The natural themed monster fish tank build
- Thread starter 14crazychris
- Start date
Hey everyone,
thought I’d post a little update. The arowana and stingray are doing well in quarantine and feeding nicely. The arowana did jump about a week ago and knocked some scales off but they have been healing quickly. I thought I’d get to work on the Eheim filter. So the guy I got it off said the heater wasn’t working/was quite intermittent. First up it was heavily scaled up with rust and lime scale. Used a bunch of citric acid on it and a razor blade which cleaned it up perfectly. Took the head of the canister filter and had a look at the electrical circuits. Turned out the “waterproof” box was full of moisture lol. stripped it all apart and gave it a test. Then it blew the circuit board…….brilliant! So now the filter is completely broken and a new head is £350! Or is it!
Stripped back the circuit board and wired the pump directly Into the power connection. By passed the heater and removed all of that broken system. Hey presto it works, gave it a test on an isolated system and it ran perfectly for 10 minutes so will just have to place a submersible heater into the main tank. No biggie
Got 5kg of biohome ultimate for the top two trays and 3 sponges for the bottom. Removed all the media it came with so now it should run nicely!
This weekends job is finally to get that stand looked at and sorted out. Really hoping it won’t be many more weeks until I can get the tank setup.
thanks
thought I’d post a little update. The arowana and stingray are doing well in quarantine and feeding nicely. The arowana did jump about a week ago and knocked some scales off but they have been healing quickly. I thought I’d get to work on the Eheim filter. So the guy I got it off said the heater wasn’t working/was quite intermittent. First up it was heavily scaled up with rust and lime scale. Used a bunch of citric acid on it and a razor blade which cleaned it up perfectly. Took the head of the canister filter and had a look at the electrical circuits. Turned out the “waterproof” box was full of moisture lol. stripped it all apart and gave it a test. Then it blew the circuit board…….brilliant! So now the filter is completely broken and a new head is £350! Or is it!
Stripped back the circuit board and wired the pump directly Into the power connection. By passed the heater and removed all of that broken system. Hey presto it works, gave it a test on an isolated system and it ran perfectly for 10 minutes so will just have to place a submersible heater into the main tank. No biggie
Got 5kg of biohome ultimate for the top two trays and 3 sponges for the bottom. Removed all the media it came with so now it should run nicely!
This weekends job is finally to get that stand looked at and sorted out. Really hoping it won’t be many more weeks until I can get the tank setup.
thanks
Very cool photo of arowana. 
Re. stand... I have same 125g on an MDF/LDF stand for 20+ yrs, without incident. The important thing is for the tank weight to rest entirely on the top edges of the full-height vertical support, not on the larger flat sides. IOW, it should be 100% supported (from floor to tank) by (preferably solid) wood whose structure remains intact & strong, even if you remove all the fasteners (nails, screws, etc). Fasteners are the weak link, not the MDF itself, unless the MDF gets soaked for a long time. For example... Here is my DIY stand made by cutting down 1-inch thick LDF/MDF pieces taken from a hefty office desk, and the horizontal slabs (top and bottom) were from laminated kitchen countertops. It's such a solid box that it withstands force from any side. Despite MDF nay-sayers, this stand is incredibly sturdy and can easily support a much bigger tank.
Re. stand... I have same 125g on an MDF/LDF stand for 20+ yrs, without incident. The important thing is for the tank weight to rest entirely on the top edges of the full-height vertical support, not on the larger flat sides. IOW, it should be 100% supported (from floor to tank) by (preferably solid) wood whose structure remains intact & strong, even if you remove all the fasteners (nails, screws, etc). Fasteners are the weak link, not the MDF itself, unless the MDF gets soaked for a long time. For example... Here is my DIY stand made by cutting down 1-inch thick LDF/MDF pieces taken from a hefty office desk, and the horizontal slabs (top and bottom) were from laminated kitchen countertops. It's such a solid box that it withstands force from any side. Despite MDF nay-sayers, this stand is incredibly sturdy and can easily support a much bigger tank.
Very cool photo of arowana.
