DIY Micro All-In-One Snail Aquarium

Whenever I'm out and about I like to preemptively buy containers and materials that could one day be used for a project. I keep them all stockpiled in my storage area here for whenever inspiration strikes. Now for me at least that usually happens long after I obtain a piece. Well that happened the other day when I was doing some winter cleaning and found this awesome hinge top acrylic box. I believe it's intended for bathroom organization but I can't look at it without seeing an aquarium. A micro aquarium at that. Here's what I'm thinking. This large area here will obviously serve as the main display area of the tank. To its right are two smaller compartments which could serve as the perfect area for an all-in-one overflow filter box. The challenge here is the same thing that makes this cool. It's absolutely tiny so finding the proper materials to make my vision come to reality is going to be difficult. I'm mainly referring to the pump here. I scoured the internet for almost an hour and eventually stumbled upon the smallest one I could find. It's a perfect fit. Any larger and it would be too big. There are a few other components I had to dig up as well but we don't need them just yet. For now I think it's best to modify the box. When I think of an all-in-one filter the main components that come to mind are an overflow, baffle dividers, and a return. This box already has a baffle of sorts but adjustments are required so that water can pass through the bottom. I also need to make an overflow into the first compartment and the return back into the viewing area. Sounds easy enough I'm sure but once again the size of the box is likely going to cause some challenges. Anyway I'll begin with the overflow. I went back and forth on a few ideas and a weir style system seemed to be the most appropriate solution. A Dremel outfitted with a cutting wheel should make it easy to create weird teeth. I put down a guide to ensure that I cut them all down to the same depth. This depth will dictate the water level. Creating the teeth was easier than I expected but a little bit tedious. I didn't want to crack or melt the acrylic so I had to go at the perfect speed. One by one I cut through the acrylic and made the smallest weir system I've ever made. More importantly though it will no doubt function as intended. As I said before water needs to pass under the baffle. Getting this to happen ended up being quite difficult. I wanted to use a drill but it wasn't possible because of the angle so I tried to melt holes with a soldering iron. That didn't end well. At this point I almost scrapped the idea entirely. However I had a few backup containers just in case. I don't know why I didn't think of it from the start but I was able to use the Dremel tool from earlier to carve out the bottom of the divider. During the process I scuffed the front a little but otherwise this worked really well. I also have to account for the return. To send the water back into the tank I went with a rigid airline tube. Flow doesn't need to be crazy in this system so this should be more than adequate. The problem however is that it doesn't fit in or around the pump. That's an easy fix though. I put a small piece of shrink tubing on the end of the airline to start. This made it fit snugly into a vinyl tube which linked up to the pump. I put this into the enclosure so I could determine where to bend the airline. If I were to bend it as is the tube would likely kink and greatly diminish the flow of water. To keep this from happening I put a wire into the end which should help retain the opening. I gave the tube a quick pass with the torch to soften it up. Then I bent it to the desired shape while it was malleable. I let it cool down to solidify the new shape and remove the wire. That left me with this. Originally I wanted to have the return come through this piece here but I couldn't find a way to do it in such a small space. So I decided to go over the top instead. Right now that might look kind of weird but I'll hide it with a hardscape later on. I'm very pleased with how all of it turned out but I've got to give it a test run to ensure that it functions as expected. Let's fill it up and see what happens. Unfortunately it didn't work quite as expected. I didn't realize it when I first started but the edges of the divider aren't sealed off from the rest of the container. That's an easy fix though. I just siliconed along the edges on the inside and left the silicone to cure. After all of that it worked as expected and looks good. Now that I got it up and running I'm absolutely itching to get it scaped. Before I can do that though I should probably finish up the filtration. I don't have to do anything in the return compartment but I need a few items for the first area. I have a piece of fine filter sponge for mechanical filtration, lava rock for biological filtration, and a piece of knitting mesh to create a barrier. If I were to put pieces in as is they may get into the return compartment which would not be ideal. I'll use this small piece of knitting mesh to separate the two areas. I locked it in place with a few dabs of hot glue. With that secure I could add the lava rock. These were initially larger pieces that I broke up into small chunks. I also rinsed them off to remove any excess debris. Breaking them up allowed me to fill in more of the space and thus maximize the amount of surface area for bacteria to colonize. I left enough room above the rocks for the filter sponge. I cut it out slightly larger than the opening so that it better conforms to the space. You'll notice that it's also just below the weird This will ensure that debris is skimmed off and onto the sponge where it can then be removed from the system during maintenance. I was thinking I should probably hide this area with window frost film but I actually think it looks pretty cool as a visible component of the enclosure. What do you think? Now I can finally move on to the scape. I'm going to be doing things a little bit differently for this