man not even one sarcastic comment
More progress.
So this is the tank room, not the fish room but the nice relaxing spot to watch the tank.
Yeah theres a whole ikea kitchen in there. Thats also why the next photos suck so hard. Its hard to balance on various boxes while taking photos
Hmm, didn't take any photos of putting the paneling up. Oh well, imagine what its like putting paneling up, with swearwords and stuff.
Got the tank framed. This color we used in our bathroom and since we had a whole can I thought I'd try it on the frame. I didn't really like it. The frame is MDF and weighs a ton but it was only $2 a foot compared to the lovely other real woods I had picked out which were $20 a foot
So the MDF is screwed into the wall and then wood puttied over the countersunk heads.
Then I went to the store and bought the color I originally wanted (it sucks buying those halfy cans of paint, they're so pricey!). Got the low VOC paint so I didn't have to turn off the skimmers.
So the original plan was to copy Dez's tank frame idea, it was perfect except for the fact that my tank is longer and we don't have an Ikea here (but mail order is fun, you should try it with a kitchen sometime!). However, my husband announced that he couldn't do the dowels so he wanted to use hinges to provide access. Of course that didn't work either because you can't lever up the pointy parts of the frame (they get really tight before they start to flip upwards). So we ended up having to make a couple of cutouts:
And the lid now louvers up via 4 hinges that allow the lid to be raised 170 degrees. Of course it weighs a ton so it doesn't stay up on its own. I gotta find a big stick somewhere.
So ya, thats about all that got done. Now I just need to get the light rack built and I can move stuff over
