I wanted to share with you guys an album about my aquarium I have been working on the last month or so. There are a lot of photographs, so I put them in an album on imgur for you instead of posting them all here. So the story goes...A while back I had purchased a 210 gallon aquarium from a guy that had it sitting around doing nothing. The aquarium was in pretty rough shape as it was missing a piece of trim on the bottom and the stand needed a lot of work. I got a pretty good deal on it so I brought it home and went to work. For over a week it sat in my garage filled with water to make sure there were no leaks. While it was doing that I re-painted the stand and canopy. I also put a floor in the stand and reinforced it with some wood because I didn't trust how it was built.
The spot the tank was going to be moved in to is where my 125 gallon was sitting. I had noticed the water starting to slope a little bit, and it turns out that the concrete slab in our family room had settled due to the weight of the fish tank. After a week of waiting we got our floor mud jacked (for those who don't know what that is, they drill holes in the concrete slab and raise it with a concrete slurry pumped by a large machine). I didn't like the carpet that was in the room, so we ended up replacing that while we were at it. After all that was finally finished, I had a few guys from work help me move the tank into the room.
The overflow plumbing the last owner did was not in good shape and I didn't like how it was put together, so I spent a weekend re-doing that as well. The return lines from the sump had previously been some flexy lines that ended up breaking in transport because they were just some cheapy things anyhow. The lines just dumped the water back in the tank, so I really wanted to update this. I ran rigid pvc pipe up the back of the tank and made my own spray bars out of it. I finally got the tank filled and the sump running, and everything worked great! (Eventually! You don't know how much I was frustrated working all week on this thing and all it would do was leak all over the place)
I bought some LED lights off of ebay which ended up being a great purchase. If any of you want the link to the LED's I bought, just let me know.
I went looking for some rocks for the tank (by the way, the sand is pool filter sand from Ace Hardware, shipped free!) and I knew that I really wanted a minimalistic tank so the emphasis would be on the fish. My wife and I drove around Denver looking for rocks and I just couldn't find anything. We finally ended up at a sand and gravel supply place and I found the pieces of granite that I wanted. My wife walked into the office and asked how much it would be and the guy said since I'm only taking a few for a fish tank, that I could have them for free! SCORE!
With everything up a and running, I really wanted to cover up that broken trim piece, so I ended up buying some baseboard from Lowe's, and attached it around the bottom and painted it black like the rest of the stand.
All in all, this has been a long and fun (and frustrating!) project. Right now there are no fish living in it, but soon there will be! Once I get my forever friends in there, I will update you guys! Thank you SO much for looking! Enjoy!
Gallery: http
/imgur.com/a/Dn03Z
The spot the tank was going to be moved in to is where my 125 gallon was sitting. I had noticed the water starting to slope a little bit, and it turns out that the concrete slab in our family room had settled due to the weight of the fish tank. After a week of waiting we got our floor mud jacked (for those who don't know what that is, they drill holes in the concrete slab and raise it with a concrete slurry pumped by a large machine). I didn't like the carpet that was in the room, so we ended up replacing that while we were at it. After all that was finally finished, I had a few guys from work help me move the tank into the room.
The overflow plumbing the last owner did was not in good shape and I didn't like how it was put together, so I spent a weekend re-doing that as well. The return lines from the sump had previously been some flexy lines that ended up breaking in transport because they were just some cheapy things anyhow. The lines just dumped the water back in the tank, so I really wanted to update this. I ran rigid pvc pipe up the back of the tank and made my own spray bars out of it. I finally got the tank filled and the sump running, and everything worked great! (Eventually! You don't know how much I was frustrated working all week on this thing and all it would do was leak all over the place)
I bought some LED lights off of ebay which ended up being a great purchase. If any of you want the link to the LED's I bought, just let me know.
I went looking for some rocks for the tank (by the way, the sand is pool filter sand from Ace Hardware, shipped free!) and I knew that I really wanted a minimalistic tank so the emphasis would be on the fish. My wife and I drove around Denver looking for rocks and I just couldn't find anything. We finally ended up at a sand and gravel supply place and I found the pieces of granite that I wanted. My wife walked into the office and asked how much it would be and the guy said since I'm only taking a few for a fish tank, that I could have them for free! SCORE!
With everything up a and running, I really wanted to cover up that broken trim piece, so I ended up buying some baseboard from Lowe's, and attached it around the bottom and painted it black like the rest of the stand.
All in all, this has been a long and fun (and frustrating!) project. Right now there are no fish living in it, but soon there will be! Once I get my forever friends in there, I will update you guys! Thank you SO much for looking! Enjoy!
Gallery: http
/imgur.com/a/Dn03Z
