# My 125 Male Peacock/Hap.. Pictures!



## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

Ok, so i got the tank, new.. with overflow and lids super cheap on craigslist, and wanted to keep everything on a strict budget. SOoooo my 125g build will have a diy stand, and also diy sump, which my current 55 gallon tank will be used as a sump, and the current stock will be switched over.

So here is the current 55g.. I have a couple fish in it.. benga yellow, vc10, blue dolphin, electric blue hap, 2 ob's and some other dudes.. total about 8 fish. I have been super excited to get a bigger tank, hopefully the vc10 will grow faster in its soon to be new home!










Filters are 2, eheim 2217's, korila circulation pump, big sponge filter.. eheim jager heater. Nitrates are dead low, this set up has been working well for me.

Here is the new tank










AND the stand build begins.. not before a lil giants football


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

Here is the base to my stand.. its meassures 72.5 x 18.5



















I laid the center 2x4s flat to have room for a nice recessed piece of plywood where the sump will be.

and the top










The construction is 2x6 top with 2x4 base, and 2x4 legs. The center brace is offset to make easy access and removal of the sump. I have to still add one more brace to legs to prevent and side to side play.. but honestly i feel it is far from necessary. Plywood top and bottom.



















And next is to paint the base of the stand.. but not before another giants game!










GREEN BAY is next!


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## 13razorbackfan (Sep 28, 2011)

What are you gonna use for filtration? How bout lights?

PS....good luck with GB...gonna need it! They are tough at lambeau.


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

Ok so for paint i used outdoor deck stuff.. Before painting i glued all the seams with liquid nails.. had to apply twice because the glue gets absorbed into the wood.




























Ok so that dried super fast cause we had great weather. And today i started skining the stand.





































Ok.. so i realized i need to sand the top plywood piece some more because the skin is not perfectly lined up, it needs to be sanded and i will be able to realign the 1x's to hopefully get a seamless look... im at the point where the lack of tools is starting to realy prevent how clean this is going to be, but for my first wood work project this has been coming out pretty good!

Next up to pick out some moldings, so i can use those to hide the screws i will use to fasten the skin onto the stand.. i also wanted to add some shelves inside the stand now.

This is my first big tank, with a sump so im going to ditch the doors for now... i will prob be checking 10 times a day for leaks or anything odd.

My slim line 3d background should be here soon.. my heater and extra sponge filters for the sump came in as well as










Fancy for sure!!!

The idea for my sump will be a series of 2/3 corse filter socks, and 3 fine socks, into a refugium of 3 bio sponge filters, into a wetdry holding about 10g a biomedia, and then an area for two heaters and more media like eheim biomax and crushed coral, finally into a mag12 pump.. hoping for about 700-800 gallons per hour of filtration.


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

13razorbackfan said:


> What are you gonna use for filtration? How bout lights?
> 
> PS....good luck with GB...gonna need it! They are tough at lambeau.


Yeah they are! I feel like i heard people say giants have a good record there.. Filtration will be my current 55g turned into a sump.. I will post of a sketch of what im thinking.. looking for 10g of wet dry and high levels of water polishing. I know im asking alot but i have alota room in the 55g for whatever kinda odd set up i want

lights will be my standard 48inch t5 with moonlights... It will have to do for now.. im not sure if i want to add a canopy yet.. if i do, i will do a homemade led set up


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## Sub-Mariner (Dec 7, 2011)

S14Swap240sx said:


>


Dont you love your pocket hole jig! Youre gonna love the RKL.

Nice build so far :thumb: but bad team!


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

Yeah pocket hole jig is awsome. I'm using a crappy drill tho so it takes forever to drill.. But it def has been a life saver


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

3d background came in today. Needed a change of pace. Tired of building the stand.


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)




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## Steve C (Oct 9, 2011)

That's looking great!

And I want to say thank you for posting the pic of the pocket drill jig. Because I am going to start my own stand tomorrow and after seeing how nice your angled pocket screws looked I did some searching on the Kreg Jig Jr and I am going to pick one up for myself when I go buy my wood tomorrow :thumb:


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

Just have a good drill handy! It was the best 40 I spent. Get the jr not the really cheap one. It's much easier to use! And snag a bunch of 2.5inch screws for the 2x's I used about 40 or so lol

I have some slight adjustments to make to the skin panels, started cutting moldings and making shelves to keep stuff stored neatly. Almost done with the stand. This weekend will be the last working on it.

