circusordie16 Posted July 17, 2007 Share Posted July 17, 2007 Alright everbody, im bored at work so im making a thread on this tank that is in the construction phase. im a college student so i have to stick to pico tanks for easy moving but ive found that i want more room than my little 2.5 gallon. also, ive been wanting to experiment more with propagation and fragging. so im going with a 24" long custom tank that ill either build or have somebody build for me. the dimensions are going to be somehwere around 24" x 8" x 7" (lwh). ive got a 2 x24w t5 retrofit that im building a canopy for as we speak and im planning on running 2 ac20 filters because i already have them. so my plan for the tank itself is to take the contents of my 2.5 gallon and move them to the new tank in exactly the same aquascape. then ill expand on that display a little so that the aquascape takes up about 16" of the tank. then on the other half im thinking ill just have some chaeto, the heater and some sort of eggcrate rack. this will be a sort of mini frag half-tank. that way i can frag some stuff without disturbing the corals attached to the live rock and i can keep a wider variety of corals in a much smaller space than if i was mounting them on live rock. ill be making the final cuts for the wood hood tonight and then i just have to paint and assemble it. pictures will be coming and any ideas or comments would be great! Link to comment
chaostactics Posted July 17, 2007 Share Posted July 17, 2007 I like your tank dimension plans sounds awesome! Link to comment
circusordie16 Posted July 18, 2007 Author Share Posted July 18, 2007 went to the lfs yesterday to see about having them make my tank. they said itd be $135 so i said thats no good. looks like ill be headed to a local glass store i saw driving to work today to see if they will cut me some glass rectangles for less than $135. other than that ill start glueing the hood today (most likely) so ill try to put up some pictures. Link to comment
irishtexan Posted July 18, 2007 Share Posted July 18, 2007 Sounds like a great tank! I will be following along. I was thinking about doing a tank 27inL 6inW 6inH. On one end there would be an overflow(3in) so the tank would be 24in. Link to comment
circusordie16 Posted July 18, 2007 Author Share Posted July 18, 2007 sounds like a good shape to me irishtexan. i went to a local glass store today to see what their prices were for the glass pieces i need and they said $195. so im going to another store tomorrow and well see what they say while i wait for a quote from nano-paul. Link to comment
circusordie16 Posted July 20, 2007 Author Share Posted July 20, 2007 $49 for my glass which i should have around tuesday of next week. the hoods coming along nicely, im just having some trouble deciding whether i want it to sit a few inches above the tank so that i can have easy access to feed and pull stuff and enjoy the rimless look or if i want it to sit right on the top for a nice clean look. Link to comment
circusordie16 Posted July 24, 2007 Author Share Posted July 24, 2007 finally got some pictures. ive been pretty busy on this thing. the hoods complete, just painting it and then just have to put in the retrofit. got the glass from the local glass store and picked up some silicone today so i just have to finish taping the glass pieces and then silicone it maybe tomorrow. going to the bahamas thursday to see some real reefs but after that its gonna be a mad rush to get this thing up and running. heres a picture of the retrofit and two of the hood before painting. Link to comment
yoitsarson Posted July 25, 2007 Share Posted July 25, 2007 sounds awesome I will be tagging along. Link to comment
fewskillz Posted July 25, 2007 Share Posted July 25, 2007 cool, sounds like a nice plan. You should have PMed calvin, he does custom acrylic tanks. He could've done built in overflows and stuff too. Link to comment
circusordie16 Posted August 1, 2007 Author Share Posted August 1, 2007 hope you guys like pictures cuz ive got a bunch now. so i finally got down to business after i got home from the bahamas on monday and built the tank yesterday and finished the hood today. so heres pictures of that. the finished tank while its drying and the finished hood and a few different pictures with/without lights etc and the new light over my 2.5 gallon. Link to comment
dtfleming Posted August 1, 2007 Share Posted August 1, 2007 Kool, looks great, nice job on the tank and retro light. Assume its T-5's Link to comment
musthaveitall Posted August 2, 2007 Share Posted August 2, 2007 Looks good I will be tagging along! Clint Link to comment
