Hello folks!
This is my first journal on the forum though I've been active on TPT and some other venues online for a few years now. Having just found this place, it's the perfect time to post a journal on a tank I am just starting up!
I recently decided to consolidate 5 smaller tanks into one large tank. This gives me significantly more real estate to aquascape while simultaneously lowering my maintenance routine. I frankly much rather do one water change on a big tank then 5 much smaller water changes on different tanks, even if they are all in the same room.
When it came time to decide on which tank to use exactly, I was of two minds. On the one hand, a regular 75 gallon tank would likely do the trick, but the 'perfect' tank would be a 150cm tank as it would fit the available space. But a 150 cm tank would cost a lot more..... in the end The Wife gave a green light and I contacted "Aquarium and Terrarium Builder" of Yorktown Virginia, my only 'local' custom tank builder. The builder only works with acrylic, but for reasons that will be explained, that's not a bad thing.
Since this was a custom tank, I was not limited to standard dimensions and asked for a tank that would be 150cm x 50cm x 45cm. Or roughly 60 inches x 20 inches x 18 inches. Or roughly 90 gallons. Why these dimensions? Well the 150 for the length fit the available room. 20 inches wide because any wider and my short arms have trouble reaching the back wall, and 18 inches high in part for the same access issues and in part because I already had a tank 45 cm high and I knew the newts did fine in that depth of water.
The builder quoted me 1000 dollars for the tank and I would pick it up.
The first thing I needed to do after ordering the tank was build a stand so I would have somewhere to put the darn thing
At this point I don't remember what got me started on extruded aluminum, but I got a bug for making the stand out of the stuff. For those who are not aware, extruded aluminum is aluminum tubing with 't'-slots cut into it. It looks like this:
The advantage of this stuff is that you can use the t-slots to attach things, it's strong, it looks slick, and its waterproof. Even after building it, I still prefer a proper stand made of hardwood. BUT, an extruded aluminum stand is pretty easy to make better looking then a 2x4 stand. And significantly faster to build then a hardwood stand. So there is that.
Anyway, like all my bits of furniture, I make, the first step was making a 3d drawing in sketchup so I would know how to put the thing together. That looked like this:
The wood panels are meant to be doors in this picture.
I definitely did not invent this design as there are companies that offer to sell you precut and drilled extruded aluminum stands. The only reason I didn't go with them is expense. I wanted to try and save myself some money by buying the extruded aluminum and then cutting, tapping, and drilling it myself. I did this, and did save some money, just not as much as I was hoping. I thought I could do it all for around 300 dollars, but sadly the actual price of the stand all-in is closer to 700. That's still a lot cheaper then the 1500 to 2500 that various companies wanted, but not quite as good as I thought I was going to get for all the effort I put into tapping this darn critter.
Anyway, here are some pictures of the stand being built:
Not pictured here are the magnetic clasps the side panels are held onto. They are not pictured because I forgot to add them until after it was built. One of the downsides to extruded aluminum is that in order to access those t-slots where 'everything' is attached, is you need an exposed end. If you build the darn thing and forgot to add something in....like a magnetic clasp... then you get the joy of taking it apart before you can add it back on.
So that was fun. And because I forgot to add a few things I got the joy of taking it apart and putting it back together like 5 times...
Anyway, after a few weeks the builder contacted me letting me know the tank was ready!
There was much excitement.
There was also much driving. While this is my only 'local' builder, that didn't make him super close. It was 3.5 hours each way to get from my house in Maryland to the builder. That made for a long day of driving, but it was totally worth it.
One of the nice things about acrylic is that its significantly lighter then glass. This 5 foot long tank probably only weighs around 90 lbs. With a hand truck I was easily able to get the tank into my basement by myself. Here is how it looked when first arrived:
And here are what those magnetic clasps looked like on the stand:
And finally what the tank looked like unwrapped and in place:
The white board under the tank are two pieces of pvc trim-board. I wanted to use pvc because its completely waterproof. It's two pieces because I couldn't fit a 4x8 sheet in my car and home depot no longer cuts the stuff with their panel saw. I am still only mostly bitter on that discovery.
