Wow, crazy first tank!

[Tarpon001]

Today I was at work building the stand for what will be my first reef tank, when a student from down the hall came by to see what I was doing. I explained that I was framing what would be the stand to my tank and he said he had just installed a tank the day before with a friend of his and I thought that was cool and coincidentally strange. Not wanting to be distracted because I was right in the middle of a serious mental challenge regarding the design, I thought I would ask a little more. So, I said, "what size tank did you guys install?" thinking it would be a fairly smallish tank, since he and his buddy are college students. He replied, "well, it's about the size of this table," referring to the table I was working at. I looked at he and the table with surprise because the table was 4ft by 4ft, which made my plans for a 75gal tank plans seem like a joke. So, he said that a local seafood restaurant was replacing all it's tanks and had a lot of fiber glass left over from the remodel, so his friend scored a bunch of 2 inch glass-at least it looked like 2 inches based on how far apart his fingers were when he showed me with his hand. He said, "Yeah, he (college buddy) built the tank and asked me to come over and help fill it." He said his friend had the tank right in the middle of the living room, as an island tank. Well, apparently, they filled the tank and realized that the floor was starting to sag, they rushed downstairs to brace the floor (this kind of story keeps me up at night when I think about starting this hobby). They apparently got the floor braced up-scaaary!! Finally, he told me on a side note (as if this story were not bad enough) that his buddy put all kinds of rock in the tank and a bunch of fish but everything was starting to die. Wow, crazy first tank!

 

[TheNewGuy1]

that sounds so sweet coffee table..is there a lid on it?, it takes a while to set up the water right before ur supposed to add things

idk why i always see ppl filling tanks and just dumping in rocks and fish the same day....lets get drunk and build a reef tank hehe ..so pointless(not saying this is the situation but i've seen it before)
make sure you do it right when u do ur tank it may take you a few days or a few weeks before u can add

 

[Tarpon001]

I think you're right-it was probably a beer influenced decision. The tank was no coffee table-it sounded like it was a tower. It must have been close to 4 or 5 hundred gallons of water! He said his friend is flush with $, so I guess if his house implodes he'll be able to get a new one. It's funny how many basic things can be avoided with a $ 25 book from your lfs.