Hey Rheann i finished making my tank !!! Have a look

[stipe]

Hey Rheann i finaly finished my tank, well almost, the silcon is still curing and setting so i'll leave it for seven days then im going to check for leaks. Also i have to put some frams at the top and corners to full proof it. Im making an acrylic tank, 100x stronger, shatter proof, 50% lighter and 100x cheaper. Guess how much it cost me.......... a big fat $0, yeh thats right i got a nice sheet of perspex from my dads work and cut it out with a good power saw and assembled it on aluminum frams

, what colour should i spray the frames??

After all that its time to fill it up and decorat it, and then.... Puit my axies in!!!!

.

Th tank is about 3.7x1.5 foot so its HUGE!. Also the perspex is 10mm thick.

 

[alex]

wow, nice tank stipe. looks like you and your dad did a really good job. your so lucky to get a tank that size for free!. remember you got to cycle it though.

 

[rheann]

Oh my gosh, Stipe, that is amazing! Great job!!! I wish I could have made my tank, yours is just beautiful

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Might I suggest painting the frame black or your favorite color? Mine are black, and they look great because they match with everything lol. You want to pick a color that will will blend in with the rest of the house, but not draw attention away from the tank to the frames. I would think black would be best.

Your tank is the same length as mine, but yours is taller and wider lol. It looks to me as though you could fit possibly... 7 or 8 axolotls in there. How many do you plan to have total?

What type of theme will you go with? If you get natural plants, tall ones will look outstanding in the back. I have had great success with fox tail. It spreads so fast, and gets really tall and bushy. I haven't had the funds or the time to plant anything else than what I already had in there.

If you put in drift wood, I would go with something fake and natural looking, rather than real. Real driftwood will cloud the water, and also break down over time, which is really yucky when it starts to smell.

I bet you are so proud

Great job, I really look forward to seeing the finished version

.

 

[stipe]

I know thats both of you, i love the tank too

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Im going for the natural look Rheann, tall plants and the back shorter in the middle and shortest at the back. Im going to make it a chrome colour as you can see from the paint can in the pictuer but im not tossing it over with black. Its going to have the black sand fro mmy old tank

with about 6 axies including squidy adn mala

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Thanks ffor the comments

 

[rob]

looks great Stripe

what a satisfaction of making some thing like that ur self and for bugger all its even better

are u going to put some kind of brace in the middle ? cause thats a big tank and alot of water.. be nice to see the final product when ur finished

 

[stipe]

Im going to ad frames all the way down the corners and a brace at the top, as i said its almost done.

Also about cycling...do i really need to? im anyway using all the water from my old tank, its substrate, plants etc and all im doing is addign extra water to fill it up, so do i need to?

(Message edited by stipe on December 30, 2005)

 

[rob]

just trying to help m8
if u dont want it i will no longer bother replying to u ! u said nothing about bracing, just frames which to me mean angle or some thing...
good luck to u......................

 

[alex]

hey stipe, you wont need to cycle as long as u are using all the stuff from ur cycled tank. as long as its not been cleaned, you want the bacteria to still be alive.

are you going to buy a new filter since the tanks bigger?. if so use the same filter wool/cartridge that u have in your current filter, as the filter wool holds a lot of the bacteria.

 

[rheann]

Stipe, I would Recommend getting a Canister filter for a big tank like that.

Since you are adding your old water, you really won't need to cycle. You might want to wait just a week though just to be on the safe side and test again. When I set up my new tank, I threw out all the old water because it had Hydra in it. While my axies were in buckets, I added their waste every few days to the tank and my tank cycled so fast! It was wonderful

.

Rena is a wonderful canister brand. It is the brand that I have, for 75 gallons. I would suggest trying to possibly go with the biggest model since your tank is so big lol. Mine is up to 75 gallons, and I have a 60 gallon tank.

 

[stipe]

LOl, sorry rob ,i said i was going to put a brace at the top to hold it together

.

I was looking at rena canister filters today there are some big ones for $150au so its god.

SOunds good Rheann, but would i bigger tank take longer to cycle?

 

[theresa]

Wow Stipe,
What a great job! you should be very proud. if it were me, with an acryllic tank, i would not paint the edges.... To me, that is one of the nice bonuses of having one. 9too expensive here in the states, but very desirable. 1 you have clear viewing from all angles. they don't have a dark edge to spoil the illusion. how many gallons is your tank ? Wonderful! Personally, I like having real driftwood. my Henry seems to really like it. i got it from the lfs and just boiled each end, then rinsed. No clouding at all.

 

[andrew]

Congrats on finishing your tank. Don't scratch it now. lol.

Great idea to make your own tank. I think allot more people should do it. You will have to make a custom stand and hutch for it now.

You shouldn't have too much trouble getting it to re-cyle. If you are going to buy a new filter an external cannister would be a great choice.

If you check out ebay or any weekend markets you can pick up a good one for about $100. I bought a Jebo 815 and it has been absolutely fantastic.

Hey you wouldn't know what a sheet of perspex like that costs at all?

 

[charlotte]

*is bloody jealous*

0$ dollars you say?!

farrrr.....that's a nice looking tank you're, going to have some real fun with it.

 

[rheann]

Hey Stipe, I don't it will take too much longer. by big one took a lot less than my smaller one did lol. If you use the water from your previous tank, then wait a week and test, the cycling might already be done, and if it is not, just add a bit more waste and that should do the trick

 

[sin]

Stipe that's damn fantastic, it's one thing to buy something but a totally different one to make something up according to your imagination. Congrats!

 

[rheann]

Stipe, what type of background will you put on it? Will you make your own? Someone suggested to me to pain the back of my tank with bright colors, but I decided to go against it and get a printed background. However, I wish that I would have gone with a blue background instead. Blue brings out the bright green in the plants.

I'm getting excited to see your finished project

. Good luck!

 

[stipe]

im buying one ofthose rock backgroudns from a shop and siliconign it to the back (looks and feels liek real rock

)