After that I started the process of taking down my multiple smaller tanks. In order to significantly shorten my cycle, I reused the substrate (all pool filter sand) and added it into the new tank. I also drilled 4 holes in the euro bracing so I could use 2 canister filters with lily pipes. Here is what that looked like:
Before I could slide the tank into place I needed to put on the background. I really like privacy window film for tank backgrounds. It's cheap, it looks good, it's easy to apply and to remove, and it's easy to get online. For this tank I decided on frosted white. This stuff goes on with just water and a squeegee. Here is how it looked:
After that I slid the tank into place, filled it and started working on the filters and plumbing. It's not very complicated but I wanted to make sure it would be in good shape for the foreseeable future. The canister filters are stainless steel filters with dc pumps. I love this type of filter because the steel filter itself is built like a tank, and the only part that can break is the pump which is entirely modular and easily replaced. DC pumps are ultra quiet, like you need to touch them to feel a vibration to even know they are on kind of quiet. I already owned both filters and they were in active use on the tanks I took down, so again, more reasons to believe the cycle would be quick.
I also took this time and began to play with aquascapes. Because I had so much room, I really wanted to use some big pieces of hardscape to show off the length of the tank. That ended up taking the form of two large pieces of wood that would stretch the length. Initial scape looked like this:
However, after a day I decided I didn't like the right hand side because it just didn't photograph well So I switched it up and settled on this:
I like the look of the 'broken' log in no small part because it reminded me of several scenes I have seen when out walking in parks. All the rock work will allow lots of places to add epiphytes as well.
All the plants in the tank are all from the existing tanks I took down so, so far I haven't spent anything on this except for the tank itself and the stand (and the light... to be talked about later).
The plant list for this tank is currently: Cryptocoryne spiralis, eriocaulon vietnam, amazon sword compacta, Cryptocoryne parva, tiger lily, anubias nana petite, and some species of fern like moss, and some species of plant I was told was 'like buce' but not, and that I totally forgot the name of. But its variegated which is cool for a completely submersed plant. Still to add is Marsilea Angustifolia for a carpet, Helvola Pygmy water lilies, and mayaca fluviatilis. Those are all in my 30 gallon tank with all my newts. I will be taking that tank down shortly and adding the newts once I'm sure the cycle is done (this will be soon, as the cycle is likely already completed as of the writing of this post).
Regarding the background, I didn't choose it entirely because I like the color white for this tank. I chose it because I planned to add some LED mood lighting to the tank
For a couple of years now I have admired the LED backgrounds you can buy for tanks, but I've not wanted to spend the money they cost (typically a few hundred dollars for even a small tank). So I decided to make my own. With an LED strip light adhered to the back top of the stand I got some nice effects! You can kind of notice the blue in the full tank shots near the bottom back of the tank. It's a little more noticeable in person. Here is a picture with the other lights off in the room which really makes it clear what it's doing:
Meanwhile I also started working on the lights for this tank. Well more specifically the light hanging system which is just 1/2" conduit attached to the wall:
That ended up definitely being the easiest light stand I've made so far. As for what will be going there? Well I went ahead and ordered a Twinstar V 1200S which I'm pretty excited about! I've been a twinstar fanboy for years, so when I figured out that there are very very very few 150cm lights... I decided my best bet was just buying a twinstar and hanging it up a bit higher then normal. Sadly it's not here yet. Happily it 'should' arrive on Wednesday.
AND.. that brings me to current. This is a LONG first post because I decided to combine several previous journal posts elsewhere to get me to where I'm at right now. Next time I will post more about the newts and my thoughts on acrylic tanks. Hopefully those that actually read to this point have enjoyed it so far
This is my first journal on the forum though I've been active on TPT and some other venues online for a few years now. Having just found this place, it's the perfect time to post a journal on a tank I am just starting up!
