My 240g tank journal
- Thread starter loaches r cool
- Start date
240g of water at 8# per gallon equals 1920#, so yeah just shy of a ton not counting the glass so overenginerig it would be best, exspecially with small children around, also I would put some steel bracing on the corners. oh and a really cool thing to think about is a good ration of tank to hood ration is to make it a 6th of the tank height and it will look ballanced. Oh and in Ohio what quality is the lumber here good lumber is hard to find and freaking outragouse priced and the cheap stuff should be labelled in the store as "crap only good enough to burn".
just my two cents, nice build and good luck.
just my two cents, nice build and good luck.
Yup I figured the water at that plus about 500 pounds of glass and wood sitting on top the tank too, thats were my 2500# estimate comes from. Weight on the floor is a few hundred pounds more, probably closer to 3,000# total with the weight of the stand and 66g sump tanks. Wood is hit or miss. I bounced back between a few places hand picking out all the pieces. One place might have had good 2x4's but the 2x6's were as wet as pressure treated wood and already warped, so off to another place...
Thanks! Neither can I! I am really hoping to have it running within a couple of weeks.
Painting the tank. It was my first time painting a tank so I decided on latex that would come off easy.
The first couple coats went on very thin. The pic doesn't really show it well, but I was really worried how many coats it would take. I didn't take any more pics till it was done but it was like 6 coats.
.....and finally a few days later:
Tank is finally out of the garage and on the stand! It was a bit of a production getting it from garage to family room despite the move being only about 25 foot. There were 4 of us in all, but the hallway was to small for anyone on the sides. Two of my friends actually carried it all the way through the hallway themselves. That was a little nerve wracking. I had some rollers for the floor I figured we could roll the tank, but they wanted to carry it themselves rather than have to set it all the way down and pick it back up again from floor level.
Another pic for size reference. I'm placing the bulkheads in the overflows. Definitely not going to be easy to reach the bottom when completed, but doable. I wont be doing any low growing plants that will need frequent pruning.
The stand did end up being a little taller than I had envisioned, which will make in tank maintanence a bit harder. I think I will build a sort of scaffolding that can be setup quick when I need to get into it.
Bulkheads in. Used schedule 80 1" and 1.5" on both overflows. Just 4 of those bulkheads is over $50. Plus two bulkheads I got for the sump tank put my order like around $75 just for bulkheads. These parts do add up quick.
OK, time for something other than tank/stand pics. Here is the driftwood I ordered from Manzanita.com. I ordered the large aquarium bulk pack. Probably will only use a quarter of it, but then I can pick n choose which ones I want, and have some left over fro other tanks or trade/sell.
To soak it, I just got a couple big totes out, filled with garden hose, and changed the water every few days. Soaked for a total of about a month outside this summer.