Can't wait to get my sump going. Mag12 soon


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## Steve C (Oct 9, 2011)

> And snag a bunch of 2.5inch screws for the 2x's I used about 40 or so lol


Will do. What size (diameter) of 2.5"s did you use?


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

I used #10.. They have a vertical load rating of 900 pounds and horizontal load of almost 700.. The way the stand is designed is that basic design seen on reef keepers that really no load is placed on the screws but instead on the wood directly. Note how the feet overlap ontop the base.

The screws are sprax i think its called, #10 2.5inch. They are real nice and beefy, and allow you to sink the screws into the wood pretty deep with no stripping.. The kreg screws for the pocket holes are another story. They are good quality but even the coarse thread will strip going in.. dont drill em in to fast, and dont try to tighten them to much. Its not the screws as much as it is the drill bit and it creates a firm base for the screw to land on when drilling in and it wont drill past that base. so the more you tighten after it hits the base, the more it strips. I stripped like 2 out of the 12410249312 i used, just be careful..


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

here are some more pictures.. stand is almost done.. just need to use some wood filler sand and another coat of stain




























sure hope the floor doesnt break.


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## SeahorseDeb (Nov 1, 2011)

Sure do enjoy watching your build, mighty impressive. I took basic wood shop, had a blast, wish I could do this!! Anyhow, about your floors. I have hardwood too. Did some research before I set up my 1000lb 90/gal. I went down to the basement to see which way the floor joists were running :dancing: and it looked great. Hardwood was 3/4" which was another +++. :dancing: Then I placed it up against a load bearing wall. So far, three months later, tank is still there, floor not pulling away from the wall, no water in basement! Keep building and posting pix!!! opcorn:


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

yeah im pretty stoked for my first wood working project or really anything of this nature..

im pretty sure thats a load bearing wall.. there is metal supports downstairs.. i will take pictures and post those. unfortunetly its mostly a weekend thing for me.. to busy with work doing the week =/


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

Nothing really new.. this weekend im going to be painting the moldings, shimming the stand, and installing the 3d background..

trying to figure out if i want to run a canister behind the slim line or just stick with the sump.. here is a link to the topic http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/view ... 51#1691151

And here is the tank in its final spot, waiting room of my office.










Wires will be tucked away and kept in a neat fashion. Prob gonna go snag some battery powered led pucks to put under the stand.


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## Steve C (Oct 9, 2011)

Lookin' good. :thumb: And that looks like the tank fits perfect in that spot as well.


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## Guest (Jan 17, 2012)

bro if my floor is fine your floor is def fine.. i have like 8 times that much weight in one room.. stand looks great by the way..


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

m1ke715m said:


> bro if my floor is fine your floor is def fine.. i have like 8 times that much weight in one room.. stand looks great by the way..


yeah that **** was crazy in your house. surprised you dont charge admission or something.


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

sump is in the works. Cutting out some of the trim on the 55g sump to be able to fit the glass panes because its such a tight fit. WHAT A NIGHMARE!!!!! Im gonna replace the missing trim with brackets to hold the glass lids in place that will be measured and cut after the system is up and running with no problems. The glass under the trim aint pretty.. build quality on aqueon 55g is awfully sketchy. The left side pane of glass isnt even strait.. i was almost considering having them replace it but i didnt buy the 55g and dont have time to waste anymore.. this needs to be done and ready for plumbing this weekend, hopefully everything will be running by next weekend.

Waiting for my pump to come in b4 i buy the last bits of pvc, but they need to be ordered online


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

Update:









took the trim off the sump. going to retain the center brace and side braces, but the drip tray is a tight fit and the best easiest way to remove it is with no trim. the glass i ordered at 11 15/16th was too wide.. so im gonna bring the glass back and have them regrind it. it was off about 1/16th. Such an upset. arggg

regarless stand is fully painted, shimmed, and 3d background is dryin in the tank.. been cleaning up as much as possible. started plumbing the overflows.. not much left to do


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## Guest (Jan 22, 2012)

bro let that thing cure for at least a week.. and what silicone did you use? i let mine cure for like 2 weeks just to be safe


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

Silicone 1. Trust me, that wont have any water in it for at least 2 weeks. I did take the wood off it today tho.. the wood was inplace for 3 days.


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## Sub-Mariner (Dec 7, 2011)

Insurance company huh?


