It starts...

So, before you can keep fish in a tank you need to actually buy the tank, figure out where to put it, and get a stand to hold it. For my aquarium I figured that I should get the biggest that my room would allow me to fit. With saltwater tanks it is always best to go bigger. That way if something weird happens it doesn't kill off the tank quickly. You don't want a fish to die and then give off harmful chemicals killing other fish and causing a chain reaction, etc. So, I went with a 40 gallon "breeder" tank. It is a shorter tank which will fit my sloped ceiling, but it also is a comfortable size to fit all sorts of fun fish.

Here is my 40 gallon tank

As you can see the tank fits nicely up against my walls and next to my end table. The top of the tank is just high enough for me to have access to it without hitting into the ceiling of my room. The next dilemma was where to get a tank stand from. My Dad and I figured that we needed to make the stand a little bit smaller than standard to comfortably fit my room, so we had to manufacture it ourselves.

The Tiki heads say this is the right height for the tank

So creating a tank stand is a lot of work. First you have to figure out how to build it:

Master craftsman "Dad" contemplates the meaning of life...

Then you have to clean out the garage so that you have space to build it:

Where'd all this crap come from?

We'll put this over here...

Shhhh...we seem to have found the elusive littlus brotherus

Hey, I've got to do something, right? On a side note, is that a bidet?

So after cleaning the garage out so that we can actually move around in there we set off for the lumber yard. My Dad and I figured that we'd need a sheet of plywood along with whatever scrap wood he had laying around to complete the whole project. It took about 2 days worth of cutting, gluing, nailing and screwing to get to a point where it actually looked like something:

Doors and a shelf. I really like the grooved texture we gave the doors.

This is the stand from the front. It is open in the back to allow for wires to go inside.

This is a real solid piece of furniture.

So there is only one more thing left to do to the stand...paint it! I decided that I wanted to paint it black to match the rest of the tank and its eventual accessories. We went with a high-gloss indoor/outdoor enamel. Damn does that stuff get messy. I'm going to have black paint on my hands and elbows for a long time...

This is before...

...and this is after.

This is a little bit closer. Notice how shiny it is :)

This is only after 1 coat of paint. I'm going to give it at least one more.

So this is as far as I've gotten with my project up until now. I'm sure for some of you this is the boring part, but it has to be done. I enjoy the woodworking and painting a lot, though. It reminds me of all the fun summers I spent with my Dad helping him with his contracting. It also brings back memories of building stuff with my TEKE buddies. Though, most of that stuff tended to fall apart ;). I guess I've always just been around tools of the trade and I enjoy that every now and then.

I've got at least one more coat of paint to add to the stand before I can bring it inside and set the tank on top of it. There is so much more left to do. Unfortunately for all of you guys out there in TV land I'm going away until August shortly, so I won't be able to really start the "biological" part of this tank until then. At that time I'll go into details on the lighting, filtration, and substrate. Until then...

~Paul Out