600gal plywood build.
- Thread starter cvermeulen
- Start date
Wow thats a nice diagram drawing! Well this tank is going to be pretty cool! Good luck on it and take pics each step of the way....Oh and...
HURRY UP!!!!
HURRY UP!!!!
O, this is the last tank I built (for myself, anyways.) If anyone is interested and hasn't already been through the thread!
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110933
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110933
Right. I kind of gypped this forum on specifics cuz I was at work when it all started. Here's a cut and paste from the first post on MFK:
Dims: 96"x48"x30" (has to fit through my stupid doorway.)
Materials:
2 sheets G1S Plywood, 2 sheets Exterior plywood. (About $150, home depot.)
A Bunch of 2x4's for bracing and so on (Call it another $50)
5gal of polyester resin I have left over from other projects (Free, depending how you look at it. Cost me around $110 to buy)
Several yards of Chopped Strand Fiberglass Mat (CSM) (Again free, or around $50)
Lots of screws, Brads, wood glue, etc. (I find it hard to account for this stuff. It really adds up if you have to buy it, but I have a lot lying around.)
2 panes of 24"x72" 1/2" float glass from a 135gal aquarium. (Technically I got the aquarium in a trade for another aquarium that cost me $100. So... say $100. It will cost me $20 or so to have the glass cut to size at the water jet place.)
So somewhere around $250 outlay will get me going. I'll need to buy things along the way as always. I'm also planning on selling the 120 and 50gal tanks with their filtration, stands and canopies that I built, which will completely offset the cost of the new tank.
Viewing windows: There will be two windows, joined at a corner. One window will be 72" long, the other 48" long. The tank is going to fit in the corner of a large room, so the two viewable sides will have windows.
Filtration: 12" of the tank will be partitioned off (in the non-viewable section) for filtration. I will use 2 800gph pumps in the bottom of the filtration chamber, in combination with 2 eductors to push the water out the bottom of the filter area, and allow it to overflow back into the top. In this area there will be several 7" filter socks, and about 30gallons of bio media. I may try to work in an algae screen on this tank, but I'm trying hard to eliminate plumbing, and keep the water inside the tank. This should help with heat loss, evaporation, and the all important wife approval factor (no evap minimizes the smell when I feed stinky food).
Stand: Dunno yet. I think it will be very basic, with mostly open space underneath. I don't want to create another cabinet for things to get shoved in. With no external filtration the only thing I'll need to hide is wires.
Stock: Well I have a 20" or so TSN and a similarly sized arowana that need to be moved out of their 4x2x2. I also have a 11" oscar who is in my 50gal in solitary confinement for his own protection right now. (he was getting harassed by my african knife.) I'm also being donated (read, I'm rescuing) several large oscars and a large pleco. My 200gal is filled with potential monsters right now as well, so as they grow out, they may get transferred to the 600. (2 tinfoils, black ghost knife, Black shark, some unidentified weird cichlids I have that seem to be growing fast.)
Lighting: Dunno yet. I think I'm going to go fairly dim, mainly because I don't want to spend a ton. I will likely hang a couple shop lights above the tank and overdrive some ADV850 bulbs. The real hard question is how I'm going to make a cost effective lid for this thing with enough windows to let in the light... or am I going to get stuck making a 4'x8' canopy (Bleugh, I hate making canopies.) I need something to keep my aro in the tank tho!
Dims: 96"x48"x30" (has to fit through my stupid doorway.)
Materials:
2 sheets G1S Plywood, 2 sheets Exterior plywood. (About $150, home depot.)
A Bunch of 2x4's for bracing and so on (Call it another $50)
5gal of polyester resin I have left over from other projects (Free, depending how you look at it. Cost me around $110 to buy)
Several yards of Chopped Strand Fiberglass Mat (CSM) (Again free, or around $50)
Lots of screws, Brads, wood glue, etc. (I find it hard to account for this stuff. It really adds up if you have to buy it, but I have a lot lying around.)
2 panes of 24"x72" 1/2" float glass from a 135gal aquarium. (Technically I got the aquarium in a trade for another aquarium that cost me $100. So... say $100. It will cost me $20 or so to have the glass cut to size at the water jet place.)
So somewhere around $250 outlay will get me going. I'll need to buy things along the way as always. I'm also planning on selling the 120 and 50gal tanks with their filtration, stands and canopies that I built, which will completely offset the cost of the new tank.
Viewing windows: There will be two windows, joined at a corner. One window will be 72" long, the other 48" long. The tank is going to fit in the corner of a large room, so the two viewable sides will have windows.
Filtration: 12" of the tank will be partitioned off (in the non-viewable section) for filtration. I will use 2 800gph pumps in the bottom of the filtration chamber, in combination with 2 eductors to push the water out the bottom of the filter area, and allow it to overflow back into the top. In this area there will be several 7" filter socks, and about 30gallons of bio media. I may try to work in an algae screen on this tank, but I'm trying hard to eliminate plumbing, and keep the water inside the tank. This should help with heat loss, evaporation, and the all important wife approval factor (no evap minimizes the smell when I feed stinky food).
Stand: Dunno yet. I think it will be very basic, with mostly open space underneath. I don't want to create another cabinet for things to get shoved in. With no external filtration the only thing I'll need to hide is wires.
