Dez' Tank Journal

[Dez]

Originally Posted by nazerine

Nice, I was curious myself how you cut the overflow. Did you use a continuous rim diamond blade?

I'm not sure if it was "continuous". It was smooth, $9.99 from Home Depot and it was for tile/marble. I just picked the thinnest one there was. I wasn't too concerned because worst case scenario, I break the brace and have to rip all the trim and other bracing off and Eurobrace it. But that would have been really time consuming and costly. I was worried about possible vibration while cutting though, but I had it supported quite well underneath with a cardboard box.

[Delphinus]

How long did it take the cut the overflow and the brace like that?

[Dez]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

How long did it take the cut the overflow and the brace like that?

The brace only took me about 20 mins last night (holes were drilled already).

The overflow took about 5 mins. It goes really quick. I wore safetly glasses, full long sleeves with my neck covered (I forgot to wear gloves....but I was okay). I recommend wearing gloves. I wore gloves when I did my overflow.

I wish I could of used some sort of guide though because I did everything free hand. Oh well, the brace is never seen anyway...

Some people think that it was super risky of me cutting that brace, but I still think it's got tons of strength to it....what do you think?

[banditpowdercoat]

Definately lots of strength there

[xtreme]

I think it would still be strong enough. Its a great idea, I wish I would have thought of that before I filled my tank. I definitely get less light penetration through that glass.

[new but handy]

Just out of curiosity why not just do 2 - 4" cross braces

[Dez]

Originally Posted by new but handy

Just out of curiosity why not just do 2 - 4" cross braces

Ideally the tank would be just eurobraced without any crossbracing at all, but this was a used tank that I picked up for dirt cheap and just modifying it to fit my needs in the easiest way possible. For me to rip out the exisiting brace and re-brace it would be a lot of work and time consuming and that nice black trim would probably be all broken by now (I'm still debating wether to keep the trim yet) This took me less than an hour total and I think I achieved decent results. I think it was just a matter of me taking the easiest route possible while achieving results that I would be satisfied with long term. It ends up being 2.5" too, so that's better than 4" I guess.

[Skimmerking]

WOw great thread there Dez, long time no see on the boards great to have you back again... so what type of tank is it going to be again SPS or mixed

[Dez]

Originally Posted by asmodeus

WOw great thread there Dez, long time no see on the boards great to have you back again... so what type of tank is it going to be again SPS or mixed

Hey Mike,

I'm thinking sps tank, but my wife wants more of a mixed. I'm still doing my research on mixed. Either way, I'm going to be really careful of what I put it cause there'll be no upgrading in this house .

[Dez]

There is now a little bit more progress on the tank. I ran into some "minor" problems though, I'll explain in a bit. I started building the stand today.

Here is the rough plan of what I was going to build:


However, as I started to build the bottom frame, screwing the last long length my robertson #2 drill bit slipped out of the screw and hit my thumb. I thought it was just a cut, then I looked at it, and it had gone through the nail and out the other side. Here's what it looked like (sorry for the fuzzy cell phone camera picture):



I wanted to just bandage it up and continue, but my wife is much wiser than I so she made me go to the medi-centre. Doctor took an x-ray and found a bit of bone damage. I had to have a tetnis shot. Here is an xray shot, you can see a tiny bit of chip on the upper right:



Since there was bone damage, I had to get some antibiotics. They look like Halloween candy. 4 times a day on an empty stomach....argh.



Well....after all that, at least there is a bit of progress on the stand. Here's what I have so far.



The good news is that I got all the lumber for my stand for free. I asked one of the builders that I work with if I could look look through their framing garbage pile Hopefully there will be a bit more progress in the next few days while my thumb heals. Thanks for looking.