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Aquarium Modcase

Posted by Hemos on from the getting-the-machine-running dept.

zeptic writes "How about an aquarium in your running computer? This casemod shows you how it's done. The cool pictures can be found on the same site page, and there is an English summary on the last page."

40 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. There are easier ways ... by saihung · · Score: 4, Funny

    to electrocute yourself. Leave the fish out of it!

  2. Better have a high-quality surge suppressor... by AEton · · Score: 5, Funny

    Fishy go BZZZT!

    --
    We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
    1. Re:Better have a high-quality surge suppressor... by SubjunctiveSam · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Really, if it's not completely insulated, you're asking for dead fish. I've had lots of cases that had stray voltage in them, and I got quite a buzz just standing with barefeet on unfinished concrete in my old basement touching the cases.

    2. Re:Better have a high-quality surge suppressor... by alib001 · · Score: 5, Funny

      .

      Oh no! Not dead plastic fish?

      Seriously, did you really think the whole case was filled with water?

  3. More living things in computer cases by mr.henry · · Score: 5, Informative

    This guy put an ant farm in his case.

  4. A P4 could... by xanderwilson · · Score: 5, Funny

    boil a fish in twenty seconds.

    Fill it with grease and you've got yourself fried flounder.

    Say hello to the new dorm microwave.

    Alex.

    1. Re:A P4 could... by MattCohn.com · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hah! An AMD could do it in 4 seconds! Told you AMD was faster, you stupid Intel fanboys.

    2. Re:A P4 could... by DogIsMyCoprocessor · · Score: 4, Funny
      Give a man fried flounder, and you feed him for a day.

      Teach a man to case-mod, and feed him for a lifetime.

      --

      "And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."

    3. Re:A P4 could... by (startx) · · Score: 2, Interesting

      or if you wait 11 minutes you could fry an egg on an AMD athlon XP 1500+.

  5. Think Geek by macragge · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can get the kit for this mod at Think Geek: http://www.thinkgeek.com/pcmods/cases/6151/

  6. Re:overclock your fish! by wpmegee · · Score: 4, Funny

    No, no you route your watercooling system to use the aquarium water. Keeps the fish warm and your processor cool (tropical fish like warm water). And you can get fish to eat the algae.

  7. Very efficient! by daeley · · Score: 3, Funny

    You know, if you used the aquarium as part of your cpu cooling system, you can have pre-cooked fish for every meal! Very efficient, cost-effective, and downright healthy!

    --
    I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
  8. My new case mod! by phzr · · Score: 2, Funny

    You wouldn't believe it. I'm going to turn my case into a hampster cage! That's right, wheel and all. Bernards water bottle will be hooked up to my water cooling system. It's going to be soo cool.

  9. Aquarium Monitor by kyoorius · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I did an aquarium monitor roughly a year ago.

    http://www.techfreakz.org/fishmon/

    I can't see their website now because it's /.'d but it would probably complement the case.

  10. Thinkgeek has been making these for ages by ithicine · · Score: 5, Informative

    Thinkgeek has been selling these very things for ages. Same case, same aquarium kit. Did he buy the thing from Thinkgeek? (apologies if it says in the article... my German is just a little rusty ;))

    1. Re:Thinkgeek has been making these for ages by Nodatadj · · Score: 5, Funny

      "my German is just a little rusty"

      Its very rusty.
      The article is in Danish for a start.

      And hey, maybe it was just another one of those Thinkgeek product placements that seem to have been appearing on /. over the last few days.

    2. Re:Thinkgeek has been making these for ages by tmark · · Score: 2, Flamebait

      In other words, you mean this august website just linked to another website showing how some guy followed the instructions on how to put his case together ? Bwahahahaha. This place kills me. What's next ? An article in Finnish showing some guy installing a CD-ROM ?

  11. Running? by Bobman1235 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From the pics it doesn't look like this "computer" has any computer components in it. Like, drives, a motherboard... anything? He mentions having a hard drive mounted on the bottom, and I see that picture, but other than that... Is this a case mod or a fish tank in a computer case? I'm not very impressed by the latter.

