Almost done with diy 95g acrylic tank

So far I'm not completely happy with how things have turned out. Things just didn't go exactly as planned, but I think the results will still be good enough for me. For prepping the edges of the acrylic I used grade 000 steel wool. It smoothed out the saw blade marks OK I guess, but I should of used a router instead. Next time I'll definately get a router.

A little problem that I had-

The Weld-on 3 Acrylic cement I used was not filling the seams very well. I guess there was too much pressure on the seams. So I removed each sheet of acrylic as I went and applied a bead of Weld-On 16 to each end of the bottom joint, then re-installed the sheet of acrylic to the tank. Next time I might use the "pins method" as described in this article or just apply Weld-on 16 to all the seam directly. What I should of done is bond the bottom seam on the side pieces first, then apply a bead of Weld-On 16 to the bottom and verticle seams on the front and back pieces of acrylic.

All I have left to do is cementing the braces on the top and I'll also probably run a bead of silicone on all the joints just to be safe.

Anyways I had some fun building the tank because I built it outdoors. It was a near perfect weekend here in Michigan.

Here's some pic's I took- My tank.

The tank is complete. I'll wait a day or 2 until I fill it up with water. Here's a few more pics'.

I can't find any Weld-on 4 locally, so I've never used it. I did have about a half can of Weld-on 3 left over from the last 2 tanks I buiit, so I went ahead and used that. #3 and #4 are almost the same, only difference is that #4 takes awhile for it to dry, while #3 dries very quick.

Weld-on 16 wasn't all that hard to work with, it's like working with model airplane glue. #16 is rated at 2200 psi, while #3 and #4 are rated at 2500 psi.

I filled my new tank up with water. No leaks. So I'd say the weld-on 16 in combination with weld-on 3 worked like a charm.

I went ahead and ordered a bunch of stuff from BigAls also. I'll be using 2 rena filstar XP2's for filtration and a 300w via aqua titanium heater for keeping the tank nice and warm. I also ordered a black background. I'd like to be able to use the cement caves I made about a year ago, but I might just order some nice driftwood if I can't get the ph down from the cement. hmm. I'll put the caves in the tank right now just to see how it looks. I'll bring my camera and take some pic's too.

More pic's and a boring movie I made if you are really bored.

The caves do not float, I had to use alot of cement to make the big cave sink though. The thread for the cave is here- http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16256

The ph of the water with the caves did drop down to normal, about 7.4. It took the ph about 1 year to drop down, but I only did water changes every 4-6 weeks. I had the caves soaking in tub with about 10 gallons of water since the time I built them.