An error was made in measuring at some point which delayed the stand for a few days but it's finally going.
Here's the top stained and ready.
Two small, wooden bars were added to the bottom to line up with the top of the old night stand for easy glueing. This stained plywood top was affixed using a high-strength epoxy. The stain is a little darker than the original stand but it came out nice anyway.
Here it is empty, very pretty. I stained the little wooden alignment bars too so they don't stick out. I apologize for the reflections. The lighting in that room is really bad.
Added the 15 lbs dry rock, 20 lbs fiji pink sand and water from the LFS. Little cloudy right now. Off to the left is the GFCI I purchased for this project, I have never used one before but I got a nasty shock from a submersible pump a few years ago and that changed my mind.
Honestly, the stock pump isn't very loud. My window unit air conditioner is much louder than the tank even when I'm standing right next to it.
I am using the Cobalt 100 watt Neo-Therm which feels like a very nice heater. The water temp was something like 76 when I put the heater in; I set it to 78 F.
I also set up the Smart ATO Micro. I like the looks of it so far. I haven't turned it on yet as the LFS water is measuring 1.023 with a just-calibrated refractometer. I have a little hole drilled in the back of the stand so that my ATO lines and tube and come into the bottom drawer where I have a tupperware container from Walmart. That'll be my reservoir. That's my cheap refractometer in there. It's very easy to read though.
I'm not done aquascaping at this point, I'll probably break up one of those rocks and add some live rock tomorrow.