    I suppose this could be better explained if I could read German.

  12. Re:This is cool BUT? by JeffTL · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I say that as far as computers are concerned, I spend my money mon the inside. A high-end graphics card (and if you already have that, the full four gigs of RAM and if you already have that there's always room for more drives, more speakers, and a big LCD) is a better use of your money. With functional hardware you actually improve your performance.

  13. What I would Actually like to see. by SubjunctiveSam · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yawn.

    Here's an idea for a casemod that would actually impress me:

    Get some expensive pure water, some with NO corrosive dissolved oxygen, and completely electrically neutral, meaning no OH- and H+ ions. I realize that water is self-ionizing, so the removal of these ions might need to be continuous.

    Unpack, assemble, and run your awesome computer in a container full of this stuff.

    I don't care how expensive or chemically unfeasible that would be, but that would actually be impressive. I've heard of computers running submerged in vegetable oil before, since vegetable oil is made of large covalent molecules, but I don't care. I want an underwater computer.

    1. Re:What I would Actually like to see. by dirtydiaper · · Score: 2, Funny

      Or I just dare someone tostart playing quake on a laptop and then jump into a pool... Make sure another one of your dumb friends are taping and then come back to /. and give us the url.. I bet you will run with a better fps rate :D

    2. Re:What I would Actually like to see. by spinozaq · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Ever heard of "Florinert" (TM from 3M corp) It's the chemical used to cool Crays. It a completely electricly inert liquid. It's also nearly perfectly chemically inert as well. New it runs at about 500 bucks a gallon. I found 2 gallons back in the year 2000 but my apartment burned down that year and poof.. no more florinert. I was going to create a lexane case and run the machine under florinert. Oh well, maybe I'll find some more.

    3. Re:What I would Actually like to see. by nukeade · · Score: 2, Informative

      I haven't had chem since high school, but there's a process where if you have a dynamic equilibrium like hydronium ions in water and you start removing the ions, it will actually stimulate more hydronium ions to be produced in the water! The Germans discovered / exploited this process to create Ammonium in World War 1 from Nitrogen and Hydrogen.

      However, isn't distilled water relatively non-conductive? Does that mean that you could run the parts of the computer that don't move submerged in distilled water safely, if you could keep the water free of contaminants?

    4. Re:What I would Actually like to see. by SubjunctiveSam · · Score: 3, Informative

      *Smacks head

      Oh yeah! You're right. That's Le Chatelier's principle. You're also right about hydronium. I always just pretended that water dissociated into hydrogen and hydroxide instead of hydronium and hydroxide because it made my stoichiometry easier.

      Yeah, it was Fritz Haber who had an excellent method of synthesizing ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen, and got a nobel prize for it even, IIRC. During world war one, he was a patriot and a tremendous asset to germany. He was instrumental in developing poison gas after the introduction of trench warfare. He saw Germany's defeat as a personal failure. He and his staff were world renowned and made many important contributions to physical chemistry. Here's the irony: when the 1930's roll around, the great patriot's contributions are forgotten, and suddenly he's just another "dirty Jew" to the Nazi party. Haber is forced to leave the country.

    5. Re:What I would Actually like to see. by mixy1plik · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's been done. It's made by 3M and it's called "Fluorinert".

      http://www.octools.com/index.cgi?caller=articles /s ubmersion/submersion.html

  14. Re:FAKE FISH by Pompatus · · Score: 4, Informative

    I believe this is what you are looking for. I thought about doing it, but $700 is a bit much for a computer case, no matter how cool it is.

    --

    ----
    Squirrel ... It's not just for breakfast anymore
  15. not exactly seaworld... by tkittel · · Score: 2, Funny

    From the site:

    "Sa plumpes de i akvariet, og en god ide er at lade 3 af fiskene svomme den ene vej og 3 de 3 sidste den anden vej, idet de ikke kan vende sig rundt, nar de er kommet i."

    Which translates roughly into (its danish):

    "Next they are put into the aquarium, and it is a good idea to let 3 of the fish swim one way and the last 3 the other way, since they can't turn after they are put in."

