Turn Your Old CRT Computer Monitor Into A Fish Tank ! ! !

Thanks I'm building a similar one off of your instructions. The only creative difference I'm doing is modding the old mouse into the bubbler.

Not to worry folks most newer CRT type monitors have capacitors that contain discharge resisters or on board discharge. Be careful with the CRT it in itself can contain residual high voltage. To discharge that get a set of gator clips from radio shack or make your own discharge rod with wire gator clips and a really long piece of wire .. Use a flat head screwdriver preferably a long one and with a good handle. ground the one end and clip the other to the screwdriver push it under the anode cap and POP discharged that simple ;]
CRT's can implode thats the only danger i would be worried about nothing like getting a shard of thick glass flung at you

this is a great hack. I have 5 or 6 CRT's I wasn't sure what to do with. I have gutted a few for the fly back, but i think I'll do this with at least a couple.

as for the fools that think that there is radiation or other dangerous things in there, most of you are wrong. yes there is phosphorous, and a dangerous (sort of) vacuum. to crush the nipple at the connector is the safest way to take care of the vacuum, and as for the phosphorous, don't breath it and you should be fine.
As for the radiation... seriously people. only way you get radiation from this is if you have it on, if you are doing this, you have no business being on any DIY site. there is no residual, radiation left when unit is off. not even inside.
the biggest risk is the capacitors used to charge the deflection screens inside the tube. those can be extremely painful, and rarely leathal. just ask a cat I used to have... (long story, jut keep the cats tail out of things when you have this apart...)
Just use a mask and beware of charged components. Even after months of no use.

Next step: Make Fish Tank from LCD monitor

little girl:look how the fishy is roomy
fish:aghhhhhh let me out of this flat fishtank i cant move in 3d

LOL xD

that would be pretty much possible if you use neon fish!

Lets be honest... This is an extreme waste of time, money and effort. If you take the amount of money spent + put a price of time it took to create it... you could have bought a very nice aquarium.

If one still feels compelled to build something like this I would suggest NOT to use the CRT and building the tank directly inside the monitor shell with plexiglass. So that your not risking injury breaking the CRT cleanup and so forth.

But most importantly is to consider that most fish are very sensitive to chemical contamination: WD40, Glass Cleaners etc... not to mention the phosphor and gases + God-knows-what-else. Unless you want to have a tankfull of goldfish and black mollies... go right ahead. Marine fish would not survive in such conditions.

But it looks cool!

thats not the point.

Nice instructable. After all that work, SHARP EDGES, HAMMER-TIME and failed tests, Packard the fish is finally happy and has a house with his name on it!

beautiful well done

Great idea but...

How do you feed the fish???

A)use a rotary tool or Dremel and make a hole for food and water, and of course the fish.
B) Many crt's have little holes used as air vents. Food may fit in there.

can i have the speakers that were stuck to the side of the monitor?!

i got a gold fish for 10 cents each.

wow 0_o

i went to a rummage sale and they had broken (stuck pixels, etc) CRTs for F R E E!!!

this would be awsome if the power button controlled the light

just wire the switch mechanism in the button to the light, going around the tank with the wire.

I've been trying to do the same thing, only with my old 14" tv since it doesn't work anymore because of the change to digital =P

But I had a little too much fun with my hammer, and when I turned the crt over, the bottom of the front of the screen was cracked T_T

Now my parents are telling me to take it to this place where you dispose of things like crts, and I'm hoping someone else brought their tv that I can use... or if I'm lucky, a tv that's the same size as mine so I can replace the crt! I want to use my tv's plastic, just because it's been in my room for years and I want to see the look on people's faces when they realize it now has fish in it >=D

So yeah, wish me luck!

I've also cracked the front or my screen when smashing it

that poor fish. its probably dead by now from being exposed to all of the poisionus things inside a crt.

Hello there, I hope your fish made it a long after this comment!!
AVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS:
After using wd-40 you have to clean it up even better than you would do if u were going to drink water from this tank remember,your fish is going to live in there.
mcanderson76 by now you should know that you cannot use glass with plexi because you cannot glue it together. Silicone would hold really strong on glass but cannot glue plastic(plexi), as far as i know there is no way to combine these two materials.
If you want to use glass try finding silicone suitable for aquariums, it will make no difference but its not toxic and will not harm your fish.
if you want to use plexi you can just take the curved glass with u and ask for a plexi with the same curve, they will make it for u just for few bucks.

I realy love this idea, hope you dont take this comment wrong.
I believe i know a few things about fish keeping and i have done many mistakes, there is no need for other people to go through them again.
Thank you for sharing this, it will be one of my next projects!!
Best regards, Alexander.

you know, that suction cup on the side can be removed thus releasing the vacuum

This is not only untrue, it is VERY DANGEROUS!!! READ BELOW!!!