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

Haha yepp i run one in aberdeen and my dad runs the one in union. I just started last year. Its been alota work for sure but hopefully will work out!


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

Welp.. had baffles grinded down another 1/16 of an inch.. so they say. and the glass place def didnt do exactly 1/16th. Two baffles fit fine.. two still need to be grinded down more.. there is a noticable diff in the width of the two that fit and the two that do not..

this whole glass baffle thing is getting annoying. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND anyone who is getting glass cut for a sump to order 1/8 smaller.. not 1/16.. I should have ordered 11 7/8 width for the 55g.. Back to the glass place, gonna order tops for the sump while i am there. at least they are super cheap but so many **** delays. My measuring, the crappy standard tanks are made of, and bad cutting on the glass place are all to blame. The pieces where not even fully square until i had them grind it again the first time.

Such a let down and so time consuming.


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2012)

hurry up and finish so you can buy some of my fish biooosh lol


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

my girlfriend is back from fiji.. game over for a little bit =P


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## theboothsociety (Jan 3, 2012)

Very nice stand build. I think it would look sick if you stained the wood white or even black, but lightly so it still has the grain in it. But then again it does match the wood floors.

Lookin forward to seeing the finished product.


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

black would have been neat, but yeahh my parents still own this building and business and its in the waiting room. lol


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

sump taking shape.. i cut slits into the pvc legs so water can flow in and out of em and i guess it essentially increased water volume. Better then buying something like acrylic cylinders cause i have a ton of pvc and its cheap










Have about zero time to get the glass regrinded for the baffles.. hopefully end of this week everything will be siliconed together and pvc pipes ran.. fill up the next week. after it all drys


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

Plumbing almost done










Sump.. gotta clean off some silicone, and add another brace under the egg crate holding the wet dry.. and then run water and test the sump










Full tank shot.. need to finish plumbing, test sump, add my airpump and clean clean clean clean


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## Steve C (Oct 9, 2011)

Looking good, fish colors should stand out nicely against the background.


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## Azballa7 (Jul 12, 2007)

What did you do for your background on the new tank?

And how much did the new setup cost you?


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

Azballa7 said:


> What did you do for your background on the new tank?
> 
> And how much did the new setup cost you?


background is the slimline from design by nature.. total it was like 110 after shipping or something.. i ordered one sheet to many tho. have enough extra for a 40g breeder or something along those lines.. so that could have been like 35 dollars cheaper..

the tank, overflows, lids was 275 new..

stand was like 150 with glue,moldings, paint.

sump was 55 dollars, plus 130 plus 40 plus 50 for media and the heaters where like 23 each and rkl 113..

The setup with sand, media.. everything ran me about.. 800-1000 dollars..

what really made this expensive was skinning the stand.. the 1x pieces of wood and moldings came out to nearly 80-100 dollars


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

should i lay down a small bead on silicone inbetween the pvc and hose? pvc glue? or just a clamp? its super tight already..


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

Tank is finally up and running.. the sump works very well! no need to bleed off water from the output.. everything seems to be working well and pretty quietly. I need to drill a row of bigger holes in the middle of the drip tray.. that should be the last tweak..

as far as those blue pool hoses, they all had slow drips, so i laid a think layer of silicone around the inside tube, and outside of the pvc, pressed on and clamped.. pretty much cured into a gasket and so far so good! not a drop of water anyway.

gonna bring up one of my eheim filters, that is well established and run it on the tank when i add a light stock of like 3-4 fish, and some of the rock from my main tank. Gonna pass on the fishless cycle for now... i have alot of established media waiting to get chucked in the system.


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## n2b8u (Jan 3, 2012)

Nice


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

thanx! picture from yesterday..










been running for a lil while now.. donno how to decorate it yet.

ordering a whole ton of 3w leds tmrw..


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## Vadimshevchuk (May 23, 2009)

looking good! Where did you get the bio balls? Also why are you going with 3w leds? I think 1 w are more suitable for cichlids since you use less power and less algae growth.


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

THey are going to be a on dimming circuit, i wanted to use 3w because i wanna give em a trial run before bringing them into my reef tank. Its going to be mild lighting for sure. more then half of what a reef tank would require.

bioballs are from kensfish


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

well i screwed up.. silicone was silicone 1 kitchen and bath.. WRONG! me and my brother are pissed..









lol talking about it..

neways i tore off the background, and took apart the sump. had to order new sump baffles, making some changes to it. and doing some sch80 updates to my intake pipes.. also reworking the filter sock mounts and sump to allow filter socks or poret foam.

