# In wall Tropheus tank build



## Steve C (Oct 9, 2011)

Well summer is gone so time for another tank project in the office/shop. My basement office & shop also serves as home to my numerous tanks, this direction you can see has a nice amount of tanks to view...
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But standing in the same spot and looking 180 degrees the other way is this view....A nice view but something is missing, a tank!
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Originally I was going to move one of my 29g tanks over and build it into the wall with maybe a pair of rams or something. But I have decided to go with something that will complete my "wants" in fish keeping. When I got back into the hobby 4 yrs ago with a mixed African tank I had a few things I really wanted to keep, one was Frontosa which I now have a front tank, another was some sort of large "wet pet" which I now have with my Jaguar, and the last thing was I wanted to keep a tank of Tropheus.

So I've decided to build a Tropheus tank into the wall between my office and shop area. It will be a 4ft 55g for the time being but I will be upgrading it probably in the spring to a 75-90g once the trophs get a bit larger. Going to be raising the stand to a height of 42" so that the tank will sit right above the back of the chair in the picture and tank will have a 3D background in it for a nice finished in wall look.

This is the backside of the wall, well WAS the backside of the wall at 1pm today lol...









And this is the backside as of now. Already got both sheets of drywall down and most of the studs removed (this is a non load bearing, I actually put it up myself just 5 years ago as a divider for the rooms). 









Have to stop work for the day now as I have a fly fishing show to attend with a buddy tonight but will be back to work on it come morning. Hopefully will have it all done and trophs swimming in the wall inside of a week to 10 days max .


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## james1983 (Dec 23, 2007)

Can't wait to see this. I'm sure the background will be another amazing creation. With all of the backgrounds you've built, have you looked into the hotwire foam cutting tools?


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## Steve C (Oct 9, 2011)

No turning back now....

James- I've looked at the hot wire cutters before but haven't got around to trying one out as of yet.


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## Steve C (Oct 9, 2011)

Spent the evening carving away like crazy on some foam yet again. I've done so much background work over the past two 2 weeks my fingers are getting blisters from using the foam shaver. All carved out now and just finished putting the drylok on it so will be doing color on it tomorrow now.


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## nhuem (Nov 7, 2016)

woww, it is very great tank


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## kathykit (Nov 7, 2016)

Steve C said:


> Spent the evening carving away like crazy on some foam yet again. I've done so much background work over the past two 2 weeks my fingers are getting blisters from using the foam shaver. All carved out now and just finished putting the drylok on it so will be doing color on it tomorrow now.


Wow!!
Seems great!
Looking forward to see your tank


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## tanker3 (May 18, 2015)

Agree with all-- WOW.
Tank will be great, and the room too.


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## Steve C (Oct 9, 2011)

Moving right along now. 3D background is done except for sealing it. The rocks were all white but I took some time to scrub them and paint them in the same colors at the background so it all color matches to give it that live painting look on the wall. Just have to seal it all, add sand (white) paint the tank sides black, finish framing it with some matching wood then, re arrange the pictures and such around it on the wall and then finish up the back side of the wall. Should have trophs in it by early next week most likely.


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## Steve C (Oct 9, 2011)

I told myself I was NOT going to work on this today because I have a rod order to fill, but I couldn't resist getting some work in on it this morning/afternoon. All the front side is done now, got a side wall built to hide the side of the tank, and back is done except for a 6" facade to cover the bottom of the stand. Should have fish in it sometime next week for sure


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## Steve C (Oct 9, 2011)

Sand and everything in now. Ready to fill up and move the colony of Trophs into it in a few days!


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## Steve C (Oct 9, 2011)

Troph tank build is now done and fish have been swimming happily for about 24hrs now. I already saw a couple of the larger ones in the group doing the mating dance behind the rock so they be happy in their new home.
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## CeeJay (Aug 16, 2016)

Dear Steve,

How do ever leave that room? That's just awesome. How many tanks and how many gallons are you up to? What's your plan for the fish are you doing it for breeding?

The 3d back drop looks great. Your work is always great. It takes a lot more planning to build tank in to a wall.

Thanks for sharing.

Ceejay


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## Steve C (Oct 9, 2011)

Thanks CeeJay, I think I'm up to around 500 gallons running at the moment. Right now I have

125g 6ft Frontosa tank
75g 4ft Mixed African tank
75g 4ft Polleni tank
75g 4ft Jaguar tank
55g Tropheus tank
20g x-tall Angel & Lelupi grow out tank
55g Koi (over wintering pond fish) tank

Not really much into breeding at all. I dabbled into it a bit last year, but I'm more into tanks for display/enjoyment so I pretty much sold off my breeders/fry and just made the tanks into display tanks. Trophs will be getting a bigger 75g tank in the spring so once the 55g tank in the wall is replaced with a 75g I might use that 55g for something like breeding some for my own tanks but that would be it.


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