Stock: Well I have a 20" or so TSN and a similarly sized arowana that need to be moved out of their 4x2x2. I also have a 11" oscar who is in my 50gal in solitary confinement for his own protection right now. (he was getting harassed by my african knife.) I'm also being donated (read, I'm rescuing) several large oscars and a large pleco. My 200gal is filled with potential monsters right now as well, so as they grow out, they may get transferred to the 600. (2 tinfoils, black ghost knife, Black shark, some unidentified weird cichlids I have that seem to be growing fast.)
Lighting: Dunno yet. I think I'm going to go fairly dim, mainly because I don't want to spend a ton. I will likely hang a couple shop lights above the tank and overdrive some ADV850 bulbs. The real hard question is how I'm going to make a cost effective lid for this thing with enough windows to let in the light... or am I going to get stuck making a 4'x8' canopy (Bleugh, I hate making canopies.) I need something to keep my aro in the tank tho!
Alright, so I'm sure I've pissed off my neighbors tonight. I just came in the house and it's **** near midnight. Scratch that, it's after midnight. Anyways, I had to adjust my plans a little bit due to a complication or three. (Oh yeah and apparently photobucket is doing site maintenance so I can't upload the @$^&* pics!!!)
1) The plywood is warped a little, so the open front was more of a rhombus than a rectangle. I didn't want to add a lot of bracing and do the fiberglass with it off kilter, because it would make it that much harder to straighten. So I decided to mount up the front - where I found issue number 2.
2) The front is too short. I knew something like this was going to bite me in the ***. The Home depot dude not only messed up the back (which I noticed in time and fixed.), he cut the bottom too long. So, the overall tank length is 96.5 with the ends installed. ***sigh*** so after a drink or two I scratched my head and came up with a solution. It's not perfect but it will do the trick. Tomorrow or the next day I'll have to get into that particular activity.
Anyways, so I cut out the viewing window area on the front (oh yeah I lied about leaving that till later too.) and screwed it on, started going around drilling the screw holes and such. I can't glue and screw it in place until I get another 2x3 for the top bracing. I'm pretty happy with the way the cutout turned out... which I figure I ought to be for how freaking long it took to do (almost) perfectly.
So, next steps are to
1) get another 2x3 and install it across the top of the front panel, and glue and screw the front panel in place.
2) Make a template for routing the top plywood bracing, and make the bracing.
3) Make a template from the first cutout, and use it to make the second cutout the same.
4) Finish all the 45 degree corner fill moldings around the inside of the tank.
4) Borrow 250,000 BTU heater from work and dry the living hell out of my workshop.
5) Start laying down some glass.
Oh yeah, and I've got some aluminum angle extrusion on order too that I'll cut to length and have anodized as corner guards (and screw head hiders) for the outside of the tank.
1) The plywood is warped a little, so the open front was more of a rhombus than a rectangle. I didn't want to add a lot of bracing and do the fiberglass with it off kilter, because it would make it that much harder to straighten. So I decided to mount up the front - where I found issue number 2.
2) The front is too short. I knew something like this was going to bite me in the ***. The Home depot dude not only messed up the back (which I noticed in time and fixed.), he cut the bottom too long. So, the overall tank length is 96.5 with the ends installed. ***sigh*** so after a drink or two I scratched my head and came up with a solution. It's not perfect but it will do the trick. Tomorrow or the next day I'll have to get into that particular activity.
Anyways, so I cut out the viewing window area on the front (oh yeah I lied about leaving that till later too.) and screwed it on, started going around drilling the screw holes and such. I can't glue and screw it in place until I get another 2x3 for the top bracing. I'm pretty happy with the way the cutout turned out... which I figure I ought to be for how freaking long it took to do (almost) perfectly.
So, next steps are to
1) get another 2x3 and install it across the top of the front panel, and glue and screw the front panel in place.
2) Make a template for routing the top plywood bracing, and make the bracing.
3) Make a template from the first cutout, and use it to make the second cutout the same.
4) Finish all the 45 degree corner fill moldings around the inside of the tank.
4) Borrow 250,000 BTU heater from work and dry the living hell out of my workshop.
5) Start laying down some glass.
Oh yeah, and I've got some aluminum angle extrusion on order too that I'll cut to length and have anodized as corner guards (and screw head hiders) for the outside of the tank.
Alright Photobucket is finally done it's "brief" maintenance shutdown.
Walter, Awaiting his new home:
Where I left the tank this evening:
The interior moldings, and some of the top bracing:
And this boys and girls, is why they say measure twice, cut once:
Walter, Awaiting his new home:
Where I left the tank this evening:
The interior moldings, and some of the top bracing:
And this boys and girls, is why they say measure twice, cut once:
haha I like that last picture. I seem to have that problem sometimes when I build stuff too! Anyways looking good, keep us updated!
Yeah I was so choked... I'm blaming the saw operator at HD, but reall yit's my fault. I should have double checked before I started screwing things together.
That TSN really looks like he wants in his new home 
Nice monster I just got one he is a total psycho when the lights are out.
Nice monster I just got one he is a total psycho when the lights are out.