I recently decided to consolidate 5 smaller tanks into one large tank. This gives me significantly more real estate to aquascape while simultaneously lowering my maintenance routine. I frankly much rather do one water change on a big tank then 5 much smaller water changes on different tanks, even if they are all in the same room.
When it came time to decide on which tank to use exactly, I was of two minds. On the one hand, a regular 75 gallon tank would likely do the trick, but the 'perfect' tank would be a 150cm tank as it would fit the available space. But a 150 cm tank would cost a lot more..... in the end The Wife gave a green light and I contacted "Aquarium and Terrarium Builder" of Yorktown Virginia, my only 'local' custom tank builder. The builder only works with acrylic, but for reasons that will be explained, that's not a bad thing.
Since this was a custom tank, I was not limited to standard dimensions and asked for a tank that would be 150cm x 50cm x 45cm. Or roughly 60 inches x 20 inches x 18 inches. Or roughly 90 gallons. Why these dimensions? Well the 150 for the length fit the available room. 20 inches wide because any wider and my short arms have trouble reaching the back wall, and 18 inches high in part for the same access issues and in part because I already had a tank 45 cm high and I knew the newts did fine in that depth of water.
The builder quoted me 1000 dollars for the tank and I would pick it up.
The first thing I needed to do after ordering the tank was build a stand so I would have somewhere to put the darn thing
At this point I don't remember what got me started on extruded aluminum, but I got a bug for making the stand out of the stuff. For those who are not aware, extruded aluminum is aluminum tubing with 't'-slots cut into it. It looks like this:
The advantage of this stuff is that you can use the t-slots to attach things, it's strong, it looks slick, and its waterproof. Even after building it, I still prefer a proper stand made of hardwood. BUT, an extruded aluminum stand is pretty easy to make better looking then a 2x4 stand. And significantly faster to build then a hardwood stand. So there is that.
Anyway, like all my bits of furniture, I make, the first step was making a 3d drawing in sketchup so I would know how to put the thing together. That looked like this:
The wood panels are meant to be doors in this picture.
I definitely did not invent this design as there are companies that offer to sell you precut and drilled extruded aluminum stands. The only reason I didn't go with them is expense. I wanted to try and save myself some money by buying the extruded aluminum and then cutting, tapping, and drilling it myself. I did this, and did save some money, just not as much as I was hoping. I thought I could do it all for around 300 dollars, but sadly the actual price of the stand all-in is closer to 700. That's still a lot cheaper then the 1500 to 2500 that various companies wanted, but not quite as good as I thought I was going to get for all the effort I put into tapping this darn critter.
Anyway, here are some pictures of the stand being built:
Not pictured here are the magnetic clasps the side panels are held onto. They are not pictured because I forgot to add them until after it was built. One of the downsides to extruded aluminum is that in order to access those t-slots where 'everything' is attached, is you need an exposed end. If you build the darn thing and forgot to add something in....like a magnetic clasp... then you get the joy of taking it apart before you can add it back on.
So that was fun. And because I forgot to add a few things I got the joy of taking it apart and putting it back together like 5 times...
Anyway, after a few weeks the builder contacted me letting me know the tank was ready!
There was much excitement.
There was also much driving. While this is my only 'local' builder, that didn't make him super close. It was 3.5 hours each way to get from my house in Maryland to the builder. That made for a long day of driving, but it was totally worth it.
One of the nice things about acrylic is that its significantly lighter then glass. This 5 foot long tank probably only weighs around 90 lbs. With a hand truck I was easily able to get the tank into my basement by myself. Here is how it looked when first arrived:
And here are what those magnetic clasps looked like on the stand:
And finally what the tank looked like unwrapped and in place:
The white board under the tank are two pieces of pvc trim-board. I wanted to use pvc because its completely waterproof. It's two pieces because I couldn't fit a 4x8 sheet in my car and home depot no longer cuts the stuff with their panel saw. I am still only mostly bitter on that discovery.
