Plywood Tank Resto: Recombobulating my 200

[cvermeulen]

So, I dove in hip deep a few years ago (2006) and built a 200gl plywood tank as the first aquarium I'd owned since I was a kid. It looked like this:

This year I moved, and in the process this tank got torn down, I removed the glass to make it more feasible to transport, and it's been sitting in my living room on the stand for 6 months or so:

I started looking at it, and the 3 years of service took it's toll on the epoxy coating I used last time. Combination of factors I think led to the epoxy's failure. I'm surprised the tank wasn't leaking in it's old home.

So, these days I don't have a helluva lot of time to devote to this, but I have started chipping away the epoxy where it is cracked, and I spent some time wire wheeling off the old epoxy that held the glass in tonight as well.

My intent is to chip away the compromised coating wherever it is loose enough to do so, then possibly re-fill the corners where the short strand fiberglass filler has also come loose. I am then planning to re-seal using one of the liquid rubber products (Probably Zavlar, but possibly Permadri or WetSuit).

While I'm at it, the glass has a small chip and some scratches in it from my ex-stepchildren, so I will see what I can do about getting that fixed or replaced.

 

[cvermeulen]

Update on the glass: I called 3 places for quotes on replacement and nobody got back to me. Gotta love living in BFN northern BC. My guess is they can't get the glass, or the quotes were ridiculous so they didn't bother calling back.

I also inquired about having the chip filled, and one guy thought he could maybe do it. No such luck with the scratches though, nobody willing to give repairing them a go. I'm not sure where this really leaves me. The scratches are pretty minor; if I can have the chip filled I'll probably reuse the glass. I know myself - if I buy new glass and have two 5x3 windows, I'll scrap the tank and build a 10x4x3 or something.

 

[cvermeulen]

Huh. soooo obviously got a little side tracked there. Spent some time working on this today. I've plugged away here and there over the last year, but not really done much at all (obviously).

All the epoxy is sanded inside the tank, and I trimmed town the top of the tank so it's all even now. Ripped out some braces and put new ones in the corner. The idea is to get rid of all the holes through the tank walls (one of them leaked, so we won't be doing that again). I'm doing all this in my living room, so it's not ideal.

An issue I have is the oak I used to make the front wasn't cured when I bought it. Unfortunately it's warped quite a bit. I already did one coverup type modification to this when the tank was up and running, but the wood is still bent, and there's no getting around that. I tried to take a pic that captured the warp but I'm not sure how easy it is to see:

So, I'm faced with a PITA problem. I either live with the warped front and hope it doesn't get any worse (Not a fan of this idea), or I drill out all the plugs, take out all the screws (I think there's around 100 holding the front on), and then cut/pry/chip off the front from the rest of the tank, then make a new front from some nice G1S oak plywood that will never warp. I like the second idea better, even though it's an ass-load of work. Will see whether tomorrow motivates me enough to rip off the front. The crappy part about that idea is I could probably build a NEW tank for similar effort. But, this was my first DIY tank, so I'm a bit attached to it, and I have some cool ideas for the new front.

 

[imusuallyuseless]

Wow side tracked indeed, glad to see your still going at it. I would've started from scratch by now, but you've already done so much you might as well see it through. Good luck

 

[cvermeulen]

Yeah well it's kinda just been in the corner serving as car part storage with the cat's litter box under the stand. I live alone in a pretty good sized place, so without a nagging wife I was free to be side-tracked!

Anyway, so, I bit in hard today and ripped the front off. Made a HELL of a mess in my living room, but I think I've got the majority of the really messy nasty work done now; there shouldn't be any more ripping/tearing/breaking/cutting/chipping work and it should all be nice new materials and forward progress. Here's today's pics

Glad I ripped the oak front off. Pretty pissed at home depot for selling green wood to me; ALL the boards were warped and cracked. You can see rot progressing through from the back where the warping cracked the coating.

Anyway, I screwed in a new top brace, and ran the router over every corner I could get it on. Did some sanding and so on. Going to get some filler in the corners for nice radii that I can easily glass over without bubbles. The "new" sealant on this tank will be to 100% cover the inside with fiberglass and either polyester or epoxy. Haven't decided yet - will depend whether the weather warms up enough for me to do it outside or not. My hands will be kinda tied to epoxy if I have to do it in the house.

 

[stevenhman]

Bravo! Looks good, what ever happened to the one in your garage?

 

[cvermeulen]

Still going strong man, this is my ex gf helping me spread sand in it last year sometime:

 

[cvermeulen]

Little bit of work last night, put fillets in all the corners. Hacked up some plywood to serve as teh new front also, but I haven't begun installing it yet.

 

[F1 VET]

Wow good build and sorry about the ex!!!

Better off w/o her! + theres 1000000 fish in the sea!

 

[cvermeulen]

Wow good build and sorry about the ex!!!

Better off w/o her! + theres 1000000 fish in the sea!

Thanks, it was complicated - my fault we split up. She was a good gf, just bad circumstances. Now I have more time to spend on stuff like this though, which is a bonus!