700 + Aquarium Build

[ddyerfamily]

WOW.......I just read whole thread

You have more patience than me.
I would have throw or kicked something by now

Cool build.I enjoyed reading about your build.

I will wait in line to see it finished.

I worry about goop never heard of people using it in tanks, but I am new to building though. Most I see use epoxy or silicone.

I also like the background.I did read a thread about backgrounds and they used tint in cement to change colors and to add depth to rocks.(darker in cracks.)

Also plants can be stuck into wholes made in styro,if you dig plants.(silicone wholes to seal them)
Caves if you ever plan on small fish can be shaped in styro.

I want to build a tank sooooooooooooooo BAD......

I have all kinds of Ideas.

Anyways,Thanks Again for sharing.

p.s. Love the Aros ,Here is a collection of videos you will enjoy.
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87944
At least I shared something

 

[Derpeder]

Looking awesome arl.

Keep the pics coming.

 

[mdspurl]

Cant wait to see the finished pics.....You have lots of patience...

 

[arl]

Thanks a lot guys for the compliments. This project is really time consuming and yes it would require lots of patience, specially with the way I am doing it (unproven methods). I am sure there will be a faster and proven way of doing it but its fun to try out things.

 

[arl]

A very disapointing day last Tuesday is (just watched star wars ) ONe of my aro jumped out of the stand sump tank. When I woke up she's there stiff on the floor. I use to cover the top before but I got lazy and didn't really think that they can clear a 2 foot high wall. Well she DID!!! All the blame is on me firstly I didn't cover my sump tank, second I under fed them, so probably one got skinny enough to have not much weight to jump 2 feet high and third I have not changed the water since I moved them there, and that probably more than 2 months ago, and that made them uncomfortable and mada them jumpy. Its just bad that my fishes are suffering because of my laziness. Needless to say I spent most of the week cleanning their tank.

 

[arl]

I did the background on the sides of the fish tank. I already have copper studs on the sides so I decided just to use those but put some epoxy resin to seal the copper from silicone. Silicone sticks well to epoxy resin. I also found out that silicone sticks good to GOOP so I spread goop on the abs walls and when it dried up I used silicone to stick the styro.

I also re did some of the back wall back ground

 

[arl]

Then just do the cement thing. I got lazy again in doing the cement so I just did a 1 time thicker layer application.

 

[arl]

I did caves on the corners, can't get a good pic to really show it. some of the rocks are 8" high/thick so theres really lots of 3D effect.

 

[arl]

There will be 4 return pipes to the bottom of the subfloor. 1 on each side end and 2 at the center.

Didn't get a chance to pic them with out the cement covering them. The 1.5" D. abs pipe along the the glass window have holes in them (can hardly see them though). Water return from there will hopefully push the dirt towards the overflow intake.

 

[arl]

I cemented to fill up the corners of the tank so that dirt will not accumulate or get stuck in them. (from the pic below you can see the overflow intake) the pipe returns also got cemented at the bottom for the same reason. Those are not all cement though, I first inserted wet newspaper into the the holes and corners then covered them with cement.