Mod of the Month - June 2007

Tikki Aquarium

By thechoozen
Worklog

There are mods that make you say "hey, that's cool," and there are mods that make you say "wow." But there aren't very many mods that make you think of those six little letters in your head. You know what I'm talking about...those mods that make you think:

"OMG WTF?"

When I see a mod like that, there's one of two thoughts that run through my head. The first one is about how poorly executed they are - and let's be honest, many of them are. But for the rare few where that is not the case, it's a much different thought. Mods that can pull off the "that is a computer?"

The Tikki aquarium is one of those mods. It is well designed, carefully executed, and leaves you wondering where the computer is. We've seen aquarium mods before, but never quite like this.

Tikki aquarium started out as just a simple plexiglass aquarium...of course, that's why it had to change. First things first, a proper Tikki aquarium needs a head. So, a few blocks of styrofoam, some paper and a bit of bondo later...

...and there was a head. A bit of airbrushing turned the dusty peach bondo monstrosity into a proper wood look-a-like, complete with faux wood grain. If you're exceptionally curious, you can even watch the airbrushing take place on thechoozen's YouTube videos, certainly a nice addition to the worklogs.

A lot of little extras were put into the mod as well, including an LED light for the fishtank. After all, fish need some glowing bling too, right? And of course, so does the DVD drive - the neon green holder is just one of the colourful additions , including a similarly styled PCI backplate and chipset fan accent.

The base of the Tikki aquarium is similarly designed, though with a lot less styrofoam. Instead, bendable luan wood was wrapped round the circular stand. A door was cut in, and the motherboard and other parts of the system are attached via a set of sliding rails for easy access.

When closed, the system looks just like it was supposed to - a tikki styled aquarium. In fact, it's hard to tell there is a PC in there at all. We'll look forward to seeing some of the other fantastic accents that thechoozen has got in mind, including custom switches.

Of course, nothing will look quite as good as when it's up and running and full of fish. But we'll just have to wait for that...in the meantime, take a look at the rest of this top-notch worklog here.