My 240 Gallon Cichlid tank build.....From Scratch...

[tunedis95]

Howdy all, well in the past year and half i've gone from a 6 gallon tank. to a 55, 135+35 gallon tanks and now jumping up to a 240 gallon....any who, let me just jump straight into the pics....



stocked up on 2x6's

This is my beast drill....has as much power as a Toyota Prius!!! ha ha

Frame going up


preping the main panel....The idea of the stand was to make it simple and modern.

canopy


Got most of the skin on....
Stand and canopy about 90% done. Have to fill in some holes...add molding to the Canopy.... and add a couple more coats of paint...the tank and canopy are raised some to make painting a little easier. So the stand and canopy will cover the plastic frame of the aquarium. The front of the stand is one panel and to access inside the stand just pick up using the handles and pull. nice and easy


and i will be lighting the tank with 6 35 wat HID's/ballast
5000K,6000k, and 1000K for now.


I'll have some more updates later, what ya think?******************************************** *

*************************Updated PIX a couple months after i got the tank********************
I'm outa town now so all the final touch ups have to wait another week...but here are the "in progress pix" ....oh my....this was time consuming...i installed the tank all by myself....didnt not have any help...and i'm 5'5 150lbs...lol....being a roughneck offshore helped i guess....well here are the pix, thought its kinda neat to see

getting the old 130 gallon drained


2 containers used...one filled with water and fish and the other to hold the used sand


round up time....man...these fish have a little weight to them....


old stand


carrying the new stand into place


just a rough draft...spaced from the wall so i could run all the hoses and what not...DONT WORRY...POSTER ON THE WALL WILL BE GONE!!!


100lbs of used sand and 100lbs of new sand into the tank


setting up the rocks...probably like 150lbs of rock in there...so easy to set rocks up without water or fish...ha ha



filled up the tank with all the old water in the container ...turned on the pumps which were not cleaned just switched over to the new hoses....pictures resemble nothing of what i went through....It was a pain in the butt but I enjoyed the whole thing....My girlfriend loves it....Have to females holding already after just 3 days of having the tank going. No leaks and pumps run quiet....I cant wait to set up the lighting!!!!

[jhenry]

Looking good. You sure went on the extreme side in bracing up that stand huh. What kind of fish are you going to stock it with

[cichlid1409]

that stand is a beast! Came out looking really good. tagging along.....

[JGUERRA]

are those car HID's? never thought of that

[BassTank]

Good build!!! Keep it up. What u stocking it with?

[tunedis95]

The stand is pretty stout, but the stand has to handle over a ton of weight... So I figure I would do a little overkill.. Ha ha

Yes, I'm going to use a total of 6 35 watt HID lights..3 different temps..I have all kinds of spairs so it's gonna be a real cheap and efficient light and comparable to a metal halide...

I'm just fixing up the tank for the fish that are in my 135 gallon... African cichlids.... No tropheus...

[tunedis95]

Updates...Think i'm done painting finally....PowerSupply and Hid Kits are in my posession now....Holes drilled in tank.....Fitting put in place....One side will be discharge and one side will be the intake to get a flow of water going from one side of the tank to the other side...

[jhenry]

What are those fittings you have? Is that a picture if the bottom of the tank

[tunedis95]

I was to scared to drill the bottom due to the fact i dont know the history of the tank and all. Its the rear glass and i was freaken nervous the whole time while drilling out all 6 holes for the pvc fittings from home depot...and have rubber O rings...and silicon on them...And, well they only cost a total of like 9 bucks total for all 6 sets and should work pretty good for my use

[jhenry]

IMO you should replace those fittings for bulkheads cause over time disconnecting filters from hoses they will eventually loosen up and you'll have a leak. I've tried it that way and it didn't work out good for me. I would hate to see you lose fish due to a falty connection. Or burn up a pump.

[myjohnson]

+1.

I made the mistake of not using a bulkhead on my old 125g. Lets just say....it didn't end well.

Nice drilling by the way! :)

[tunedis95]

And the main reason I didn't use them is because I went to 3 different local stores and did not find any.

[myjohnson]

What size are you looking for?

CP has a lot of sizes.

If they don't have it, I'm 100% sure Mike with ADG can get it for you.

[supadave]

IMO you should replace those fittings for bulkheads cause over time disconnecting filters from hoses they will eventually loosen up and you'll have a leak. I've tried it that way and it didn't work out good for me. I would hate to see you lose fish due to a falty connection. Or burn up a pump.

+1

Take the time to do it right . Even if you have to order the bulk heads....it's still better than coming home to a leak .

[tunedis95]

done. I was pretty confident with this set up too...and yea....i dont want any problems later on