L shaped plywood tank build

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
hey everyone. so far the tank is working as well as can be hoped. there are a couple of minor annoyances that i would think about if i was going to build one in the future. one issue that i'm dealing with is the lighting. i don't know what it is but my fish react a lot more to the light in this tank than they did under the same light on my 90g. the 90 was taller so obviously it was a little bit dimmer simply because of the distance the light had to travel through water, but it seems a lot brighter in this tank. i'm blaming it on the choice of paint color. i really wish i had chosen black. would have been way nicer. i am waiting on some lights off ebay that should be able to bring me to the desired level of illumination. another thing is the circulation. i ended up adding a power head at the corner where the 2 front panels of glass meet pointing towards the end of the long arm, and that has helped a lot but the fx6 alone was not enough to create any real flow in that kind of space. i would like to add another one to move things in the shorter arm around better. by far the biggest thing i would have changed is i would have cut off the back corner a bit. there is a great big blind spot in the corner. its great for hiding equipment but it gets really annoying. i just hope none of the fish spawn in the back there and i miss it completely. otherwise this tank is great. sorry for the formatting (one giant block) of the text. i'm at work and for some reason it wont let me create a new paragraph. and i work for a tech company. go figure
 
i also removed the live plants for the most part and replaced them with fake ones, it was getting too dirty. the corys would dig around in the pots and it was really junking everything up.
 
so I had to shut this tank down because it had a tiny slow leak out the back. I ran it for a little bit at 3/4 full until I could rehome the fish in a new tank and the leak stopped. I am getting ready to re seal it with west systems again I just want to make sure I do it right so I don't have to tear this down again because it was a real pita. my plan is to use the west systems epoxy again and because the leak was on the back of the long side I was originally just going to reseal that area but I want to paint the background black, so I'm just going to reseal all the panels with the exception of the window panels and the bottom. I'm only worried about the long back panel because I assume the leak was somewhere in that section although I suppose it could have traveled under the epoxy around a corner too, so doing all the back and side panels should clear that up.
I've swept up as much of the sand as I can I'm a little worried that having grit under the epoxy might create another spot to leak but I'm going to paint the areas I'm resealing anyway, so I think that should smooth anything over enough for the epoxy to adhere correctly.

does anyone see any possible issues or tips for this project?
 
are you planning on sanding the inside before you put the new layers on? That will help it stick better. To better clean up I would use a shop vac and or a damp cloth. I would do the bottom again too, since you have it torn down and it's such a pain to do. Better to fix it once.
Good luck and keep us posted!!!
 
Sarmo said:
are you planning on sanding the inside before you put the new layers on? That will help it stick better. To better clean up I would use a shop vac and or a damp cloth. I would do the bottom again too, since you have it torn down and it's such a pain to do. Better to fix it once.
Good luck and keep us posted!!!
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definitely better to fix it once. hah. I suppose I should sand it down, do you think I just need to give it some roughness? I had painted over the old epoxy, so i should probably try to get all the paint off as well i guess eh?
 
Yes, I'd remove the paint first and sand for roughness. More work, I know, but better results!! You know you can get pigment to add to the epoxy so you don't have to paint it later. That'll save a step!!
 
Sarmo said:
you can get pigment to add to the epoxy so you don't have to paint it later. That'll save a step!!
Click to expand...
yea I was thinking about that. I wasn't sure if you would need specific pigment for different brands of epoxy's or if the addition of the pigment changes the mix or what. i'll have to do a bit of research.
 
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