a beer keg fish tank

turning a beer keg into a fish tank

after lots of messing about with taking apart old tv’s, pc’s etc, i found a desperados beer keg that i had kept from a while back. i love desperados a lot, so i knew i wanted to use the keg for something…

a fish tank!? might aswell give it a go. so i did. and here’s how.

the keg:

cut the top off. simple stuff. i used a hack saw. its a good idea to mark out where you want to cut before hand. i did a simple line all the way around, about 2cm from the top.

beware sharp edges. they hurt. i soon found that out.

now you need to mark out a line at the bottom of the keg. id say… about 2cm from the base. this will give space for the perspex or acrylic front, and also make sure the keg stays sturdy, as by now you will probaby realise that the keg has been significantly weakened from the lack of top.

ok so mark the bottom, how far around the keg is up to you, but id make it just under half way around, so that the majority of tank will be keg.

like this.

i hope you get the idea.

again, mark some more lines. this time from the top to the base, for the final cuts!

you now need some tin snips. unless you have another idea of cutting it.

then cut from the top to the bottom, and you are left with a big exciting hole.

tin snips are great. not much description needed… they’re literally scissors for cutting metal.

the keg is now worryingly weak and wobbly. but i had to keep going! it was all going so well.

lets think about perspex.

perspex / acrylic / Plexiglas i think was the name of what is basically bendy plastic. mine said it was “8 times stronger than glass” which sounded fun. i found this to be true for when trying to break the piece i needed from a larger piece, the scoring i made with a tile scorer did nothing. the Plexiglas decided to break in completely the wrong place, and left me with a missing corner.

measuring the size of plexiglass i would need was easy. simply use the cut out bit of beer keg from earlier as a guide, and measure around this, BUT give it about an inch either side so that it can tuck nicely inside the keg, and give it a couple of cm at the bottom so that it can sit behind the nice rim we left at the base earlier.

all this extra safe sizing means that it will be an overall stronger tank in the end.

more about my experience with the plexiglass… it wouldnt bend into place inside the keg. i put it in the oven at about 100 degrees C for literally 1 minute to make it nice and soft and bendy. i then spent a lot of time and effort bending the glass into place, using oven gloves (because its hot)

note: i could only find 1 oven glove and had to use a useless winter glove that didnt really work. i hurried to bend the hot plastic into place while my brother took pictures

holding this in place for a while as the plastic cools, means that it will stay roughly in this shape. its then a lot easier to pop it back into the keg when you’re ready to fix it for good.

hooray. hard part over. messy and tedious part starts now!

to attach the perspex to the inside of the metal keg i used “Geocel Aquarium Sealant” i spent around 6 pounds on a tube which was plenty for this project. the sealant is great because it attaches things so well, and is ridiculously strong!

it does however stink very strongly of salt and vinegar crisps, so you might want to use it in a well ventilated area. like outside. READ THE BACK INSTRUCTIONS OF THE SEALANT. make sure the surfaces are clean, grease free, etc.

strong grip pegs are very useful. or just normal pegs will do. peg the plastic to the keg so that it makes a nice cylindrical shape. now we are ready to use the sealant!

i started by simply sealing around the front of the perspex, and on the inside of this. i then moved on to sealing the perspex all the way around, so that there would hopefully be completely watertight.

you can see in this picture where the sealant has filled the cavity between the plex and the keg side slightly.

also – the top of the plexiglass still has that corner missing….

i ended up grabbing loads of duckt tape (why does it have to have a T in it?)

sticking objects like pegs to the side of the TANK [ ] kept it all held nicely together while the sealant set, whilst not disturbing it.

i left it a good few hours before moving on with the next step. making a rim for the top. it makes it look nice, ads strength, and in my desparate case, hid that horrible snapped off corner on the plexiglass.

cut some strips from the bit of keg you cut off, oh so long ago. about 3-4cm.

next, make some cuts in the strip. about 1cm apart, and 1cm deep all along once side of the strip. these will be tabs to be folded down, over the top of the keg.

drawing another lovely line can be useful. peg or clamp the strip onto the top of the keg, tab edge up. logo side out.

apply some sealant along the line just below the tabs, so that it joins the strip to the top of the keg, or to the top of the plexiglass, depending on where you start. the strips will go all the way around the top.

carefully fold down the tabs, one by one, so that the sealant is concealed inside. the folding of the tabs and the use of sealant will make this rim nice and strong.

i apologise for the out of focus picture.

peg as you go so that the whole thing is held on securely untill all tabs are down, and the sealant set.

a little top view for you. LOTS OF PEGS make sure its all held down. you dont want the rim slipping off and then it being stuck like that because the sealant set when you wern’t looking.

keep going all the way round, adding new strips where necessary. id recommend you overlap them slightly so that they hold down strong and dont leave any gaps. add sealant to the base of the new rim. this will add strenght and waterproofing, should anything go wrong. eventually you should end up with this:

its going well! leave the tank, pegs, duckTTTT tape and all alone for a day. let all the sealant set nicely and then take a good look at it. are there any gaps? any weak bits? patch these up with plenty of sealant and leave to set again. the instructions on the sealant packet told me 48 hours until i could submerse in water.

TEST IT! if you are happy with your new tank, put it outside on a table or raised up, but inside a container that can catch any water that escapes… and fill it, checking all the time for leaks and drips.

mine leaked. and it took me a while to realise where. suddenly water was coming out of the sealant around the front of the tank at the bottom, on the outside. this means that somewhere, it was leaking and going all under the sealant until it found a week spot to escape.

i emptied the tank and left it in the sun for a couple of hours to dry before taking a really close look.

i realised that it must be getting through under the bottom rim. so i filled the whole base rim cravassss with sealant and put plenty more around every corner, edge, and a LOT around the hole where the tap used to be. yes… i perhaps should have mentioned that i took the tap out. it was easy, its got a rubber seal that pops out. i popped it right back in after the new sealant coat was set, and tested it again.

it worked! i left it filled, admiring my work, and put some gravel in the bottom for effect. then i realised. the greenish colour of the inside of the keg was horrible to look at, it made the water look dirty. i decided to get some paint to cover this up. i used spray enamel “plasti-kote” which creates a plastic effect coat of waterproof enamel. a few pounds in wilkinson, and about a million colours to choose from.

PROTECT THE PERSPEX PLEXIGLASS BEFORE SPRAYING. with something. masking tape. duckTttTTtttt TTTape.

give it a good few coats and make sure its all nice and even. then leave for a couple of hours!

well, there you go. a desperados keg turned into a fish tank.

a last thought. filtration? probably the smallest filter you can find. or one of those gentle ones that uses an air pump to draw the water in.

i hope this was useful, informative. something.

Isaac