How to Build a DIY Aquarium, a Step by Step Guide. Part 4. Tank is Complete!
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- Опубліковано 19 вер 2024
- In part 4 we prep the fiberglass for painting, sand, clean and apply multiple coats of 2-part epoxy Pond Shield. We install the tempered glass front panel, perform the test water fill and complete the tank build!
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Thanks 👍🏾
All Good. The feeling of accomplishment - priceless.
Yes sir! Fun to build, more fun to be done lol :-p
Pro tip. Cut the caulk tube tip like a windshield installer. Like a 1/2 deep triangle mouth. Look up windshield caulk install. Makes one big beed guaranteed no air bubble and easier on the wrist no need for a fancy pants caulk gun. Also, did u sand in-between coats of epoxy? Also, it's a good idea to sand the epoxy where the silicone bead is for maximum adheresion. I use neo pond rubber personally. Just easier for me. And I got a deal on lit. I get my glass directly from the manufacturer. My buddy's the Forman. I got 6'x3' 12mm thick glass and a 3'x3' 12mm for 250$ cash.😊😊. Much love❤ from michigan u inspired me to build my 500 gallon.
Thanks Snake! Good tip on the caulk tube cut, I will try that next time. Yes, I did a light sanding between coats. If I didn't note that in the video I should have, as it is important for proper adhesion of the top coats.
incredible project, unbelievable ...wow
Thank you! 😁
This was a treat. Well done and thank you!
Thanks Phil! Part 4 ended up being a little longer than expected lol :-P
Very useful information throughout this build series. Particularly enjoyed the discussion about glass selection and sourcing.
Thanks EZ! After the fact I realized I missed a couple of small things, but hopefully my experience building a bunch of these will help others be successful.
@@AquariumDomain. they're very useful sources of information. One day I will build a plywood aquarium and will definitely be rewatching this series first.
Something I've been wondering about plywood aquariums, is whether people have run into problems with plecos rasping on the sides and damaging the epoxy, causing leaks. Is this something you have encountered? Haven't noticed any plecos in your built tanks so maybe you avoid them? I've got a couple royals growing out and wondering what they might do to a plywood build....
@@ezwaters5847 I do actually have a lot of Pleco in my wood/epoxy aquariums, they are just hard to see with so much wood, rock, etc. (there is actually 2 x 12" Cactus Pleco in the 3000 gallon) but you hardly ever see them. From my experience in my tanks all of my Pleco spend their time rasping on the biofilm on the wood and rock in the aquarium, don't really see them on the glass or epoxy walls. The finished epoxy walls are almost like glass in feel and not really ideal for either wood eating or biofilm eating Pleco.
I wouldn't have any reservations about putting Royal Pleco or other similar wood eating Pleco species in a wood/epoxy tank, especially if you have wood in the tank...they will be more than happy to tear that up! 🙂
@@AquariumDomain. that's great news. Thanks for sharing!
Looking good so far.
Thank you! Hoping to have the live premiere for the tank running and stocked in about 2 weeks. :-)
Excellent job!! Thanks for taking the time on this series. I am planning a tank like your Predator Bay.
Thanks Nick! I am planning another Predator Bay style tank myself! :-p
Great video. Very nice fish.
That tank is huge. Be good to see it up and running.
John from Australia....
Thanks John! A lot of work ahead, but I think once I get everyone moved into their new tanks it is going to be a real nice long term fit for all the fish.
That's great idea to make inside, make a filtration chamber on the side plywood aquarium, I see this for the first time and I would do the same. Thanks.
Thanks! I have plans to build some more in tank wetlands filters in the upcoming fish basement annex builds...but bigger of course. :-p
Thanks for sharing this
You bet!
The suspense waiting for this series...now I have to wait for the tank reveal. 🤣 can't wait
Hehe...got keep the suspense going LOL :-P
Looks awesome!
Thank you sir! :-)
Well done. Only if I was younger I would attempt to build one. I hope you are planning to stay in your house.
Oh yeah, I don't ever want to have to move 😊
I've just watched back-to-back-to-back-to-back the whole build series and I have to say, well done 😎🤙 You broke down the how-to very well and the extra insights of 'don't do this, do that' 👏👏👏 very encouraging now to try this myself.
One Q: How do you determine your glass thickness? I believe it's based off height, but do you use a certain formula?
Hey Woody! I have been using a safety factor chart that I got off of some late 90s forums that I used to participate in regarding building wood / fiberglass / epoxy aquariums. An acceptable safety factor was between 2.5 (good) and 4 (extremely good) and as you can imagine it depended a lot on bracing, framing, etc. of the build. Face framed and braced like in my videos you can go 1/2" tempered glass up to 36" tall with a safety factor over 2.5, which is my standard design. (height being the critical factor)
I find 1/2" tempered to be the sweet spot in regards to strength and cost. Of course float/plate glass or acrylic can work as well and it really depends on the tank design and materials used.
