I grew up keeping larger cichlids and more aggressive fish but about 10 years ago went the planted route. I've always wanted to do a large South American community but had a tough time finding the right tank for the right price. After almost 2 years of craigslist searching I found the one back in November. After over 6 months of cutting drywall, sanding/buffing acrylic and long nights after the family was asleep I'm finally up and running. Here's my 12'x3'x2', 540 gallon build.
Here's a couple pics as me and 5 friends drained the tank. We rented a uHaul and drive the two hours one Saturday to pick it up. Luckily the tank was in his living room and we were able to walk it out a sliding door directly to the trailer. I was pretty excited and a little worried we'd drop it so I don't have a ton of pics from picking the tank up.
The former owner kept African cichlids and had the tank in the wall. The back and both sides were textured and painted blue which caused me about 50 hours of work as you'll see later.
Here's the tank sitting in my garage after 8 hours of getting it home. The box is a 30 pack of natural light for reference. Everyone was thirsty.
Here's a couple pics as me and 5 friends drained the tank. We rented a uHaul and drive the two hours one Saturday to pick it up. Luckily the tank was in his living room and we were able to walk it out a sliding door directly to the trailer. I was pretty excited and a little worried we'd drop it so I don't have a ton of pics from picking the tank up.
The former owner kept African cichlids and had the tank in the wall. The back and both sides were textured and painted blue which caused me about 50 hours of work as you'll see later.
Here's the tank sitting in my garage after 8 hours of getting it home. The box is a 30 pack of natural light for reference. Everyone was thirsty.
