lockrookie's 180g (build #3)

[lockrookie]

priced out glass for front panel this morning looking at 170 bucks for regular glass but

if i go starphire it will cost me 500 to replace both side panels and front pane. i have one more price to search out before i decide what route to go...i have to take in to concideration that we have twin girs to feed lol

[Nano]

Personally I would go with regular glass but thats just my opinion, I hear starfire scratches very easily

[lockrookie]

i have heard that as well and that is a deciding factor in all this as well but yet in my current tank i have regular glass and it and have managed to scratch it as well so im hoping that if im extra careful and not use cheap scrapers i will be abletokeep it scratch free for at leasst a year lol

[Nano]

yea I have regular glass on my cichlid tank, and the sand alone, has cause some scratches, so I guess it depends on the amount of abuse too! I know you can buy those plastic scrappers for acrylic, I'm sure they would work for star fire, I'm just not sure how well

[lockrookie]

most scrached happen from substrate getting sandwiched in the scraper thats how mine happened anyways but since ive used magfloat i havent had an issue.. nothings perfect forever.

[lockrookie]

so i have been doing some drawing and yes it looks simular to the tank i currently have we love our stand and wish to keep it the same if possible





any thoughts and ideas let em shoot

[-=James=-]

I have mine setup exactly the same as your drawing. 2 cross braces on both sides of the overflow is enough.

Im guessing youre doing a bean overflow. I would put the 2 standpipes higher to have the top caps near the water surface. You'll need to put an airline on one of the standpipes.

If I was to do it over, I would build an external or coast to coast overflow instead of the center internal overflow to get more tank space to play with.

[msjboy]

Take a look at the new super sized res sea max tanks construction which is on their site...some innovative features which include hiding the edges of the sand a bit...this allows deeper sand without the deeper sand look.
I am also not sure what kinda glass they use but it is supposedly even better tham starfire too.

Msjboy