280g Inwall

[Delphinus]

This is easily the slowest tank build in the history of Canreef. Tank was built by Interamerican/Bow Valley ... in 2005. I started on a tank stand at the time, then decided on a different design, .. then we had a kid, and in the inevitable life-gets-turned-upside-down, the process got derailed and the tank sat on my basement floor for a very long time before I got back on the horse.

Anyhow, the specs:

280g 72x30x30
Eurobraced
1/2" Starphire/Low-Iron glass on front and sides
3/4" bottom pane, 5/8" rear pane
Front pane is tempered.

Overflow is a standard corner overflow, in the left rear corner, 2-2" bulkheads. Although it wasn't the original intention, this will work well for a Herbie style overflow.

My sump will be a 100g UFA livestock watering tub... Planning on using this mostly just because I happen to have one, and I might as well do something with it. (It was my "backup plan" in case a tank got dropped when we moved into our current house.) It won't work great for baffles because it's oval in shape, but I'm hoping to avoid needing baffles by going Herbie on the overflow anyhow.

Here are pictures of the progress so far.

November 2007 - Stand more or less built, so time to put the tank on the stand.



Not having a clue what I'm doing, mostly I go by trial and error. At this point, I decided to check the level of the tank on the stand in its final location, and I found that I had lost my level. So, I did what any self-respecting aquarist would do: I filled the tank with water.

Then I measured the water level on the corners and found that the left side was down a solid 1/2" from the right. The stand itself is perfectly square, it's the basement floor that is out that much. So I emptied the tank, shimmed the stand, and refilled. So far, seems to be holding, and seems to be level.

I'm not sure I'd recommend doing this. I wanted the stand to be more or less transportable, in the event I ever move again or decide to sell the tank. But the other way would have been to build the stand as a wall and have it levelled right at the get-go. There are probably better advantages to doing it this way over how I did it, but c'est la vie, it is what it is.