Newbie advise needed... Diary of a new tank junkie

[SmallFry]

Originally Posted by ensquire

Thanks for the insight smallfry, I like the bean animal setup and was in the mix as well.
Did you DIY the whole setup? If I go this way I would probably need a box built. Who does this ?

Pretty much the whole thing is diy, apart from the tanks, but I did replace the back panel in the main tank and then cut the slots for the overflow and resealed the sump. The overflow box wasn't hard to build, just remember to use thicker glass on the bottom like I didn't the first time!

Probably your glass shop would be able to build it, but don't know whether they'd have aquarium safe silicone. Really isn't that hard to do yourself if the glass is cut for you. Just remember, when working with silicone, masking tape is your friend....

The plumbing was pretty easy, just have to make sure you get the stuff dry assembled first to make sure it all fits at the right lengths etc. I also found that it's worth marking the pipes and fittings while dry assembled because you want to get things on the right way around and also the fittings slide in easier/further once you've got the adhesive on so you could accidentally end up with the pipe shorter than you planned, and with that glue you don't have much thinking time!