Evolution of my "new" 75 gallon

[isu_guy]

I bought a 75 gallon tank and stand via ebay. No canopy or lighting. I resealed it with silicone that I bought from a hardware store although the previous owner said it held water and I believed him. Better safe than sorry.

If I had to do it again I think I would put lines of masking tape down so that later I could cut the excess silicone off and have it come off in a straight line. Hopefully everyone will look at my fish and aquascaping instead of my silicone job.

I bought driftwood from www.floridadriftwood.com. I bought the assort pack of 5 pieces 5-7inces long. As you can see they don't short you any since many were roughly 9inches. I also got a 3 large piece assort pack. Perhaps I could have found wood elsewhere cheaper, but this was good enough for me.

Although they say the wood is without tannins, I boiled it anyway. It definitely released some tannins as you can see in the pot. I have 3 of these small pieces in my 20gallon and it hasn't changed the color to any noticable degree. The big pieces I boiled as best as I could in a turkey basting tray thing.

I built my own canopy system. MEASURE TWICE, CUT ONCE. I rushed through it at first and made some dumb mistakes that made it take a long time. I will at some point stain it so it looks nice.

A top view so you can see whats going on a little better.

In minneapolis I found a place (sterling supply) that sells 3M colorquartz. Colorquartz is a ceramic coated sandlike pebble that is used for various things such as pools and countertops. I think the colorquartz looks great and is cheaper than tahitian moon sand (bought 2-50 pound bags for $21 each). I washed it lightly a few times to remove dust. Then dumped it in. I placed a plastic sheet down as I filled it with water and never noticed a dust storm. *edit - I used about 75 pounds of the 100 and it filled as much as shown, am saving the rest for the 20 gallon tank as soon as I am done using it as a holding tank for the 75*

-new fish pics-
I moved my fish from my 20g into the new tank and am using the 20 as a holding tank until the new fish are proven healthy. I got 4 firemouths, 2 are 1.5inches 2 are .75 inches.

Today I bought some java moss, java spade (not shown-in other tank), and amazon sword. I have never had real plants, so I hope that they will survive. The larger pieces of wood have turned my tank a bit yellow, although this might have been from me putting them in right after boiling them and then filling it up. The yellow is already starting to subdue after a few days. I also put black tag board (heavy duty construction paper) on the back.

one last view of the tank.

 

[wrs]

thats very nice looking!

 

[paige]

nice looking tank
great gob

xxx paige xxx

 

[Bloo]

Brilliant and well done ! Looking very good

(you might just want to edit that one pic that is so huge - even though I have a very large screen, I have to scroll loads back and forth to read and see it all )

 

[BOD]

great gob

haha..can you see his mouth then?


very nice tank btw

 

[pseud]

Looking good, well done (I bought wood from floridadriftwood.com too, very pleased)

 

[MXPX4318]

wonderful tank, maybe a few more plants though ( I'm a big plant guy )

Phillip

 

[isu_guy]

I am going to see how well I do with live plants. I am planning on adding more in time. I am going to take some time and decide what plants I want.

I am also a member of a more local forum that has a buy/sell and from time to time plants come up for cheap as some members need to trim down. Hopefully I can take advantage of this.

 

[One_Trick_Pony]

excelent isu its really nice

 

[paige]

great gob 

haha..can you see his mouth then?


very nice tank btw

oops ) i ment job

xxx paige xxx

 

[-*-MicHAeL-*-]

likeing the dark substrate its cool

 

[isu_guy]

After viewing many tank pictures I felt the same way about dark substrate. After researching my options for a while I was all but set on tahitian moon sand, but then came across 3M colorquartz and think that this is the superior option (if you don't mind paying for it). Its 1/2 as cheap as tahitian moon sand, twice as hard to find (for me it was), and very clean. I had 75 pounds cleaned in 15 minutes (I thought I was cheating it cause the water wasn't coming out totally clean, but I never noticed any dust or coloration in the tank.

I read about this on a local fish forum and was surprised I haven't read much talk about it on this forum (perhaps I missed it if it was discussed).

 

[bunjiweb]

People said when i was setting up my new tank that the stand i built look flimsy...

Seeing your stand fills me with great confidence as a simple metal stand like that can't be that strong at all, yet it is holding a tank half the volume of my new one....

Looking good though, like the hood you have built!

Ben

 

[abstract]

bujiweb: welds and iron (i believe it is probably iron) are much stronger than any wood and nails available to man...there was a small discussion about this a while back and even the flimsiest *looking* metal stands are much, much stronger than a lot of the wood ones

 

[isu_guy]

I missed that discussion, but I agree with abstract. And abstract was right, it is iron.

What I was worried about wasn't the stand, but that amount of weight distributed on the floor. Each of the four legs has two "feet" (for lack of a better word). So the weight is distributed onto 8 areas that aren't that big, but it has worked out fine for me so far.

bunjiweb- thanks for the compliment about the hood. I looked around at some diy sites and got some ideas. I am going to stain at somepoint, but first I'm going to redo the part that opens. Right now it is just 3 sections of this light diffuser plastic. The plastic was a pain to cut and is starting to bend. I am going to just cut some pieces of wood and put handles on it. I might not even connect it with a hinge because I really don't think I need it to be connected, I can lift it off and it won't fall back down that way.

I have other projects first thought (like my moonlight that hopefully I will build today).