My 185gal build in progress (lots of pics)

I also plan to see if I can force the structure square somehow. I have yet to add the top section, so that may wind up as a possibility.

hakunamakarla said:

More !!! this is exciting!! I can not wait to see this tank up and running, I am on the edge of my seat thank you so much for the updates

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I think you're more excited about this than I am!! Okay, lots of pics tonight... I finished a bit early so I went on a photo spree.

The tank, sitting on the flipped over stand, a few coats of epoxy on it, and masking tape over the hardwood so I don't get black goo on it.


The rear corner where the overflow box will be mounted:


Overflow box:


My giant 50gal rubbermaid sump, with rubbermaid set of drawers that will house my filer media/bio tower:


Making sure the 2" fittings still slide into the epoxied holes. The fittings will get siliconed in place later in the build:




Birds eye view looking forward:




The beginnings of the tank top. I haven't decided exactly what I'm going to do here... but this is the bare panel, cut to shape, so I could at least do some other fitting...


Experimented with some stain, and what a layer of un-tinted epoxy over the stain. Dunno if I'm happy with this color, but at least it looks like the screw holes won't look too bad once plugged:





And one last shot:

dkht25 said:

Looks Very Good. I don't know if they have them in your area, but if you get face grain screw plugs they will blend in lots better than regular plugs.

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Yeah I looked at those... I couldn't find any at HD. I'm still on the fence with the plugs. I'm tempted to take back the oak plugs and get birch ones. The grain of this wood is so curly and striated that anything will be hard to hide. It might look nicer if they appear to intentionally stand out rather than being badly hidden.