one though. Since it's acrylic it will scratch really easily and being such a small space most likely I will hit the side so it's not really conducive to experimentation. What I've done instead is made a dummy tank to scape in. It's just a few pieces of pvc board cut to the size of the viewing area. I have an array of materials to work with here from driftwood to stones. I've selected a range of smaller pieces though since the enclosure is so small. My goal is to make this space look as large as possible given the overall size of the tank. Wish me luck. I want this scape to resonate from a central point on the right side of the tank. With this I can hide the return compartment of the filter. To make that happen I'll create a wall of stone with branches woven throughout. Like always I got a feel for the materials to start. I had to discover how the pieces could fit together to facilitate my vision. Once I had a direction to follow I began locking the pieces together with super glue. These three larger stones will create a strong foundation that I can build off of. Once those set up I continued onward. As I did I added various sized branches and stones to create a good sense of texture through variation. Doing so will make things look more natural and believable. I also did my best to place the branches in a consistent spiraling formation of sorts. Something a little like this. My thought here is that it really helps draw your eye into the design. What I've created is a ready-made scape that can be placed into the enclosure without any fuss. This seemed like the way to go so that I don't scratch up the acrylic. And I don't know about you but I think this turned out really great. Before we can put it into the tank though I gotta put some window frost film on the back. This will make for a aesthetic and gives the illusion that the environment continues beyond the scape itself. I secured it like usual with a little bit of water and a squeegee. Now we can finally get this thing scaped. That's simple enough though since this is a plug and play system. To bring the look full circle I'll include white sand. I chose this because of the fine granules and because I like how it contrasts with the stones. For additional texture and variation I'll include some fine limestone gravel and limestone sand. The stones will allow me to break up some of the monotony of the white sand. The limestone sand on the other hand can be used to blend everything together with clean transitions between the various areas. It's looking pretty awesome and just about ready for water. It's missing one major component though, the plants. I had to be very selective here since the scape is so small. Another challenge though is that this tank doesn't include an enriched plant substrate. So I selected a group of epiphytes and other plants that can grow without one. I have some Anubias nana petite, Bucephalandra brownie-brown, Seuss Vossertongue, and Hooker Isaiah moss. I started by planting the Anubias since it's one of the largest plants. I wedged these within crevices on the hard scape. Then I fit bunches of Seuss Vossertongue in the foreground to create some ground coverage. I added the moss in a few different areas throughout to add a pop of texture. Lastly I situated the Bucephalandra within the hard scape. This will be a focal point and star of the tank. That more or less completed the scape which meant it could be filled up. I gave it a quick test run but unfortunately the water flow was way too strong. So I made some modifications to the return. What I did was put an airline valve in line with the return pipe. This valve allows me to fine tune the flow and get something that's a little more appropriate. A few other details that I need to account for are the light and the lid. You may have noticed that the lid has been gone for most of the build. It's easy to remove and replace but I can't put it back on the tank just yet because of the pump's cord. I had to put a notch on the back so it fits. I also cut out a piece of the frost film. That way it could secure the cord to the back with a command strip. As for the light I have a flexible USB light. This should be the perfect option because most plants will grow in very low light conditions. I stuck this to the back of the tank with double-sided mounting tape. I don't know about you but I think this looks incredible especially considering how small it is. That in mind though there's not really much that we can keep in here other than snails. So I'm gonna go around a few of my tanks and see what I can find. There you have it a DIY micro aquarium. Working this small comes with many challenges but I think I did a good job maximizing the space especially in the viewing area. The goal was to make this setup look much larger than it actually is with a combination of elements. Given what I had on hand I think I achieved the desired effect. What do you think? Small tanks can look cool but they often suffer from poor functionality. The filter is often difficult to service and doesn't include enough media. That said this one is actually pretty easy to service and adjustable if need be. As you can see a large portion of the tank also consists of biological media. This is highly beneficial in keeping the tank clean. The plants of course play a role in that as well but keeping the ideal conditions is often challenging due to lack of surface area. I thoroughly enjoyed the finished build and I think it's a cool way to showcase the snails. I kept stocking light and will make sure to remove excess snails as they reproduce. Keeping the bioload low is key to keeping something like this pristine. And although the snails will eat algae and that sort of thing I will periodically feed them to make sure they're getting enough to eat. Anyway that's all for now. I had a lot of fun with this build and I hope that you all enjoyed it as well. Let me know what you think about it down in the comments and like and subscribe if you appreciate this sort of thing. Until next time SerpaSquad, take care and peace!