Once you remove the HV anode cup, YOU MUST GROUND THE METAL IN THAT HOLE TO RELEASE THE STORED ENERGY!!! Failure to do so could end up in a trip to the hospital or the morgue. That tube acts like a giant capacitor - you *must* release the energy to be safe!!!

Take a good length of 12 gauge wire, wrap one stripped end around some conduit or bend a little back to form a ground pin and plug it into the ground socket in an outlet, and take the other stripped end and touch the metal in the hole where you disconnected the HV anode. Hold it there for a minute. While the energy release should be instantaneous, what's a minute of time?

Once the minute has passed, you can remove the wire. Take a scratch awl and place it on that metal in the anode hole. Take a small hammer and give it a couple of light taps. This will breach the anode and allow air into the tube. Just smashing a vaccuum tube of this size can be like pulling the pin on a grenade and dropping at your feet - BAD!

Once you can no longer hear air rushing into the tube, you should be safe to dispose of the tube.

Be safe - and as always - let common sense rule!!!!!

After the first few words in caps, i just remembered, Yes you need to ground it.
I would never do it either way, I have no reason why, And i don't want to risk: Getting Electrocuted to death/Getting Intoxicated with Chemicals inside the tube/Getting a glass implosion-which results in an explosion .

I saw this article this morning whilst doing my daily nerdy reading. My Dad used to work part time in a TV shop, and this is the procedure used to safely drain away the charge and then dispose of the tube.

We don't want anyone hurt, and if a scrap of knowledge I possess can help - I post it! Gladly...

If you follow the directions I posted and again - let common sense prevail - you can quite easily and safely drain the built up charge in the tube and then dispose of the CRT in an environmentally sound way (forgot that part above).

yeah...

very well done i started today getting the monitor apart just have to go out and get the plexi glass and caulking. I figured this would be a great end table feeder tank for my 5 piranha. Thanks for the walk through : )

keep the flybackdriver they are usefull

Warning: TV's and Computer CRTs have some big capacitors in them. Those things can hold a charge for a long time. They also have enough power to injure you if you bridge the contacts with your flesh. The label on the back on one of mine says it can cause death. So be careful when scavenging them for parts.

How do you safely ensure that these potentially deadly capacitors are discharged before working with the things insides?

Agreed, I've heard some pretty awful stories about people accidentally discharging those capacitors. BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL when disassembling CRTs and TVs... sometimes things aren't very well labeled on the inside.

WARNING!

That "dust" is LEAD! POISONOUS! DEADLY! that is whay CTRs are heavy!!!!

Its actually phosphor, and that's not why it's heavy.

and the crt isnt in vacuum! i was about to open mine when i found out it had a pressurised gas in it, which would explode with glass everywhere!!! :S

laugh out loud, Its the opposite of pressurized gas

Its not pressurized, TV's are vacuum sealed. Most of the controversy comes from the sound the TV makes when it's depressurized. Many mistake that sound for gas escaping, when really its air going in. As far as exploding goes, it may shatter due to explosive decompression. However, this is usually a rare case and usually is not harmful.

No, the dust is phosphorous. When electrons from the gun at the back of the tube hit the phosphorous, it glows - that's where pixels come from - same as fluorescent lights.

CRTs are heavy, because the glass tube has to be thick enough to cope with vacuum inside, and because of the electric components that generate high voltages.

Yes, you're probably joking, but still...

The phosphorous is on the front of the screen, the lead is embeded in the glass on the around the back of the screen!

THe Glass has Lead in it to stop you from being exposed to the radation formed by the Electrons.

Leaded glass? Leaded glass is also found in clear 'stained glass' settings. I can't imagine any setting where the lead could escape the glass itself to create anything like 'dust'.

true lets talk ,bout lead
lead is found in TRACE amounts in prop 65 fabled glass ware. prop 65 example;
Warning
Chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm may be present in this product.

lead is crt,s but it is only toxic if put in a river or a land fill! so they should be thorn out properly.

you do realize that crts produce radioactivity that is contained inside by the lead so by opening the tube you have effectivly iradiated yourself please report to the nearist hospitable and get checked for cellular decay

true on 2 points crt,s MAY emit X-rays.
and lead is used to stop them. HOwever you can't get x-rays free by opening a tv!

The screens on TVs and monitors are covered in phosphor. : - O
If you get any spare, random UV photons or electrons hitting the phosphor, you have a fat X-ray problem on your hands. A flash bulb, or any full spectrum bulb, can energize any remaining phosphor to the point of exhibiting normal x-ray radiation. You may have just aged your vital organs by a few years.

Since you lit the tank with a florescent bulb, you should be ok since most bulbs filter out the UV (You may want to check) , but you did take pictures of the screen and work with it under direct lighting... Next time I recommend the trash bag-vacuum cleaner method.

you mean hosttpatal? you put something like host a table !

oops I spelled it wrong!