Iv been looking like crazy to find the answer to the formula on glass thickness. I have a 220 6ft by 30 in. I want to take a part for the viewing panel. I'd like to do an 8ft by 4 ft by 30 inch tank . With building with ur Method .
I am watching from Ireland 🇮🇪, love your informative videos. I am going to build a thousand gallon next summer. For someone not as experienced would you recommend acrylic instead? Why don't you use acrylic? Is it so much more expensive that its not worth it?
Thanks Tomas! There are a few reasons that I use glass instead of acrylic. For my style of tank build glass works really well because silicone will adhere to it and the epoxy really well. That isn't the case with acrylic, you would need to affix the acrylic some other way and figure out a different method sealing as well. Beyond that I have owned a few acrylic tanks over the years and they are just so easy to scratch...I was careful with them and still managed to scratch them up. Of course acrylic costs more as well.
That said, lots of really big commercial (zoo, aquarium) tanks are built using acrylic viewing panels so it can certainly be done and does work. If I were building tanks that were really really big I would use acrylic as it would pretty much be required, but for my tank builds tempered glass has always worked well for me.
@@AquariumDomain. thanks very much. Love the channel. Keep it up.
Ill be building a tank myself soon! Doing a very long skinny and narrow frag tank. My issue is going to be having multiple glass sections. Onviously pillars will be needed between glass sections. The plan is sevwral thin aheets of ply glued over each other akd staggered. Likely doing over the top bracing as well. Thoughts or advice?
Hard to give specific advice on a build without knowing a lot of detail, but if it is a frag tank I imagine it won't be that tall, so water pressure will be a lot less than a display tank, which makes the build easier for sure.
Is there anything different with the 1/2 inch tempered glass table tops that home depot sells?
I haven't ever looked at or purchased any glass from Home Depot so I can't say for sure what they are selling, but tempering is a process...so hopefully it is real tempered glass if they are calling that.
I might have missed it if you already mentioned it. Is the bottom of the glass sitting on the bottom of the tank or 1 - 2 inch off the bottom?
It is sitting on a big, thick bead of silicone right on the bottom of the tank.
When will we see this tank up and running?
I held off on the debut for this tank because some of the fish came in really small and others larger than expected...so I have had to grow them out separately. I do show it some in my latest video starting at about 12:35 in the video.
I used aquarium silicone in the bathroom once... It was NOT mold inhibiting at all.
:-)
37:50 massive silicone fail.
U want to do one thick bead for best method. But as he explained, the water level is way lower, and there's an outer seal. I cut the caulk tip just like windshiel installers do for cars. It's a triangle cut
Exactly! :-)
@@Boogerboys1990 Excuses will not solve the sloppy workmanship.
Do you have a video where you show this fully set up and go thru the filtration system in working order
I have shown the tank running with the wetland filter in a couple of the most recent videos, but I have done a video that focuses specifically on it.
Would definitely love to see how its setup i went back and watched the videos thinking i missed the important part of the whole build @AquariumDomain.
Hi mate love your builds. I'm in Australia and can get 12mm toughened glass shower screens 2.1meters by 1meter would that with stand the pressure of 2000liters thanks mate also its hard to find birch plywood would pine plywood suffice. Cheers mate
Thanks Phil! Really any plywood can work, just may need to stiffen up plywood with fewer plys using extra bracing and plywood with a looser grain will need either more coats of the epoxy top coat...or you can just fiberglass the whole box and be good to go.
I want to try and do one but with my luck my house will be flooded
Start with something small and build up the skills and confidence level, my current builds are a lot better than my first one lol 😊
Love this series but I have a question about the glass … I’m planning on building a 300 gallon+ tank and going with 1/2 thick … what is better for aquariums tempered or regular glass? I’ve heard tempered will shatter in a catastrophic failure where regular glass cracks and gives time to move fish in case of failure . What’s your view on this?
In a catastrophic situation tempered will shatter and non-tempered with break into large sharp shards, neither is good 😊
For face framed diy builds like I do tempered glass is far superior in every way than plate or float glass as the tempered glass is on a silicone gasket, thus no force is exerted on the edge of the glass where tempered glass is weak, but you get the 4-6x strength advantage of the tempered on the face of the glass.
The people who don't like tempered glass for vertical panels are referring to traditional glass tank design where all of the pressure of the tank is on the bottom edge of the glass, specifically in the corners, which does not work with tempered glass...this is why they only use tempered for the bottom panel.
Looking thru your new build, it seems that there's not much happening in Predator Bay, every time it was in view i didn't see anything swimming passed the camera!