    Isn't that slightly cruel?

  16. This is nothing more than... by MoTec · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.thinkgeek.com/pcmods/cases/6169/

    It's a Lian-Li case with a window with fake fish. Nothing too exciting, here...

  17. Macquariums with real fish! by bhny · · Score: 5, Informative

    people have been doing this for years with old macs

    1. Re:Macquariums with real fish! by yali · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yes, but do they run Aqua?

    2. Re:Macquariums with real fish! by towad · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And here's one that actually runs.

  18. Re:Yummy Goldfish for dinner. by (54)T-Dub · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Thx to Pompatus below for pointint out The Real Deal

    --

    "I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
  19. Imagine a... by Eberlin · · Score: 2, Funny

    no, wait for it...

    SCHOOL of those!!!

  20. Not Exactly an Aquarium by Mooncaller · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would'nt call a clear hollow panel filled with toys and water an aquarium. Note, if anyone gets the idea to do something like this with real fish, be sure to use a titanium anode to pull the water to ground potential. Transient currents can play havoc with some fishes. Guppies probably would work best. They are pretty immune to current transients and can tollerate temps up to 35C. Guppies are also not bothered too much by light coming in at strange angels. One more point, concidering the small surface area, one will need to turn the water over at least 5 times/hour.

  21. Finally, a solution... by Osrin · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... that will stop the cat from walking on my keyboard. If I can keep him transfixed on the fish he won't bother me.

  22. That's nothing by feagle814 · · Score: 4, Funny

    That's nothing - my friend at college uses the heat in his computer to grow psychedelic mushrooms.

    He was going to put a website up about it, but then he got high...

  23. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these... by holt_rpi · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...would that be a school of fish?

  24. Would ruin computer by bluGill · · Score: 4, Informative

    De-ionized water is one of the best solvents known to man. It will litterally eat everything out of the computer in effort to get some impurities.

    My uncle specalizes in water quality. He can get you water that measures 18 megaohms resistence. pour some directly from the pipe to a clean glass and you will measure no more than 12 megaohms. In the short time it takes to measure, water has absorbed that many impurities from the air.

    Take the pure water (actually de-ionized, impurities are allowed so long as they are not ions...) and and put it into a computer and it will remove the metal from the etching on the board to get some impurities.

  25. Re:how about an Electric Eel? by Mooncaller · · Score: 2, Interesting
    An electric eel would be cool. Might fry some ICs though. But who cares about the MB when you got an Electric Eel Casemod. In fact, the fact that the fish frys the MB just adds to the coolness factor.

    P.S. Just in (um) case anyone thinks of doing this, electric eels are large (1 to over 2 meters!), difficult to handle, voracious, and sensitive to bright light. Feed them live food at night, and provide places to hide.

  26. Re:Is that liquid cooling ? by xThinkx · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm way ahead of you there, been working on one for quite some time (with not too much success).

    There are several issues with hamster cases. Firstly, hamsters/gerbils/mice/most rodents CHEW on everything, so I had to find a way to protect the pieces of the comp from the hamster (and vice/versa). Secondly, hamsters will even CHEW through most protection (including plastic), so I had to come up with yet another solution. Thirdly, hamsters need bedding, and they "go potty" in that bedding. Even in a well vented case, that leaves a lot of moisture in the air and degrades the integrity of the computer parts. However one cool idea i've had and got pseudo-working for the hamster cage is actually monitoring the speed that the hamster wheel is moving.

    Fortunately I've been testing out the designs with old parts so it hasn't been that much of an expensive deal so far, however I'm approaching a long-term working solution, and will post pics/schematics when I'm done.

    As a sidenote, I'm working on a REAL fishtank mod also. Someone had posted another design for a fishtank case where the tank is seperate from the comp, I'm working on a little more "integration" if you will. I'm also working on a lizard mod too, using the vent heat from the fans as a "heat rock" for the little guys. The lizard mod may be the first finished as lizards don't chew, thrive in the heat, can deal with certain cold cathode tubes for light, and don't require too much attention otherwise.

    --
    Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
    "