After that I started the process of taking down my multiple smaller tanks. In order to significantly shorten my cycle, I reused the substrate (all pool filter sand) and added it into the new tank. I also drilled 4 holes in the euro bracing so I could use 2 canister filters with lily pipes. Here is what that looked like:
Before I could slide the tank into place I needed to put on the background. I really like privacy window film for tank backgrounds. It's cheap, it looks good, it's easy to apply and to remove, and it's easy to get online. For this tank I decided on frosted white. This stuff goes on with just water and a squeegee. Here is how it looked:
After that I slid the tank into place, filled it and started working on the filters and plumbing. It's not very complicated but I wanted to make sure it would be in good shape for the foreseeable future. The canister filters are stainless steel filters with dc pumps. I love this type of filter because the steel filter itself is built like a tank, and the only part that can break is the pump which is entirely modular and easily replaced. DC pumps are ultra quiet, like you need to touch them to feel a vibration to even know they are on kind of quiet. I already owned both filters and they were in active use on the tanks I took down, so again, more reasons to believe the cycle would be quick.
I also took this time and began to play with aquascapes. Because I had so much room, I really wanted to use some big pieces of hardscape to show off the length of the tank. That ended up taking the form of two large pieces of wood that would stretch the length. Initial scape looked like this:
However, after a day I decided I didn't like the right hand side because it just didn't photograph well
So I switched it up and settled on this:
I like the look of the 'broken' log in no small part because it reminded me of several scenes I have seen when out walking in parks. All the rock work will allow lots of places to add epiphytes as well.
All the plants in the tank are all from the existing tanks I took down so, so far I haven't spent anything on this except for the tank itself and the stand (and the light... to be talked about later).
The plant list for this tank is currently: Cryptocoryne spiralis, eriocaulon vietnam, amazon sword compacta, Cryptocoryne parva, tiger lily, anubias nana petite, and some species of fern like moss, and some species of plant I was told was 'like buce' but not, and that I totally forgot the name of. But its variegated which is cool for a completely submersed plant. Still to add is Marsilea Angustifolia for a carpet, Helvola Pygmy water lilies, and mayaca fluviatilis. Those are all in my 30 gallon tank with all my newts. I will be taking that tank down shortly and adding the newts once I'm sure the cycle is done (this will be soon, as the cycle is likely already completed as of the writing of this post).
Regarding the background, I didn't choose it entirely because I like the color white for this tank. I chose it because I planned to add some LED mood lighting to the tank
For a couple of years now I have admired the LED backgrounds you can buy for tanks, but I've not wanted to spend the money they cost (typically a few hundred dollars for even a small tank). So I decided to make my own. With an LED strip light adhered to the back top of the stand I got some nice effects! You can kind of notice the blue in the full tank shots near the bottom back of the tank. It's a little more noticeable in person. Here is a picture with the other lights off in the room which really makes it clear what it's doing:
Meanwhile I also started working on the lights for this tank. Well more specifically the light hanging system which is just 1/2" conduit attached to the wall:
That ended up definitely being the easiest light stand I've made so far. As for what will be going there? Well I went ahead and ordered a Twinstar V 1200S which I'm pretty excited about! I've been a twinstar fanboy for years, so when I figured out that there are very very very few 150cm lights... I decided my best bet was just buying a twinstar and hanging it up a bit higher then normal. Sadly it's not here yet. Happily it 'should' arrive on Wednesday.
AND.. that brings me to current. This is a LONG first post because I decided to combine several previous journal posts elsewhere to get me to where I'm at right now. Next time I will post more about the newts and my thoughts on acrylic tanks. Hopefully those that actually read to this point have enjoyed it so far
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. I've estimated the T-slot alone, even buying off marketplace, might be 2 - 3 hundred and then the hardware. I looked at Alufab some time ago and balked at their prices as well. Also, I still prefer hinged doors and I know there is a hinge made for t-slot. Would be nice to see your hardware list.
