8x4x3 Plywood Fun, bunch of pics
- Thread starter davenmandy
- Start date
I like that rock solid standStarted this project in September 2015 with
The base:
View attachment 1170102
The back:
View attachment 1170104
The sides:
View attachment 1170103
The front:
View attachment 1170107
Like my stand???
View attachment 1170105
Frame together:
View attachment 1170108
View attachment 1170109
Plywood in:
View attachment 1170111
For reasons that I am not going to say because I am extremely embarrassed and still a bit pissed at myself, my plywood didn't meet flush like I would have liked it to (I put quarter round in after to help alleviate my anxiety):
View attachment 1170110
Largest pail of liquid rubber was used along with largest roll of seam tape. We diluted the first coat of liquid rubber with water to about half consistency so it gets absorbed by the wood a bit better. Then we put the seam tape in. We built a small 1" plywood frame for the viewing window so that the 3m5200 we used to adhere it had 2 points of contact, the outside rim and along the perimeter of the front of the glass. Viewing window was 6x2, 1/2". You can see the eurobrace we made by putting a 2x6 around the perimeter and then a 2x4 on top, which makes a great notch for the greenhouse siding we used as lids. Flipping this thing to get the glass in was a lot of fun:
View attachment 1170112
"Finished" product:
View attachment 1170092
Filter is one 55g barrel full of 1.75 cuft of k1 powered by an ap100 that powers another 32 gallon reactor and a 7" diameter round aluminum oxide air stone. The second barrel has about 1/4 full of bio balls and pot scrubbies, we used egg crate and spare ABS piping to make a 12" "stand" for this as the connecting pipe was at the bottom to keep this barrel and the equipment chamber the same level. There is a drain in my equipment chamber that goes to the floor drain, along with a dehumidifier I rigged to go right into the same drain. The barrels are conected with 3" uniseals, those were a massive pain to get in without pushing them in too far trying to get them into the second barrel. No leaks so far. The k1 chamber has that vertical pipe with an end cap that was slotted a bunch of times and is about 2/3 or whatever full. We cut out a square in the lids of the barrel (also which we cut and placed upside down) and put 2 totes for a filter floss pre-filter, easy to open and change. We have a 6" deep and about 4" wide overflow box with 4x 2" bulkheads, 2 going into each of the first barrels, boy did we butcher those with a hammer and a flathead screwdriver to get them to stop leaking:
View attachment 1170093
View attachment 1170095
Leak test:
View attachment 1170094
View attachment 1170097
View attachment 1170096
Light is just gutter from Home Depot with 2 end caps, 2 strips of LED lights, and some reflective tape:
View attachment 1170099
My ap100 split from the other system as well as my auto drip system split from the other system as well:
View attachment 1170101
View attachment 1170100
And finally, some tank mates (cat is pissed because before the rubber was in and it was in all wood form this was his favourite jungle gym of all time):
View attachment 1170098
Big thanks to
If I find some more pics or whatnot I may post them, if you have specific questions by all means. House finally is gone of the smell of varnish, even though I still haven't done underneath. the tank due to space constraints and I am tired of the varnish high. Speaking of which lessons learned:
Varnish it all before you put it together, outside. Put the glass in before it's all together. Make a couple slots out of plywood somewhere in the tank for an easy insert for a divider. Sand gets absolutely everywhere. The only place that sells 3m5200 in town has a wicked hot babe working at the front desk, buy tubes 1 at a time. Limit the beer consumption the night before, day of is fine because you get a better gauge of when to call it quits (cuz sometimes when you are sober you just don't give up even when making tired mistakes). And perhaps my hardest lesson to learn, YOU WILL NEVER BUILD IT PERFECTLY, so let the small cracks in the 2x4 frames go, have faith in yourself, and pray.
very Nicky done. On my road to ray keeping I think I will be doing something similar. Strong yet easy to take apart and movabel Ya working quite well so far. Liquid rubber is water based so it's not brutal when you are in there painting. I 100% regret not sleeping in there one night before the liquid rubber went in, it was quite roomy!
Forgot to thank
CANAMONSTER
and
Lepisosteus
for their advice and leads during the build process.
Dieselhybrid
find me a male black ray to go in her bro
CANAMONSTER
and
Lepisosteus
for their advice and leads during the build process.
Dieselhybrid
find me a male black ray to go in her bro 
Planning my first plywood tank and was wondering if you had any tips on setting the glass? For some reason that's the only thing I keep worrying about. I love your build btw
Really nice job. I was planning something similar, but man, it looks so big.
are you gonna add some Styrofoam / insulation in the spaces between the 2x4 's
any idea how heavy the whole thing weighed while empty? must of been hell when you guys had to take it off the stand to put it on the ground to install the glass
any idea how heavy the whole thing weighed while empty? must of been hell when you guys had to take it off the stand to put it on the ground to install the glass
For the glass we built a frame out of plywood (3/4" × 1") that was 1/4 inch bigger the the glass. So it was 72 1/4" ×24 1/4" that was taking into consideration the thickness of liquid rubber. Then we used 3m5200 adhesive to secure the window in the frame.
I'm not sure if Dave plans on insulate between the 2x4 but I do know the thing weighs over 500 pounds. We made the mistake of building the tank on the cinder block stand then having to take it off and flip it on the front to install the glass, wasn't any more fun getting it back onto the cinder block stand either
