Dez' Tank Journal

[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.

[Dez]

So yesterday afternoon, my kids helped me cut the glass for the overflow. I was quite pleased with the results. First, we semi cleaned up the glass to be cut (it was full of silicone and fish water residue). I got this 3/8" glass for trade for some other clean 1/4" glass that I had sitting around in the garage, so I'm not complaining. Here are pictures.

This one shows my 2 outside walls of the overflow and the divider. The kid's books was just used to prop the glass up will breaking it along the score line.


This picture is to show that I got pretty close to 90 degree cut. I was surprised that the newly cut edges were not sharp. I could run my hand up and down the fresh edge quite comfortably. Sorry for the fuzzy picture (cell phone camera)


And here my son being a goofball. He was helping me with the breaking of the glass. This picture shows the fresh cut



Hopefully today or tomorrow I can drill the drain holes and assemble the box. I have to get a wire brush or something to clean the excess silicone of the edges though. I'm not too much of a fan of this. At least we have a bit of progress.

[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.