Plywood tank build

[USMC2171]

Dont silicone "all the seams"! Pond Coat will not stick to silicone. But, in tests, silicone does stick to pond coat. Pond Coat will seal all the the seams in the plywood, you will just need silicone on the viewing window.

I was planning on painting on PC then following behind and siliconing the seams. Should I not do this? It just that this is a lot of water in my living room, and I do live on base housing. I built 3 outta 4 walls of the stand here are some pics. The studs in the wall are 1ft on center. I plan on finishing the walls with oak plywod veneer, or find some high gloss paint to paint the tank and the stand the same. All I know is that the wife thinks Im crazy. She'sprobably right, LOL!

 

[Phatboydime]

Looks strong. How ya gonna do the front wall for the stand..make sure to leave room for a sump. Considering what you have done allready, it wouldnt take much to build a sump.

 

[BiteAWin.com]

It looks like its coming along very nice

 

[xsdbs]

nice and sturdy looking, coming along well. do you have a portable crane to move it into location?

 

[The Zigman]

Looks heavy.

Nice hammer BTW.

 

[USMC2171]

phatboy,
The front wall is gonna have double doors on the front, about 2 ft wide each, so I can use it as storage for my ton of "FISH CRAP", as the wife calls it,LOL. Im also thinking on putting 3x12 laminated boards across the top of the stand to support the floor of the tank, this stand will support a small herd of elephants.

xsdbs,
It's true that its heavy, but I do have a protable crane. He's 12 and a little heavy lifting wont hurt him. HAHA! It's not really that heavy ony used 12 2x4's for the base, and it's going to remain seperate.

zigman,
Thats a brick hammer, from when I was a bricklayer, before I joined the Marines.

Thanks again for the imput.
Semper Fi!,
Mike

 

[Phatboydime]

A single sheet of 3/4" high grade plywood will be more than enough to support the bottom of the stand. No reason to use 2x12's.

Not planning to run a sump?


Edit: I just realized this is in the freshwater diy section not the salty section..oh man, that changes things for me...lol

 

[BadOleRoss]

I wouldn't silicone the seams. If the PC doesn't seal those seams like it is supposed to, you are going to have a mess on your hands anyway. I have coated my tank with about 6 coats and will but on another 2 today, that's it. My sump has about 5 coats and I am considering that done. I am only putting silicone on the glass.

 

[USMC2171]

Can someone give me some pointers on a sump, or some links for 411. always had HOB or canister filters. Water flowing out of a tank always made me nervous with living on Base and power outages and such. Now that would be a mess with no power to pump it back up. SUMP NEWBIE!! Thanks

 

[BadOleRoss]

Not sure if this will help you or not but I have just built a sump out of plywood and coated it with PC just like my tank. I have (2) 1.5" bukheads that suplly the sump. One coming in from each end. I have a Quiet One 9000 pump that is centered in the sump that returns water to the tank through (2) 1" lines. All the the little colored blocks are going to be Poret filter foam of 20 and 30 ppi, 50 + 100 micron filter pads.