# From stand to fish, follow along my journey with me



## Jethro (Oct 12, 2010)

It has been 15 years since I had an aquarium, but I have always loved them. We have a koi pond in the backyard that I built and we really enjoy it, but I started thinking about aquariums again the other day. When my wife asked me what I wanted for my birthday that is coming up I mentioned an aquarium. She liked the idea of one, but said "We can't be dumping alot of money in one right now with Mason (our oldest son) starting college." The point was well taken, so I started my research. I didn't want a tank unless I could do a decent sized one, and that cost money. We also had to fit one in our house without making it look jammed in as well. I came back to her with with a DIY plan and budget that I thought we could swing, and she said "That sounds good, when are you going to start?" I replied with "I was thinking about tomorrow." :thumb:

Well, that was last week, and the project is in full swing now. Phase 1 is getting the stand built and the living room re-arranged to accomodate it. Phase 2 is to custom build my tank out of 3/8 acrylic to maximize the volume for the area I have, and getting the filtration going. Phase 3 will be decoration, hood, and lighting. Then phase 4 will be......FISH!

So follow along with me as I journey through my African Rift Lake Cichlid project tank. Hopefully some of you will enjoy it as much as I have been so far. Phase one of the project should be uploading shortly. I haven't uploaded pics on this forum yet so it may take a little while, bear with me. Here we go!


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## Jethro (Oct 12, 2010)

Phase one: The stand.

I only had a certain sized area to work with on this project, and I wanted to maximize the amount of water I could have in that area. I also didn't want the system to look all jammed together, so I knew it would be important to match the design of the adjacent entertainment center to the best of my ability. Now, I am no professional woodworker, but I do have a decent amount of skill and I do have a pretty fair amount of tools in my shop at the house. I addition, I am prodauction manager at a plastics fabrication plant and have access to some good equipment there as well, including a CNC router. Everything could be done by hand just as well, but the higher end machinery does make it faster, without a doubt.

Materials for the stand were simple, just a sheet of 3/4" Aruoka plywood and a 2x6x12, plus a few small items. All total about $65 in material. I cut up the 2x6 to make my face frame to match the thicker wood on the entertainment center, and glued/screwed it together. For the sheet of plywood I made my cut list and then had my boss set up the machine code for the CNC. It took about 45 minutes after work one evening to run that to cut my pieces, and I had it all glued and nailed up that night. There is no 2x material in it except the face frame, it is all interlocking joints with nails and glue. The trim pieces on front I ripped out of the 2x6 and used a combination of table saw and table router to make them match the entertainment center. I got it stained up and finished, and overall I think it matches pretty good. My stain was a little dark, but I think it will be okay.

So this is the stand, all finished up and set in place. It looks small in the picture, but really the dimensions are 42"l x 19"w x 29"h. Phase 1 is complete, and I got my acrylic sheet in from our supplier today. Phase two will be the tank.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Looking good so far. Sounds like you make a plan and carry it out so you may already have this covered but I wanted throw in some advise that you may not have thought about. Don't get into adding gallon capacity to the point that you make it hard to work. Added height sometimes does not do as much for you as it seems. Depending on what fish, sometimes they just don't want the extra height. I would caution you to keep it low enough to reach the bottom easy. Just two cents worth that you may already have covered.


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## Jethro (Oct 12, 2010)

The tank is going to be 19" overall, about 18" of working height inside. It doesn't need to be higher than that or short people like me can't work with it. :lol: I think I should be fine there though, don't you? Mainly I wanted to maximize the floor area of the tank, length and width. The tank is going to have a footprint of 40" x 18". I wanted the extra room front to rear so when I started adding rock I would have plenty of room without jamming everything towards the front.

I want to start the tank tonight, I have my cut list to my boss so he can run the machine code for me. I'm hoping to run it when we shut down the plant this evening. I am axious to get started on it, that part is going to be new for me. I have been practicing with some scrap and know I can stick it good, but I am wanting to make my seams as pretty as possible. We will see I guess, most of them are hidden anyways.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Sounds good. Thought you might have it in mind but it's sometimes the things we don't think about that hurt the most! :-?


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## Manoah Marton (Feb 17, 2009)

Stand looks GREAT!!! Can't wait to see the tank! Do you have any idea what your stock list is going to be?


