actually, that’s about the worst job I can think of, I get uncomfortable just telling the “sandwich artist” what to put on my sub, much less doing crowd control and stuff. and then when something actually pissed me off enough that i’d be compelled by rage to do my job, I’d CONSTANTLY bust people for minor offenses.
“honking your horn just to say hi? Technically illegal. FINE”
“Loud muffler/tinted windows/Ground effects. get that car off the road and by the way FINE-d”
“failing to yield to a pedestrian one of the many pedestrian crossings that no one actually stops at in this town? I think that’s jailtime isn’t it? no? Well I’ll just kick out your taillight and tack-on a few more fines to make up for that injustice.”

but then…
“Broke all of that guy’s bones? he had it coming… WARNING”
“Shot your wife? where and with what? that’s not so bad… WARNING”
“Robbed a grannie of her life savings at shiv-point? What’s she going to do with that money in the next half-year she has left. You’ve clearly got a raging Crystal Meth addiction to support, I think it’s clear who’s in the wrong. Grannie JAILED.”

Man… what am I saying? Police work would rock. I could totally hassle those no good 20-somethings who are always with their… Walking… on the sidewalks… after dark. That sounds kickass.

(note: You may think I’m saying that stuff about the minor offenses just to poke fun at the police, but I swear that wasn’t my intention. Busting people for completely inconsequential stuff is totally what I’d do. But, the last bit about hassling twenty-somethings… THAT was poking fun.)

-dean

-dean

Ever thought to yourself, “man my legs are really sweaty, but the rest of me isn’t. What’s going on?”
and then realized, you were wearing sweatpants?

hey, gimme a break… I don’t wear sweatpants all that much.

-dean

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-dean

So, I decided to build a MacQuarium out of a dead mac classic I had laying around. It just seemed like one of those things every good nerd has to do at some point. Trouble is, my dead mac classic had that distinctive smoker’s yellowed plastic look to it from being under the light for so long (I assume anyway). So I thought I’d give it a nice coat of white glossy enamel paint and give it that new apple mac look.
(image for illustrative purposes only, neither my macquarium, nor actually anyone I know, unfortunately.)

Long story short, I’ve been huffing paint fumes all day But according to my Nintendo DS my Brain Age is younger than ever (27) (which is a good thing as it measures response time.) And I did my personal best on every single brain teasing quiz built into the game, even the math.

Clearly I’m not huffing enough paint in my daily life.

-dean