Awesome built. Please do keep us posted. Your DIY steel tank is /\/\onster before it even has any monsterfish in it.
Half way into an all-steel Aquarium
- Thread starter Ianf406
- Start date
I started stacking, gluing and epoxying the background this weekend.Hoping to have tons of places for the little critters to hide in. Probably 100 or so caves with one big one for the cat. I thought I had collected enough rocks over the past few months but I was wrong lol.
I plan on chopping up a few kinds of moss and spreading them over most of the joints.
I'm not 100% yet but I'm leaning towards:
Java/Christmas moss chopped up and spread over the rocks with dirt/water. (Cover tank, keep moist and let them start growing before filling). Going to try and get some valesneria growing along the rock wall as well but think the crawdads will destroy it.
Daphnia, Scuds, Japaneese trap door snails, crawdads, a couple water beatles, a couple local freshwater mussles, a handful of Sculpin, 1 Stone Cat, a few Yellow Perch, a pair of pumpkin seeds, a pair of blue gill and a black crappie.
Plan on starting with the little stuff and letting it establish. Hoping there is enough crevices and caves for them to establish a population that survives. Planting the fish months later as minnows. If not, I'll breed the scuds/daphnia/snails in the refugium in the sump (which is about 105 gallons if I filled it full)
I found some 1/4" thick edpm (36x120") for pretty cheap on Home Depot. (165$) Think that is worth a shot?I kinda gathered towards the end of ur post the red HDPE was a washer to sandwich the acrylic in. Very smart there i agree to dispurse the bolt pressure. The end of the bolt and that space between both sides of the poly is worrisome tho for water getting through. Even if u silicone the inside holes id use 2 rubber washers. One on each side of the hdpe. That should seal ya up and actually seal against the poly.
Back to the window debate… i wouldn’t use 2 different materials. Silicone alone can be a great gasket. The hutton products gold label is excellent stuff. Its expensive but worth it. I paid $430 for 12 tubes back in 09’… I think the my pond brand ms300 is around the same price but again proven many times over. Both products are hard to get in the US is the other kicker. I had to order through a local pond shop and they had no idea what it was. Got lucky and it was in their sales catalog. Y i used 3m5200 for a build after. Its cheaper and available in the US. Black 3m5200 will cost u more but will look good with ur red/blackish tank. Theres also CT1 construction adhesive (black only is fish safe) thats been proven for “mixed materials” and available easier in the US. All pretty pricey tho sadly.
Back in the day here 06’ era there was a build that used 4” strips of butyl rubber layered to cover the gaps and laminated with rubber cement. That was used as a gasket between acrylic and pond liner and worked. Rubber cement works much better than ud think if u end up needing to make ur own gasket.
Im all for the “specality” silicones as a gasket as ive done those myself. U already got those holes drilled tho with a giant washer to take some pressureill try and find the rubber roll place for ya to check out
I think i could just screw it into the plywood walls in my garage and using the washer as a template, cut it with a razor knife. Then I could silicone shut the 1/4" clearance gap I left for myself all around the perimeter of the acrylic.
Not bad at all… much cheaper than 12 tubes of specialty silicone. I like the double seal idea also. Really hoping just the rubber and bolts do it for ya tho lol
. Id test it first with just the rubber, tighten as needed then finish er off like ur thinking with the silicone just for extra assurance maybe. My worry would be the silicone tearing away if u ever needed to tighten the bolts over time.