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## Icey101 (Nov 5, 2007)

Flatscreen tv, smaller tv stand alot bigger fish tank.


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## Jethro (Oct 12, 2010)

Icey 101- Not an option. Refer back to the wife/budget thing. If I had my way we would get rid of the TV and put in a 250. 

Mahnoah Marton-I will update with some pics after lunch. Got the tank cut on the router last night and have the whole bottom end glued up. Some minor setbacks but all in all it went well. Have to put on the lid today at lunch, flush trim everything tonight, and flame polish the edges still.

I am struggling with the stock list, gonna need some help on that. I was thinking Tanganyikan community tank, but have to please the wife as well. She likes the looks of Mbuna better, so may go that route. Gotta get the tank up and cycling first, then I will have some time to think about it more.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

A tub full of yellow labs with a random fish or two will be one way to hook your wife into the program! Seeing the little dears spawn and raise a family will catch most anybody. And SPAWN they will given any chance. They are one of the few who will tolerate previous spawns in the same tank. Start with five and wind up with twenty five!


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## Jethro (Oct 12, 2010)

I am definitely thinking of Pseudotropheus saulosi due to the sexual dimorphism, but yellow labs would be cool too. She likes both of them. I need something besides yellow and blue to mix in there though, and add some variety to the tank.


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## Jethro (Oct 12, 2010)

So I ran the sheet of acrylic on our CNC router last night, it cut real well with very good edge finish. I made a mistake though. Normally with the plastic cutting we do, we "onion skin" the cuts, that is we don't cut quite all the way through, we leave about .040" of plastic holding the pieces together. We can unload the sheet quickly from the router that way, and it keeps small parts from being grabbed by the CNC bit and and being ruined. We use a laminate cutter with a 1/4" non-bearing flush trim bit to cut the peces apart after they are out of the router. It works great on the softer copoly polypro we cut for our fire tank fabrication. Well, I did it that way on the acrylic as well, not thinking about it being a much more brittle material. I should have put down a spoilboard and cut all the way through on the CNC, because cutting them apart really stunk, and trashed my edge finish. I ended up having to take all the critical edges and run them through the jointer to get them clean again. Oh well, live and learn I guess. It turned out fine in the end, just was more work than I planned. Here is the machine in action.










After I got the pieces out of the router, I figured out I made another mistake as well. I had left a 2.5" lip all the way around the lid for bracing, but that is too thick for my HOB filter. The Aqueon 55 I bought can only take a thickness of 1.25", so I had to set up manually with a jig and router to open the top up for my filter. I decided to go ahead and do both sides while I was at it just in case I needed the flexibility in the future on filter placement. It cut real nice and easy, then I rounded over both sides of the opening with a 1/8" radius round over bit. Openings are very nice and clean. I will glue the lid on at lunch today, hopefully I can finish up the tank tonight.


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## mightyevil (Oct 23, 2008)

opcorn:


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## Jethro (Oct 12, 2010)

So at lunch yesterday I started glueing the lid on the tank (upside down in the pic). The top of the tank was just a touch out of square so I had to tweak it a bit (1/16" or so) but really it fit very nice. I got it all glued up so it would be dry when I got home from work.










After I got my 3 year old in bed last night, I went out and started the finish work. I used blue painters tape to protect all areas from the router base and bearings, and started flush trimming everything. I had decided to leave everything a touch oversize and then flush trim because I know from our tank building at work that you can get a very nice edge that way. I adjusted the bit to cut just about 1/32" past the thickness of the sheet. After I flush trimmed it all then I used a 1/8" radius round over bit on the edges so that they would not be sharp. It all turned out real nice and smooth.

At this point I need to check all my seams real good and make sure there isn't anything I think might cause a problem, and then flame polish the seams. I'll let the tank sit a week or so to make sure it is cured good and then test it.

Now comes the advice part. Here is a pic of the tank sitting in place. I have enough of the Aruoka plywood left to make a hood. I was thinking about one 6" tall, which would put the top of it just level with the top shelf in the entertainment center, and hide all of the stuff like lights and filters. Should a do that, or would it be too much? I could also go with some type of short minimalistic slimline approach as well. What do you guys think?


