I do love loaches, maybe food for thought tizer lol
Gonna pop to some lfs's this weekend
The stand i built the same fashion as my six footer
I have luckily decent tools aquired over the years, the wood was from wickes
It's studwork timber, just eye any wood down 2 sides if you buy it yourself, this wood is strong and i mean strong, over engineered again but with the studwork wood only coming in at around £35 it's a bargain
The 6mm ply cost £17ish i think, this did the ends and 6ft along the back (to keep things square, some mdf for the top/bottom costing £16 (never put bottom mdf on as this house floor is a solid concrete woohoo, so no real need to spread the weight so much as when i was in a flat
The inside i will use pine slats (saves measuring and cutting odd shapes lol)
For the front, i will get some thick ply, cut to size to cover the whole front, secret nail or no nails it on (only for show, the sides/back take care of holding any flex) then cut 4 door shapes out of the ply, these cutouts will form the doors, these will be edged in pine
The exterior corners will be butt jointed pine too to give an overall panelled effect, then stained and danish oiled many times
The hood setup (still in my head going through slight modifications hehe) will be the thinner 6mm ply for lightness, with pine etc forming the framework, again this will match the front doors to five a panelled effect
I think 99% sure at this stage that i want to go led lighting, with energy costs always going up even if you are super-green i want to spend as little as i can from now on
Tizer, if you can, i really recommend alround opti-white (i mean if you can see through the side/sides where tank is going, the extra ££ is well worth it)
I will mention the tank install to maybe help anyone worried about large tank moving etc
I made a steel base for my six footer, ended up using wood throughout, anyways ............
I just secured what was going to be my new tank base (mdf grrrrrr) onto the top of the steel 6ft base, overhanging 1ft each end (don't panic people !!) the ND delivery was in a luton van with a tail lift woohoo
Only a driver who spoke little english but sign language etc worked fine, the van is floored in carpet and also carpets placed over the tail lift
We easily slid the beast onto the tail lift then onto my steel stand, i had two new web straps (cheers aldi they work great) i carefully placed them around tank over the bracing areas using old newspaper as protection for the straps
Took me and a helper to drag the whole thing 50yrds to the side of the house, took 2mins and that included up a dropped curb, i made a sandwich and tea while we waited for a third helper
We then dragged her onto the lawn, up a upvc front door step (door taped full open and handle covered in lots of clingfilm) down a small narrow hall into the lounge/living room, real easy with minimal lifting etc
Ohh, as you walk in the front door and head in/around to where the tank is it's like a massive U shape, i made sure with a U shape move i would deffo end up with the opti-glass facing the right way hehe
Anyways, i just got the fx5 rigged up quick, secured a net filter over the flow pipe, turned her on, then watched the whole tank get gunked up with tiny crud
the net had come lose and all the sahaking etc in the move earlier had created a nice mess just waiting to come out
Anyways with the filters both back up n running the water will clear fast, is now as i look really
If i had to move this again, i would make a skid stand just for this purpose, i dread to think of having to move this with just people carrying it (i don't think i would of attempted it and i used to be used to lifting real heavy weights)
So, while i'm off i'm gonna read up on led aquarium lighting
Cheers
Tony
