| For those who waited
all the time to hear that I finally built my 4000L kitchen tank...
sorry, my most upright apologies, but I built a 1500L tank instead!
Seriously now... I only used half of the width that became available
after the kitchen rebuild because of several reasons. The main reason is
that I have 2 kids now who need room to play, so the other half is
occupied by a small play desk with matching chairs. Also a special shelf
underneath the tank for the toys is a quite welcome concession to the
kids. They utilize this cosy corner most of the time, although they also
have much room to play in other parts of the house! A second minor
reason is that I got tired of the water changes of the 3000L cellar tank
which always lasts several hours an took proper planning to avoid to get
in trouble. There is also another asset to such a smaller tank: Now I
can look at the fish through 2 full sides, what's extremely handy for
photography purposes.
A foretaste of what would come... the 200L Mbuna tank
in February 2002 |
|
1. The planning
I started to measure, calculate, think, measure
again, make more calculations, rethink everything, talked to other
people including my wife, took some last measures and came up with a
155cm x 125cm x 85cm / 1500L monster tank. I won't say how many times I
finally changed my plans, because it was really too much. To illustrate
this I only need to tell that I Initially wanted to be ready by July
2003, but due to practical problems and the brooding on solutions the
first fish were ultimately introduced in November 2003!
Where did we begin? The material that we were
going to use of course! I talked to some people who praised full glass
tanks as being the only reliable solution for monster dimensions, but I
was not convinced, mainly because of price considerations. I knew there
could be leakage problems with poorly constructed plywood tanks, but my
3000L cellar tank proved that it was possible to do it perfectly. In the
end I decided to take the safe route, and build a plywood tank with a
fibreglass/polyester coating, what combined the low weight of the normal
plywood tank and the 100% leakproof quality of a full glass tank. For
the strength I chose 25mm plywood that was bought and cut to size in my
local wood shop. A sturdy stand was also ordered in the meanwhile.
Everything relies on the support. Would this one be
capable to carry 2 tons?
|
|
2. The construction
Once I got back home the real works were about to
begin! As a fibreglass/polyester coating needs a rough and clean
surface, I started sanding off the protective layer on the inner sides
of the tank. I did this rather thorough and wasted a lot of time on it,
as afterwards some people told me that this really wasn't needed.
Removing the gloss would have been more than adequate <sigh>. Never mind
that... on with the assembling! I used the same polymer glue as with the
build of the 800L cellar tank and used hefty screws to mount everything
together. At that time I also made the frame for the windows out of
wood, what turned out to be a mistake during the polyester job.
Sweat and dust... all for a stupid
tank?
Assembled and ready for the polyester job. The wood
window frame was removed afterwards.
Continued in next page |