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## duds (Apr 16, 2010)

Definitely do the hood. It gives the whole setup a nice finished look. Nice work on that stand, by the way.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

I find 6 inches is pretty slim for working above the tank. Depends much on what filters, etc. you use but I find it's pretty tight to get the cover off an Emperor 400 from the front. I might go higher if lumber will fit it in the plan. In this case too little might hurt where you do have space for higher without fouling the lights, filter and such.


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## Turtlemaxxx (Jul 13, 2007)

Hood. better to hide where the 3 yo can throw stuff in.

what a spread, collage and 3 yo...

-matt


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## Jethro (Oct 12, 2010)

Okay, hood it is. That is what I was thinking anyways, and was going to do that unless ya'll talked me out of it. My scrap of plywood is only 7.5" wide though, so that is the max height I could make. I'll get started on that today, just need to figure out how much clearance I need for my filters in back.

I am working on a DIY HOB biofilter for supplemental filtering right now, and I got my power strip mounted inside my cabinet last night as well. With no real access to the back of the unit I wanted all my plug-ins run inside the cabnet where I could get to them easy from the front, but I did tuck it up under the top where it is not visible. I also have a piece of 1/16" thick textured black plastic that I am going to start airbrushing a "water" background onto this weekend. I like the rock backgrounds, but am going to try and add a sense of depth to this one. If I end up not liking it then I will do something different.

Yeah, we do have quite a spread on the kids. We have two boys, a freshman in college and a freshman in HS that were from my wifes first marriage, then a little girl who will be 3 in December that we had after we had been married 6 years. We won't have to deal with empty nest syndrome for a long time yet. :lol:


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

When you mention opening for the filter, I wonder if you mean to include a back on the hood. I find I need to leave the back as open as I can to vent heat. I would caution not to use more wood on the back than needed for bracing. The top will be better with a horizontal brace (1X2?) so that it can't sag down but more than that may make the tank get too warm. Lights in a closed space on our warm days, you know?


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## Jethro (Oct 12, 2010)

It will have a partial back, just for structural integrity. There will still be plenty of open area for filter access and air flow. I'll just have to start building it and see how it goes. I plan on running a flourescent in there so heat shouldn't be too much of a problem. My wife keeps the house cold anyways.


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## benny71 (Sep 30, 2010)

*Bookmarked, so I can follow the progress*

Looking good so far Jethro, it must be nice having access to all that nice equipment!

Since you are going with a DIY tank, may I ask why you didn't make the tank taller?


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## Jethro (Oct 12, 2010)

benny71-

From all the research I did they said 18"-19" was about the max for height using 3/8" acrylic. Material thickness is determined by height of the tank, not by size. To go higher I would have had to step up to 1/2" acrylic at a dealer cost $194 per sheet instead of $130 for the 3/8" Also, I would have run out of room on the sheet pretty quickly on my layout as well, I could only have added about 3.5" on the height without buying more than one sheet. Not very cost effective spending $65 to gain 3.5" in height. Since this whole project has been budget driven, the size I got was determined to be the best compromise between size and cost, given the area I had available for tank.

And yes, I love having access to good quailty equipment. It makes everything so much easier and enjoyable to do.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Depending on fish type, the extra height may not have gained much either. Many fish don't use the extra but it can make reaching the bottom to clean, etc. awkward. I think you did fine on that part. I can see you are also a type that can plan or just do it on the fly when planning the hood. Sounds like you have a handle on the heat part. With tube lights, the bulbs don't get very hot but the ballast often gets pretty warm. With an open back you will do okay. I've run across some who enclose it as much as possible to hold noise in but then overheat when the lights are on.


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## Jethro (Oct 12, 2010)

Yeah, I can tell that heat may become a consideration. I cut my hood pieces the max height I could, at 7.25". It looks a little odd to me when I hold it up there, I feel like it is too high. But, I don't have my light yet and don't know how much room I am going to need for it. I will try and get a light this weekend and then see if I can cut my height down from there. Not going to cut it untill I see if I have to have the height for clearance or not.

Pics coming up here in a little while on my DIY, HOB biofilter box. Gonna go put some water in it and test it.