circusordie16 Posted August 2, 2007 Author Share Posted August 2, 2007 thanks guys. the lights are t5s. encountered one slight problem though, the inside of the hood is about 1/16" too small to fit on the tank so im gonna have to sand that down a little to get it to fit. i knew building the hood before the tank would come back to bite me somehow. as for the tank, ill be leak testing it tonight (after 48 hours of drying time for the silicone) with hopes of transferring everything from my 2.5 to the new tank this weekend. im currently running some screen over the top of my 2.5 to adjust everything to the new lights. went to lowes yesterday and got some marble tiles for frag plugs so i can frag my monti cap and zoas that are taking over. couldnt find eggcrate at lowes and i got tired of looking so after work today its off to home depot to get some eggcrate to make a shelf. Link to comment
pudge1515 Posted August 2, 2007 Share Posted August 2, 2007 Sweet you finaly got a thread up . The hood looks awsome and I see you went with glass instead of acrylic too. Ya my tanks doing great im about to update my thread with some new pics of the CUC and a couple of new corals so you should check it out. Link to comment
Scucci Posted August 2, 2007 Share Posted August 2, 2007 I've always wanted to build a custom tank... I've just never been able to wrap my head around the idea of just having a glass tank with no braces on the top and bottom... I've seen it done 100's of times, but I just can't bring myself to try it. lol I'm just a pansy. Eager to see the next progress pictures. Keep 'em coming. Well, after the silicone sets, then keep 'em coming. Link to comment
circusordie16 Posted August 4, 2007 Author Share Posted August 4, 2007 filled it up and all the water stayed in the tank so that was good. thinking about switching everything from my 2.5 over to this one as long as i have enough water. also made a nice little rack out of eggcrate which is drying as we speak. pictures are to come of the transfer assuming im not too nervous to take pictures. Link to comment
circusordie16 Posted August 5, 2007 Author Share Posted August 5, 2007 everything got moved over. just finished 2 minutes ago and let me say, it was really really stressful haha. but i think everything is doing pretty well, the zoas, micros, blastos, and featherdusters are already open so its looking good. ill get somepictures once the waters no so cloudy. Link to comment
Fishfreak218 Posted August 5, 2007 Share Posted August 5, 2007 love that giant ric nice looking set-up so far Link to comment
circusordie16 Posted August 7, 2007 Author Share Posted August 7, 2007 love that giant ric nice looking set-up so far thanks, im pretty sure that ric would take over the world if it could, im gonna have to start splitting that guy up soon. so ive got some pictures of the new setup. the transfer went fairly well, no losses so besides the adventures of having my filter suck up sand and stop, leaving a snail out of the water for 10 minutes, chasing a stomatella around with an eye dropper for 5 minutes, and finding that my old sandbed was absolutely disgusting, it went very well. so heres some pictures. full tank shot the right side of this tank which is the exact aquascape from my 2.5 the left side which is just little frags onn the ground until i put my shelf in tomorrow or thursday. i found a bunch of individual zoas in the sand when i switched tanks so now i have a bunch of frags growing out. and my first new addition, some kind of acro that i picked up today. the polyps never closed even when being superglued and they are now fully extended in my tank so well see how it does. hope you like it! Link to comment
circusordie16 Posted August 8, 2007 Author Share Posted August 8, 2007 heres some pictures i took today, not very good but i just felt like shooting a few. a zoa frag waiting for somebody in a few months a blue micro thats much happier under the new lights bad macro of it new/first acro ok macro of it and a couple attempts to get a good top down shot of one of my micros thats finally starting to spit out babies real fast under the new lights. Link to comment
circusordie16 Posted August 9, 2007 Author Share Posted August 9, 2007 well i was going through the old leftover sand from my 2.5 gallon and saw a bunch of bristleworms still crawlilng around. so i did the opposite of most people and saved them all. well all but one. cuz he went flying in the current into my acan and was promptly eaten. seems like a bad meal for an acan but i guess not. also i got a top made so that my evaporation isnt so crazy anymore. Link to comment
circusordie16 Posted August 12, 2007 Author Share Posted August 12, 2007 dunno if anybodys looking at this thing but im posting pictures anyways haha. got some new additions, first is a read chalice frag, second an acan echinata frag, and finally a green birdsnest. the last picture is just a red ric that ive had for awhile but is finally starting to be completely happy under my new lights. and actually, everything looks a lot better under my new lights, its amazing. Link to comment
mr.fishman01 Posted August 12, 2007 Share Posted August 12, 2007 nice i was thinking of building a tank sort of the same. Did you say you got your glass from nano paul? thanks Link to comment
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