Willie's plywood adventure

[BigAl07]

YEAH! We have GLASS!! Looking good! It may TAKE 14 days to get the silicone cleaned up. They should make the Space Shuttle out of that stuff!!

[Willie McDaries]

Originally Posted by Frankie

All right! Mission control the glass has landed!
I have been waiting for this. Now this project is going to start picking up speed. As an experienced tank builder I have come to believe all silicone takes a minimum of 14 days to fully cure.
Keep up the good work Willie! I will need to start keeping a closer eye on this thread now.

actually it may slow a bit,I've still got to move my other tanks....hopefully not killing anything...and add more support to my floor....the silicon feels cured but it still has some smell to it,do you think I'll be OK with water in it?

[Willie McDaries]

BigAl,thats a mess,silicon adheres well to unsanded epoxy paint.....I need my butt kicked..I bought painters tape to keep it off the frame and glass where I didn't want it,I used the tape on the inside,where it didn't matter and not on the outside where I needed too,I got in too big a hurry.....next time I'll do better

[Basile]

Originally Posted by Jeremy0322

You probably wont even notice the color after a while, algae will fade everything unless you keep an immaculate tank. I was wondering looking at them though, how deep are the teeth?

Enough for gramma to eat an apple through a tenis racquet LOL LOL

[Basile]

The water in there looks amazing. But with everything blue , aren't you affraid that some of your colorful coral take on a blueish look. I'm being a pest today i know. Got the giggles too for some reason.

[kiwiman456]

Originally Posted by Willie McDaries

.....next time I'll do better

Not even done and already looking to build another... I like you.

[Willie McDaries]

Originally Posted by kiwiman456

Not even done and already looking to build another... I like you.

oh yeah,I'd love to build another,but spare no expense....if only I had the money

[Jeremy0322]

Thats an interesting thought, I wonder how large you could make a tank using this design before it became unsafe? Any one know the answer to that?

[Willie McDaries]

Originally Posted by Basile

The water in there looks amazing. But with everything blue , aren't you affraid that some of your colorful coral take on a blueish look. I'm being a pest today i know. Got the giggles too for some reason.

Basile,my lights are mostly blue too

I hope that when I have my sand and rock in there,it'll tone the blue down a little.....but then everything is gonna start turning purple....thats not to far from blue

[Willie McDaries]

Originally Posted by Jeremy0322

Thats an interesting thought, I wonder how large you could make a tank using this design before it became unsafe? Any one know the answer to that?

it'd be hard to say,if you didn't go any taller and just went wider,you could go as wide as you could find glass to fit,if you went taller,it'd need thicker glass and more reinforcement but you could go about as big as you want.....on monsterfishtank.com there was a guy that built a 1700 gallon shark tank in his basement.....it was like 12'x12'x5'deep...he built a frame system using 4x4s then he doubled his 3/4"plywood....there's really probably no limit to how big you could go

[Willie McDaries]

I have worked all day cleaning the excess silicon off,I knew I didn't want the front to be blue,I am planning on trimming it with oak,so I went to wally world and found some brown textured spray paint,I think it will look good with oak trim...after sanding the frame a little and some more cleaning,I painted the frame....here are some pics
I had a piece of oak so I threw it in the pics for comparison

what do y'all think






after the brown paint dried,I ran a bead of silicon around the glass again.....

[Willie McDaries]

Originally Posted by Basile

The water in there looks amazing. But with everything blue , aren't you affraid that some of your colorful coral take on a blueish look. I'm being a pest today i know. Got the giggles too for some reason.

got the giggles......have you been drinking

[Jeremy0322]

Its an interesting idea, I may give something like this a whack one day, I like DIY stuff, its more rewarding to me knowing that you did it yourself instead of just swiped a card I guess. I would want a square one though and would possibly use 3 panes of glass, front and both sides, would offer some really interesting scaping opportunities if you did it that way.

[Willie McDaries]

Originally Posted by Jeremy0322

Its an interesting idea, I may give something like this a whack one day, I like DIY stuff, its more rewarding to me knowing that you did it yourself instead of just swiped a card I guess. I would want a square one though and would possibly use 3 panes of glass, front and both sides, would offer some really interesting scaping opportunities if you did it that way.

Jeremy, howd gee lika hav won lik dis,

this is Kents 1000gal. on fingerlakesreef







I agree with the interesting scaping options,any way you look,you see something new and different

[Basile]

Originally Posted by Willie McDaries

I have worked all day cleaning the excess silicon off,I knew I didn't want the front to be blue,I am planning on trimming it with oak,so I went to wally world and found some brown textured spray paint,I think it will look good with oak trim...after sanding the frame a little and some more cleaning,I painted the frame....here are some pics
I had a piece of oak so I threw it in the pics for comparison

what do y'all think






after the brown paint dried,I ran a bead of silicon around the glass again.....

I love the wood treatment you did, and it look so cool. Can't wait to be back and see what you've done, so i can start mine too , i'm jalous lol