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## Jethro (Oct 12, 2010)

Okay, here are pics of my secondary filtration biofilter box. I had some scrap acrylic left over from the tank build so I decided I might as well try it, since building the box was basically free. Shown here I have it full of water for leak testing. So far we are good to go on that, no leaks. The holes in front are staggered in size to take care of increasing flow rates, it should handle about as much water as I want to push. Internally it has a volume of just about 3/4 of a gallon, maybe a little less. I plan to add one of the high efficency ceramic medias to it. My question now is what kind of flow rate do I need through this thing. It is also baffled a little so the water doesn't just blow straight through. What size pump would you guys run on it?


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## benny71 (Sep 30, 2010)

Jethro said:


> benny71-
> 
> From all the research I did they said 18"-19" was about the max for height using 3/8" acrylic. Material thickness is determined by height of the tank, not by size. To go higher I would have had to step up to 1/2" acrylic at a dealer cost $194 per sheet instead of $130 for the 3/8" Also, I would have run out of room on the sheet pretty quickly on my layout as well, I could only have added about 3.5" on the height without buying more than one sheet. Not very cost effective spending $65 to gain 3.5" in height. Since this whole project has been budget driven, the size I got was determined to be the best compromise between size and cost, given the area I had available for tank.
> 
> And yes, I love having access to good quailty equipment. It makes everything so much easier and enjoyable to do.


Sounds like you may have thought this through a little. 

It looks awesome so far. :thumb:


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## Jethro (Oct 12, 2010)

Yeah, my wife tells me I overanalyze things. :lol:


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

It is really much harder to rag a guy about thinking than it is to get him for making mistakes. Maybe they all like to nag a bit?


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## xWingman48 (Apr 8, 2008)

Love the project. Great work on the tank.

With regards to the flow rate, you commonly see flow rates of 3x or higher. Translation, the filter should turn over your entire tank's worth of water at least three times an hour. Some folks go up to way higher than that up to 7x, but that's up to you.

A lot of folks like to overstock mbuna to cut down on aggression (dominant males don't know who to focus on, so aggression doesn't usually lead to injury). If you overstock, the more filtration you have the better. (...along with frequent water changes)

I'm not entirely seeing how that filter works, are you pumping water out of the bottom and letting the tank water overflow through the baffles?


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## Jethro (Oct 12, 2010)

xWingman48- Just backwards of that. Gonna pump water in the bottom and let it flow up throught the filter and overflow back into the tank. Got a small pump for it and some ceramic biofilter media this weekend, should have it going this evening. I will update more when I get it running.

Gonna upload pics here in a little while, got the tank setup and running this weekend. If I don't mind saying, I think it looks pretty good. Give me a little bit to upload pics and see if any turned out, and I'll get them posted.


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## Jethro (Oct 12, 2010)

First off, I am going to apologize for these pictures up front, they are bad and I know it. I took them with my little point and shoot late last night. I promise to setup with my digital SLR and get some good ones here in a few days. That said, here we go.

Got home Friday evening and set the tank in the garage for testing. Filled it up and let it set 4 hours, no problems, pumped it out. Brought it in the house and started robbing extra rock from around our koi pond, washing it and putting it in the tank. It took several hours to get the rock the way I wanted, but I got there. Went to put my filter in, and figured out I mis-calculated on the suction, had to tear one side all back apart an redo to hide the suction. Got it all in, mixed my gravel to get the color/texture the way I wanted, and put that in.

Now I'm not much of a fan of plastic plants, but a tank with just rock in it wasn't going to fly with the wife, and I knew the Mbuna would probably trash real plants. Anyways, I got some plastic ones that looked pretty good, and put them in there as well. Got one of those cheapy plastic backgrounds to go behind the tank that had some rock and plants, and put that up. I my do something else later but it will work for now, at least your not looking at the wall now.

At this point the wife is getting excited about the project and is getting ready for fish. I had planned to do the whole fishless cycle thing, but realized we weren't going to make it 4-5 weeks with an empty tank. I came up with an alternate plan. I filled the tank halfway with tap water and dechlorinated it. Let that sit awhile to get settled, then I pumped the other half of the water from my 70 gallon horse tank in the garage where I am overwintering our two 12" plecos that live in our koi pond in the summer. That water is seasoned with bacteria, so I figured that would be a big help. The Aqueon 55 has been running in that tank for 2 weeks as well, so the biofilter plates in it should be seasoned as well. I had pulled them out and dropped them in the horsetank before I moved the filter inside so I wouldn't kill the bacteria on them. With everything running (minus biolfilter plates), I started adjusting tempature, ph, alkalinity, etc.

