First off, I want to start by saying that I used to be an avid fishkeeper, but lacked some education on proper maintenance and fish growth progress. I was more of spectator hobbyist back in the day. Now I want to get back into it and I have a mentor who is known on MFK as JK47. I am the padawan and still very green, but learning quickly.
That being said, JK47 has taken the helm of this build and I gladly took on the role as a lackey. JK47 did pretty much all of the work, but graciously commentated every step of the way for me. ;-)
I will try and caption most of the pictures, but its a dirty *** 100g that I bought off CL for $100.
Enjoy the progress as I will upload as much as I can.
Here we go:
Straight from the car to the garage.
First thing we did, we masked it off and painted the trim.
After a night of drying, took off the masking and viola! At this point here, JK47 and my 14-year old starting on building the stand as I started to clean the inside of the tank. Vinegar was key to getting rid of the yucky calcium deposits. ;-)
Here is the stand! ;-) Set the tank on its side to let the vinegar soak for 30 minutes or so.
Filled the tank up a bit and added 100lbs of Sand ;-)
Shimmed the stand to allow it to set as we added water.
We purposely didn't rinse the sand off before putting it in the tank, instead, we had 1 python adding water and another python siphoning cloudy water out. You can also see the nice sand! ;-)
Tank full of water, still cloudy, but we added a hot magnum to helpout. The water came from the house spicket, so the water was super cold. Added a few heaters to warm everything up.
I wanted the tank to be up higher than normal so we built a tall stand. Added some brackets on the stand for extra reinforcements. Will also add an L bracket and anchor the stand to the wall. (Just in case) ;-)
All done for now, going to let the filter run and warm the tank up.
That's it for now. I think later on today we will be cutting down some 3D background and will set them in soon.
That being said, JK47 has taken the helm of this build and I gladly took on the role as a lackey. JK47 did pretty much all of the work, but graciously commentated every step of the way for me. ;-)
I will try and caption most of the pictures, but its a dirty *** 100g that I bought off CL for $100.
Enjoy the progress as I will upload as much as I can.
Here we go:
Straight from the car to the garage.
First thing we did, we masked it off and painted the trim.
After a night of drying, took off the masking and viola! At this point here, JK47 and my 14-year old starting on building the stand as I started to clean the inside of the tank. Vinegar was key to getting rid of the yucky calcium deposits. ;-)
Here is the stand! ;-) Set the tank on its side to let the vinegar soak for 30 minutes or so.
Filled the tank up a bit and added 100lbs of Sand ;-)
Shimmed the stand to allow it to set as we added water.
We purposely didn't rinse the sand off before putting it in the tank, instead, we had 1 python adding water and another python siphoning cloudy water out. You can also see the nice sand! ;-)
Tank full of water, still cloudy, but we added a hot magnum to helpout. The water came from the house spicket, so the water was super cold. Added a few heaters to warm everything up.
I wanted the tank to be up higher than normal so we built a tall stand. Added some brackets on the stand for extra reinforcements. Will also add an L bracket and anchor the stand to the wall. (Just in case) ;-)
All done for now, going to let the filter run and warm the tank up.
That's it for now. I think later on today we will be cutting down some 3D background and will set them in soon.
I am stoked to have such a good freind as a neighbor and just as stoked to have an MFK'er across the street now! This is coming along nice. We should be able to get the background cut down tonight and installed if we can pay attention long enough.. 
