I've been working on this project for several months now and have finally gotten to the planting stage, so I thought it was appropriate to start a journal and solicit some feedback and advice from the plant gurus.
The overall tank is around 60'L X 28'W X 40'T with about 14" of water in the bottom (about 100g) and sliding glass doors that allow access to the upper, emersed section.
The entire setup was a DIY build. There were a bunch of hiccups along the way and it was definitely a learning experience. I'll post an abbreviated build thread to get everyone up to speed.
Let me start off by summarizing the stand build. I was going for a sleek, ADA-ish look, but I like the appearance of wood grain so I built it out of birch plywood, since it was easily available.
I reinforced the sides with 1X4s
and used doubled-up 1X4s for legs
Here's the initial assembly
I finished the outside with a coat of "golden pecan" stain followed by 3 coats of polyurethane and painted the inside with 2 coats of kilz and a topcoat of white latex paint.
I mounted the doors with no-bore concealed hinges. Here's a shot of the final assembly (the doors weren't actually mounted in this pic). I ultimately added some spring latches and some small whistle pulls.
The overall tank is around 60'L X 28'W X 40'T with about 14" of water in the bottom (about 100g) and sliding glass doors that allow access to the upper, emersed section.
The entire setup was a DIY build. There were a bunch of hiccups along the way and it was definitely a learning experience. I'll post an abbreviated build thread to get everyone up to speed.
Let me start off by summarizing the stand build. I was going for a sleek, ADA-ish look, but I like the appearance of wood grain so I built it out of birch plywood, since it was easily available.
I reinforced the sides with 1X4s
and used doubled-up 1X4s for legs
Here's the initial assembly
I finished the outside with a coat of "golden pecan" stain followed by 3 coats of polyurethane and painted the inside with 2 coats of kilz and a topcoat of white latex paint.
I mounted the doors with no-bore concealed hinges. Here's a shot of the final assembly (the doors weren't actually mounted in this pic). I ultimately added some spring latches and some small whistle pulls.