I had everything settled in by Sunday, so off we go to tour all the LFS in Amarillo. Selection was kind of spotty, but that is a different story. We will do fish and stock list in the next installment. Here are my bad pictures. The tank really looks better than the pictures show.


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## Pali (Dec 22, 2009)

Nice DIY tank - looking forward to see the rest. :thumb:

I would make a slimline canopy if it was me, read earlyer in the thread you did'nt know what you wanted to build.

Either way gonna be a sweet setup, thanx for shareing


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## xWingman48 (Apr 8, 2008)

The end result is very nice. I like the layout with your existing entertainment center. What are the dimensions of the actual tank?

Also, just as a suggestion, I might carve out the inside lip of the top of your filter. If the overflow holes happen to clog up for some reason, (algae, etc), then you'll overflow over the whole top of the custom filter rather than into the tank. If you carved a half or quarter inch off of the inside lip, then it will spill in the right direction.


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## Jethro (Oct 12, 2010)

I'm not quite finished yet, I still have the hood to complete. The hood is nailed together and stained, but I still have to seal it with polyurethane tonight. After it dries I will have to install the light in it and attach the lid with hinges, but that will go quick once it is dry. Another day, maybe two and the whole system will be complete.

Here is a better pic of the tank, there are lots of cracks and caves in the rock for fish. I tried to get a natural look with the rock, with all sizes represented, and some color variation within the theme. I read somewhere one time that a ratio of 1:2:1 (big, medium, small) gives a natural ratio, and helps achieve balance. It works well for me. I really like the big rock in the center with the holes in it too, stumbled on that at the LFS for $15.










And here is a pic of my favorite fish so far. I think it is a Metriaclima pyrsonotos? He is by far the biggest in the tank, but has been pretty mild mannered so far. I think he is a good "boss." I made a couple mistakes with my stocking, but so far everything is working because most of it is small. I accidentally got some Auratus, in my mind I was thinking Julidiochromis (big difference), long term they are going to have to go away. There may be a another adjustment or two as well, we will see. We were bouncing from store to store, and nowhere had a real big selection. I had a chart that cross-referenced by Genus what should work with each other and was trying to match them up that way, and satisfy my wifes desire on fish she liked as well. All I can say is, we have lots of variety! I'll just have to watch it and make changes as needed.


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## mightyevil (Oct 23, 2008)

I don't know how you plan on using this...










Is water coming into it from the bottom and working its way up to the top and overflowing into the main display? Because I do not see it working the other way around since it is above water level and above the tank level so water will not reach the holes before it starts overflowing your main display.

If the filter is gonna work by moving water up from the bottom and overflowing to the main display, then you have the issue of the holes potentially plugging up and the filter overflowing all around thus getting water on your floor. I know you cut a lot of holes but holes do tend to plug up and not all of them need to plug up completely to reduce the flow and overflow... just a heads up!

I am just curious to know how this little custom filter works...


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## Jethro (Oct 12, 2010)

You got it right mighty evil, the water flows up and through, and overflows back into the tank. There are 4 rows of holes, the bottom two rows have 7/32 holes and the top two rows are 3/8 holes. I am not pushing a huge volume of water through this thing, it is just straight up biofiltration. I am running the water through it with a little Rio pump, it is flowing through all the 7/32 holes but hasn't even touched the 3/8 ones. The 3/8 holes are basically my overflow. I have cut up potscrubber pieces in the bottom of the filter and ceramic tubes in the top, so there is really not anything to clog it up. I will probably make a little cover for it just to eliminate splash, but there does not appear to be any danger of overflowing at all. It has been running 4 days now and seems to be doing fine. I'll keep updated on this since it seems there are several of you interesed in it.


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## benny71 (Sep 30, 2010)

Jethro said:


>


Outstanding Jethro! :thumb:


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## xWingman48 (Apr 8, 2008)

What are the dimensions of the tank?


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## Jethro (Oct 12, 2010)

Tank is 40"l x 18"w x 19"h. Internal volume calculates out to 53.5 gal. I've got the hood done and installed, maybe I will take some final completed pictures tonight if I get a chance. The project is O-fish-ally complete now.


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## jmartyg (May 3, 2007)

opcorn:


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