Scott26's 90 Gallon Wave Front Build

[MarineGirl411]

I really like your setup! Drilling is scary huh? I drilled my first 20 gallon long tank and cracked it. Went and bought another one and drilled that one. It ended up turning out! It is my frag tank right now. My boyfriend drilled the big tank. I was too scared. It was very nerve wracking!

I like your stand. That is a really cool idea. I like the curve a lot. I would love to learn how to build things, but he won't let me use his table saw. I can use the other stuff though. ;-)

 

[scott26]

Thanks, Table saws are fun as long as you use them saftely you dont want to loose a finger! Tell him to get a saw stop table saw no more lost fingers! lol.

 

[MarineGirl411]

That would be cool. He almost cut his thumb off about 4 years ago on his table saw. It was really scary. I almost passed out. =/

 

[MCary]

Very interesting. I would have never thought of kerf bending poplar. I do it with plywood. Actually, I usually look for bendable plywood or MDF. For hardwoods I usually either steam bend or laminate bend. Although you would need a bandsaw for a laminate bend.

 

[scott26]

That would be cool. He almost cut his thumb off about 4 years ago on his table saw. It was really scary. I almost passed out. =/

That is why I like to use a push rod when ever I can.

Very interesting. I would have never thought of kerf bending poplar. I do it with plywood. Actually, I usually look for bendable plywood or MDF. For hardwoods I usually either steam bend or laminate bend. Although you would need a bandsaw for a laminate bend.

The kerf has worked out really well once you figure out how to do it well enough. the steam would have been ideal but I don't have access to a steamer and didn't want to have to build one for a one time thing.

 

[scott26]

Well I was able to get some more work done this weekend and some set backs happened as well. Now to the pictures.

I started off the weekend by picking up some paint from wal-mart it is a Oxford Blue in a satin finish I wanted to get a dark blue to stay away from the light blue becuase I think it washes out the colors of the fish and coral.

The Paint

So here it is all preped and ready for paint.

And here it is after some coats and you can't really see through it anymore. It is looking pretty good.

While that was out drying for the day on my back porch I had the oportunity to get some more plumbing done on my return side of the aquarium. I went off the return pump with a couple and a ball valve for matinance if ever needed. then a tee and valve for the fuge return, follwed by another tee and valve with a barbbed fitting for water changes and to blow off rocks if I wanted to.

Then I got the aquarium back into the house and back on the stand and got to taking all the tape and paper off and this is the outcome.

 

[scott26]

I did like the outcome of the paint but it is a not quite as dark on the bottom and one side so you can see light penatrate through and it doesn't look good to me at all. I know it would prolly not to be seen by anyone since it is small detail.

I was also able to paint my down pipes from the bean with some black paint and got that all squared away I decided to leave the ball valves all white to make it easy to spot in case some one needs to when I am not around.

Some more of the return section.

I was also able to finally get the other door put on since I need to rip 1/8" off the side mount since the two doors would not shut otherwise.

As you may be able to see the doors do not line up perfectly with the top and bottom wave the right side door is off by almost 3/8" which I do not like but I don't think that there is any way of fixing it at this point. Surprisinly the door on the left is better off and that is the one that I was having the most trouble with making.

Now for the step back. In my never ending quest to make this the perfect aquarium I wanted to put some more coats on the bottom and side that were not completely covered and light was coming through. So I rewraped the tank and took it outside sprayed my first coat and wame the areas that I spryed all started to bubble up and crack/flake off!!!!! To say the least I was disappointed. So looks like I am going to have to start from square one with the paint on the back and do it over again since I can just scrape off one side as it will look different in contrast to the other side.

Now for some voting I like the blue concept but I still think that this blue was still to light of a color what do you all think I do not want to go with black since I want to keep it somewhat of a deep ocean effect. Do you think this blue is dark enough or go darker?

 

[Bosco83]

Fill it up with water and rocks then we can decide :lol:

 

[scott26]

No problem I will do that later today and use salt water so you can get the real effect.

 

[hamiltonguy]

Hey Scott, how far apart all the hole for the beananimal overflow? Also, is the middle hole lower than the others or is that just the angle of the picture?

 

[scott26]

Hey Scott, how far apart all the hole for the beananimal overflow? Also, is the middle hole lower than the others or is that just the angle of the picture?

The holes are I believe 1.5 x 1.75(diameter of the bulkhead hole) I will have to measure to be sure and one of the three is higher then the rest I rasied it by 1/4" to ensure the open channel standpipe doesn't interfear with the siphon standpipe on start up.

 

[jcolletteiii]

I vote for a slightly darker blue!

 

[scott26]

As far as the color goes I don't think that there is a blue dark enough to do what I want so I am just going to go black this round after I get all this old paint off one of these days.

 

[jcolletteiii]

Maybe you could do an even coat of blue then a coat of black over top - I wonder if this would darken it up?

 

[hamiltonguy]

The holes are I believe 1.5 x 1.75(diameter of the bulkhead hole) I will have to measure to be sure and one of the three is higher then the rest I rasied it by 1/4" to ensure the open channel standpipe doesn't interfear with the siphon standpipe on start up.

Oohh ok, I thought I was just going crazy but yea that makes sense, thanks. I plan on doing the same with my 75 in the process.

 

[pnavarro170]

way darker blue IMO. or black

 

[Michael B]

Great build so far & that cabinet is awesome - any more updates?

 

[psteeleb]

looking good - great job on the woodwork and attention to details

 

[scott26]

looking good - great job on the woodwork and attention to details

Thanks, the details are what is killing me so many little things to make everything line up and me being perfectionist doesn't help. But it should all be worth it in the end.

Great build so far & that cabinet is awesome - any more updates?

Thanks for following along, I have been able to scrap the old paint off with a razor blade came off pretty easy then I used some acetone to get the paint residue off after word to make it a clean slate. I need to pick up some black paint after work today and get ready to panit it this weekend hopfully, however it has been pretty foggy in the mornings so it is going to be a late in the day paint job to make sure it all sets right.

way darker blue IMO. or black

After some more reasearch I don't think that there is a blue that is dark enough black is going to be the way I go.

 

[scott26]

Update

Update

Well I have something to update about finally not too much though since the blue backing didn't turn out as well as I had hoped I started the process of getting the old blue paint of and ready for the new black paint.

I started by trying to just use some paint remover but since I did about 10 coats lets just say it swirled the paint around. So to get the majority of the paint off I went with used a scrapper and a razor blade and being carful throughout.

Here is the starting of the work.

Here is some of the left over mess that I vacuumed most of it up.

Here are some shots of it all clean and ready to go I used to alcohol to get any paint residue off.

I then started the process of getting the back taped up and ready to go for round two this time with a satin black paint below.

Here are some shots of the area where I painted it on my back porch lots of ventilation people. You can see the top where the paper is cut out into a rectangle I forgot to tape the holes for the pipe and almost started to spray the back before my wife told me so good think otherwise I would have an aquarium filled with black paint particles.