Hi Guys,
This has been a very long project with many delays along the way both my own fault and a lot of long delays with the tank supplier. I had initially planned on a 6x2x2 but due to budget and then the main problem of space I down sized my plans to a 4x20x20 which is obviously a major down size but I had one place in my house to put it and that was just as big as I could go.
So I put in the order in for the tank on the 31st of July 2010. I went away and bought the 90x45mm structural pine for my stand/cabinet. I had it all cut to size and gave it all a good coat of polyurethane varnish (mistake 1).
I soon found out that you cannot paint straight over poly varnish so I sanded it all off again. I then progressed well but slowly spending only a few hours a week on the stand. I learned a fair bit along the way making many little mistakes and finding solutions. Here are some pictures.
Top and bottom frames
Fitting the legs
Fitting the sides
Fitting trim
Filling gaps with putty
Test fit of the doors
Holes for overflow plumbing
Painting the Aquarium back take 1.
One mistake I have made is (I am guessing) to not prepare the glass well enough for painting. I scrubbed it with soapy water rinsed and dried it then I used a product called easy surface preparation (ESP) which claims to make paint stick to any surface including glass. Well all went fine except that once I had finished painting there were lots of spots that repelled the paint. I let it all dry and sprayed another coat but it still didnt work. So I thought I would just give it a little rub with turps to clean the grease out of the spots but of course I just smudged the paint and took of blobs of paint. I ended up taking all the paint off so I am back to square one. I scrubbed the glass with turps then metho followed my more metho and more again. I then painted straight onto the glass with enamel using a roller. It is not perfect but I dont think I will notice when the tank is full of wood and plants.
So today I test filled the tank and let the sump run empty to make sure there were no leaks. There was one leak around the plug in a spare bulkhead but everything else looked fine. I will check it tomorrow before bringing it into the house.
I will post up some sump build pictures later if anyone is interested. I am going for a slightly unorthodox system of a refugium in a freshwater setup.
Dylan
This has been a very long project with many delays along the way both my own fault and a lot of long delays with the tank supplier. I had initially planned on a 6x2x2 but due to budget and then the main problem of space I down sized my plans to a 4x20x20 which is obviously a major down size but I had one place in my house to put it and that was just as big as I could go.
So I put in the order in for the tank on the 31st of July 2010. I went away and bought the 90x45mm structural pine for my stand/cabinet. I had it all cut to size and gave it all a good coat of polyurethane varnish (mistake 1).
I soon found out that you cannot paint straight over poly varnish so I sanded it all off again. I then progressed well but slowly spending only a few hours a week on the stand. I learned a fair bit along the way making many little mistakes and finding solutions. Here are some pictures.
Top and bottom frames
Fitting the legs
Fitting the sides
Fitting trim
Filling gaps with putty
Test fit of the doors
Holes for overflow plumbing
Painting the Aquarium back take 1.
One mistake I have made is (I am guessing) to not prepare the glass well enough for painting. I scrubbed it with soapy water rinsed and dried it then I used a product called easy surface preparation (ESP) which claims to make paint stick to any surface including glass. Well all went fine except that once I had finished painting there were lots of spots that repelled the paint. I let it all dry and sprayed another coat but it still didnt work. So I thought I would just give it a little rub with turps to clean the grease out of the spots but of course I just smudged the paint and took of blobs of paint. I ended up taking all the paint off so I am back to square one. I scrubbed the glass with turps then metho followed my more metho and more again. I then painted straight onto the glass with enamel using a roller. It is not perfect but I dont think I will notice when the tank is full of wood and plants.
So today I test filled the tank and let the sump run empty to make sure there were no leaks. There was one leak around the plug in a spare bulkhead but everything else looked fine. I will check it tomorrow before bringing it into the house.
I will post up some sump build pictures later if anyone is interested. I am going for a slightly unorthodox system of a refugium in a freshwater setup.
Dylan