Just the time of day when I usually work on the build after work. Predatory Bay lights don't come on until 4pm so for them it is early morning when I am filming, but from 8pm to midnight they are out in full force :-)
@@AquariumDomain. ok thanx wasn't sure if it was the lighting cycle or you were working on a new secret project to share with us down the road (•‿•) P.S. Great build video, as always ^5
@@CHOPRJOHN Hehe yep just lighting cycle, but I think I did already spill the beans that I will be working on a Predator Bay 3000 pretty soon! 😛
Could i use this type of build fo a larger build ,6x4x2
Absolutely. I have built two 8x4x3 tanks using this style of build (with top braces) with one of them running for over 20 years with no issues. Only thing I did differently is that instead of 1x4 for the vertical braces I used 5/4x6 deck boards.
@@AquariumDomain. cheers mate love your videos I can't wait to start building my own
Can you use plexiglass or acrylic instead of glass. I'm looking at building a 400 gallon tank.
You can, needs to be fastened differently, but it can be done.
@AquariumDomain. can you explain to me how it is fastened. Also can you tell me the thickness I would need. My tank is 84x42x28. My stand is all 2 inch square tubing for the frame. The cross braces are 1.5 inch angel iron spaced 12.5 inches apart.
@@grimreeper70 I haven't ever built the diy style tanks I make with acrylic so I can't tell you from experience how to do it, I have just seen it done in videos. I would recommend you check out AlexG's Aquariums on UA-cam as he has done excellent videos testing different adhesive for adhering acrylic to diy tank materials and he built at least one diy wood aquarium with an acrylic front panel.
What grit sand paper did you use on the fiberglass?
60
Thank you I appreciate you answering my question.
What about arylic i have seen people use arylic any thoughts on that as a viewing panel
Acrylic definitely works, I just prefer glass because of how easily acrylic scratches. 😊
@AquariumDomain. I appreciate the response most people don't respond. I'm going to build a 500 gallon plywood aquarium maybe a little more with acrylic as the front viewing panel since I can get a sheet here in co for 500. But I have seen that all you have to do with acrylic is scuff up the surface where your silicone will go on as well as the pond shield and it should adhere just fine. The acrylic sheet will be 19mm think 8' x 31". So im going to build the tank 9'x 40"x 36". Will euro bracing work for this style or should I frame it and but the wood to that. Sorry there's a few questions in there.... rambling on.... lol love your videos I've spent the last few days just watching them
Am lost... What happened to this tank??
315, live reveal, etc..
Cannot find this tank with fish..🤔😩
It is the 315 River Bend Tank, its been in a bunch of other videos, but not its own video yet. It was in the last video released.
I just got done watching your series on the 750 and 600 gallon tank builds and I can’t find where you go over the cost of the builds. Can someone link me to that video where pricing is covered?
Hey Ethan! I just totaled up the receipts for the Double DIY builds and came up with $2,857.00 for the combined price of both tanks.
Where did you order your glass from?
I have ordered from some local places and from onedayglass online. All of them have been good so far, local saves you on the considerable cost of shipping.
What type of glass and options did you choose? I picked a 49 x 34 piece of tempered glass and it was priced at $950 before shipping!
@@bigfishcb That price is insane 😞 I usually do 1/2" tempered 96x36 or 72x36 panels with the most I ever paid being $500ish for an 8 foot panel. Where did you get the $950 price from? OneDayGlass?
@@bigfishcb I just priced an 96" x 36" panel 1/2" tempered on OneDayGlass and it was $950. If I change the quantity to 4 it changes price to $620 per panel including shipping. I guess all of my tanks always take multiple glass panels and I am used to the quantity discount pricing.
Did you sand between coats?
Yes, light sanding with the palm sander and 60 grit sandpaper.
What's your opinion on laminated tempered glass?
For the way I build DIY aquariums, tempered glass is stronger than laminated tempered glass in regards to reflection, but for impact resistance without shattering laminated tempered glass would be the way to go. Really just designed for different use cases.
I'm looking to build using an 8ft x 5ft sheet but standard glass weight is going to be immense, need a way to cut weight ideally
@@c.miner573 For 5ft of water depth you should probably look at using acrylic. It would take a 1" thick tempered panel to handle that pressure and the panel would probably weigh around 500 lbs...not easy to work with 🙂
When is 5 update coming
Soon ™ :-) Taking longer than expected, but I am working on it.....hopefully a few weeks from now.
Just too big and bulky, and costs basically as much as buying a big tank, not worth it unfortunately
Yeah the value of DIY builds really comes into play with very large aquariums and of course highly customized aquariums.
Maybe so, but to do it yourself is priceless....
Apparently, you haven't priced a 220-gallon tank and stand. This was half the cost......im not gonna argue the big and bulky point, but hey, it's a 300 gal tank. If you want small light and slim, go to Pet Co and get some Tetras in a 10g.
Have you checked the price on a 300g? This is way cheaper