Here are some pictures:

Tank cleaned and scraped:









new background going on again










baffles

















plumbing for the canister filter eheim 2217.. going to paint the pvc flat black










Flexpvc, and unions.. bulkhead for intake where replaced from barb to threaded.. much much better.. thank god









the new silicone.. rtv108 (clear)










fda approved.. im gonna eat some for the **** of it


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

some pictures while i wait for the silicone to set..



















comparing ge silicone 1 to ge (momentive) rtv100 series.. really no comparison.. the glass strips *** installed only have silicone on the upper portion until everything sets and i can scrape excess clean and also tape around the bottom pieces and handle the sump a bit more aggressively..

but neways, at 24 hours of cure time the first two pieces i have installed have no play in them what so ever.. its pretty incredible.. i read somewhere that the rtv was of a higher strength.. who knows in what terms. but im way more satisfied over this compared to ge silicone 1.

also i took advantage of this time to replace those pvc legs i had on the sump orginally.. aside from taking up a ton of room, silicone just doesnt stick em well to the glass.. even lightly scuffing them up. soo im doing a series of 3 glass strips long ways, with 2 on each end.. im hoping the center does not bow or flex much.. if thats the case a 3rd strip going across will be added down the middle.. but i did not want to make it to clutterly to easily remove whatever goes under the wet/dry.


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## Guest (Mar 1, 2012)

fda approved means you can use it to make silicone molds for like chocolate.. not that you can eat it hahaha you funny as ****..

the background is still going to take awhile to cure cuz no air gets back there to speed up the curing process.. wait till you cant smell it anymore.. if you still smell it, its not done curing.. i dont care what anyone says


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## TrashmanNYC (Dec 10, 2007)

Just curious, how much silicone did you use for the background?


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

m1ke715m said:


> fda approved means you can use it to make silicone molds for like chocolate.. not that you can eat it hahaha you funny as #%$&..
> 
> the background is still going to take awhile to cure cuz no air gets back there to speed up the curing process.. wait till you cant smell it anymore.. if you still smell it, its not done curing.. i dont care what anyone says


this tank aint getting water in it until march 19th when i get back from costa rica.. and then even at that point 50% water changes daily for a week and then i leave to nicaragua for like 10 days.. prob wont put anything in the tank until late april

the smell was very faint after 24 hours.. its pretty nice how fast this silicone cures.. still aint in no rush tho

neways when i first did the 3d background i used a tube for the middle, and half a tube for the sides... after taking it off with scrapers and anger.. that was way to much.. now when i reinstalled the center i used a mear 1/4 of a tube.. did a thick outline, with a thick x.. when you apply pressure with wood it spreads on the glass.. i also recoated the tank seams incase any residual old bad silicone fell on them. i prepped the glass with alochol an then dried it well.. and used a damp rag to clean the back of the 3d background.

i trimmed the background to a tight fit.. honestly i gotta say the silicone is prob just a safety net if anything

still tempted to eat this silicone.. wash down with jager.. im not sure which would be worse for you in the end.


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## Guest (Mar 1, 2012)

its not edible you spaz hahaha.. theres food grade silicone for making molds lmfao did you scrape all the old silicone off the back of the background?


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

m1ke715m said:


> its not edible you spaz hahaha.. theres food grade silicone for making molds lmfao did you scrape all the old silicone off the back of the background?


No way.. i broke it off piece of piece with a scraped and small saw.. i have an extra sheet and part of another sheet that i didnt use. so i set that up in the tank.. and i was short half another piece so i got one more sheet from design by nature.. it came in today. gonna throw it on after 5.

been working on the sump during the day at work.



















its coming out so good.. i guess cause its the second time around at this.


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

sumps done,, just gonna clean up some silicone and its good to go


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

here are some updates.










added more rocks this weekened










some fish

























added pothos to the sump.. has grown about 8 leafs (pics are a month old already)

















blacked out the back


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## S14Swap240sx (Jan 3, 2011)

another little update.

these pictures are about a month old.. just added a bunch more gorgeous fish.. its best to wait until night time tho because i have glare issues with the camera during the day


















































































sump gets alot of light.. really could use some doors.. mucho algae


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