First off, I want to start by saying that I used to be an avid fishkeeper, but lacked some education on proper maintenance and fish growth progress. I was more of spectator hobbyist back in the day. Now I want to get back into it and I have a mentor who is known on MFK as JK47. I am the padawan and still very green, but learning quickly.
That being said, JK47 has taken the helm of this build and I gladly took on the role as a lackey. JK47 did pretty much all of the work, but graciously commentated every step of the way for me. ;-)
I will try and caption most of the pictures, but its a dirty *** 100g that I bought off CL for $100.
Enjoy the progress as I will upload as much as I can.
Here we go:
Straight from the car to the garage.
First thing we did, we masked it off and painted the trim.
After a night of drying, took off the masking and viola! At this point here, JK47 and my 14-year old starting on building the stand as I started to clean the inside of the tank. Vinegar was key to getting rid of the yucky calcium deposits. ;-)
Here is the stand! ;-) Set the tank on its side to let the vinegar soak for 30 minutes or so.
Filled the tank up a bit and added 100lbs of Sand ;-)
Shimmed the stand to allow it to set as we added water.
We purposely didn't rinse the sand off before putting it in the tank, instead, we had 1 python adding water and another python siphoning cloudy water out. You can also see the nice sand! ;-)
Tank full of water, still cloudy, but we added a hot magnum to helpout. The water came from the house spicket, so the water was super cold. Added a few heaters to warm everything up.
I wanted the tank to be up higher than normal so we built a tall stand. Added some brackets on the stand for extra reinforcements. Will also add an L bracket and anchor the stand to the wall. (Just in case) ;-)
All done for now, going to let the filter run and warm the tank up.
That's it for now. I think later on today we will be cutting down some 3D background and will set them in soon.
That being said, JK47 has taken the helm of this build and I gladly took on the role as a lackey. JK47 did pretty much all of the work, but graciously commentated every step of the way for me. ;-)
I will try and caption most of the pictures, but its a dirty *** 100g that I bought off CL for $100.
Enjoy the progress as I will upload as much as I can.
Here we go:
Straight from the car to the garage.
First thing we did, we masked it off and painted the trim.
After a night of drying, took off the masking and viola! At this point here, JK47 and my 14-year old starting on building the stand as I started to clean the inside of the tank. Vinegar was key to getting rid of the yucky calcium deposits. ;-)
Here is the stand! ;-) Set the tank on its side to let the vinegar soak for 30 minutes or so.
Filled the tank up a bit and added 100lbs of Sand ;-)
Shimmed the stand to allow it to set as we added water.
We purposely didn't rinse the sand off before putting it in the tank, instead, we had 1 python adding water and another python siphoning cloudy water out. You can also see the nice sand! ;-)
Tank full of water, still cloudy, but we added a hot magnum to helpout. The water came from the house spicket, so the water was super cold. Added a few heaters to warm everything up.
I wanted the tank to be up higher than normal so we built a tall stand. Added some brackets on the stand for extra reinforcements. Will also add an L bracket and anchor the stand to the wall. (Just in case) ;-)
All done for now, going to let the filter run and warm the tank up.
That's it for now. I think later on today we will be cutting down some 3D background and will set them in soon.