Re. stand... I have same 125g on an MDF/LDF stand for 20+ yrs, without incident. The important thing is for the tank weight to rest entirely on the top edges of the full-height vertical support, not on the larger flat sides. IOW, it should be 100% supported (from floor to tank) by (preferably solid) wood whose structure remains intact & strong, even if you remove all the fasteners (nails, screws, etc). Fasteners are the weak link, not the MDF itself, unless the MDF gets soaked for a long time. For example... Here is my DIY stand made by cutting down 1-inch thick LDF/MDF pieces taken from a hefty office desk, and the horizontal slabs (top and bottom) were from laminated kitchen countertops. It's such a solid box that it withstands force from any side. Despite MDF nay-sayers, this stand is incredibly sturdy and can easily support a much bigger tank.
Awesome thank you! That’s super helpful im going to try get some pictures this weekend and will get the work done to it. Fingers crossed it turns out well. The stand doesn’t look too bas and support seems very strong and bulky especially after I add extra into it. After that I’ll be ordering the substrate. I’ve now got the filter up and running how I’d like it so I can just transfer it onto the main tank as soon as I’m ready to set it up. It’s all getting there slowly. Datnoid is on order with my LFS, trying to get one around 4 inches so my arow doesn’t eat it lol. Hopefully they can get a hold of it for me.
thanks
Thank you! I think its time for some more picture updates today!
So another small update. Gave the stand a clean down and finally inspected it properly. Doesn't look too bad personally. I think after my heavy duty repair job it will be much better. The small trim on the lefthand side also needs to be glued back on, makes it look much worse in the photos (last two pics of stand). Have got the wood ready for repairing it tomorrow. Thought I'd update with some pictures of it and also some better shots of the arowana.
Thanks
Thanks
thanks, obviously doesn’t have the doors on at the moment either. I think it will be fine ?
I agree with you about the supports on the sides holding up the weight of the tank. But to say your stand is the same as the stand in the original post is a stretch. The one you made is a much higher quality build than the stand in the pics op posted just below. The difference is how the support rests underneath the horizontal face on yours vs the side extending above the horizontal face. I agree with what you are saying, but the “nay sayer” in my posts have less to do with the “mdf “ itself and more about the cheap construction of the original stand. Indeed the stand you built is sturdy and built for a weight of a fish tank. Whereas the original “stand” doesn’t look like a stand as much as it looks like a cheap ikea desk. My statement about the original desk being weak to hold the tank, “stands” (pun intended).Very cool photo of arowana.
Re. stand... I have same 125g on an MDF/LDF stand for 20+ yrs, without incident. The important thing is for the tank weight to rest entirely on the top edges of the full-height vertical support, not on the larger flat sides. IOW, it should be 100% supported (from floor to tank) by (preferably solid) wood whose structure remains intact & strong, even if you remove all the fasteners (nails, screws, etc). Fasteners are the weak link, not the MDF itself, unless the MDF gets soaked for a long time. For example... Here is my DIY stand made by cutting down 1-inch thick LDF/MDF pieces taken from a hefty office desk, and the horizontal slabs (top and bottom) were from laminated kitchen countertops. It's such a solid box that it withstands force from any side. Despite MDF nay-sayers, this stand is incredibly sturdy and can easily support a much bigger tank.
I wouldn’t put any fish tank on that stand 1 14crazychris it doesn’t look like it was built for a fish tank at all. The stand in C cvar post is well built and designed for a tank. They are not the sam. In any way other than the materials used.
someone may get away with it, but all it takes is one moment of an equipment failure to cause a huge disaster. Example on the left side of the stand the melamine is peeling back, if that gets wet from a faulty filter, it will swell then it will compromise the wood, once that happens it will be easy for the fasteners to cave (the wood surrounding the fasteners) and done.
you do whatever you want, you may get away with it. I just know many people on this site have given me advise that I didn’t like, I decided I need to find out for myself, then when I find that they were right, I wished that I would have just listened rather than losing that fish, or whatever it was that I didn’t listen to sound advice.
