18' x 9' x 3.5' catfish tank build in progress.....

[necrocanis]

I was looking at getting 1 5 gal of polyester resin, and 1 5 gal pail of their tooling gel coat. My qoute on the costs was off. It was like $300 for product and like $150 to have it shipped to me. I just didn't have the money to do it at that time. Now I'm going to be ordering this stuff on wensday. My qoute is $300 for 2 5 gal pails of the blue max. Plus $68 for shipping. Could go a lil cheaper on shipping, but it would take too long to get here. I'm going to be doing the sealing on this tank on my birthday. Which is the 13th of april. After that I'll still need to make the filter, which I do have a solid plan for now, and have most of the materials for in my garage! My plan is to use the 2 gals or so of fiberglass resin to seal the seams and corners of the tank before coating it in the blue max. I have a wagner power sprayer already so it will work out great. I need to get the inline heater still also. The costs of it shipped will be around $100. So the projected costs to get this thing filled with water is around $500. I still need to find the right kind of silicone for the windows as well. My goal is just to get this thing filled and running with a small filter so that the fish can have more room while I finish up the filtration and the outside of the tank. Probably will only be half filled for a while. That will give me a chance to finish it up really nice. The front of the tank will take a lot of work to finish since I've decided to no cover it in plywood.

 

[greenearthlawns]

Nice build.... been checking up on it from time to time but this is my first comment... lol Man, you have some real patience cause we are all like the women at the new mall being built yelling at the construction workers to get her done.

 

[basslover34]

What is the reason exactly for only holding the tank at half full?... More volume will help not hinder the situation for filtration. Think of it this way... if you had a Guppy in a 1 Gallon bowl... how long would it take to change the water quality? Put the same Guppy in a 50 Gallon and it would take FAR longer for it to change the quality.

Add a filter into the mix and you could be allowing the filter enough of a head start that it would actually be able to Cycle itself by time you needed to change the water ... My first 300 Gallon was cycled like that with the water tested every day... by time I had a reading it was already the nitrates

 

[basslover34]

Nice build.... been checking up on it from time to time but this is my first comment... lol Man, you have some real patience cause we are all like the women at the new mall being built yelling at the construction workers to get her done.

no comment

 

[necrocanis]

Nice build.... been checking up on it from time to time but this is my first comment... lol Man, you have some real patience cause we are all like the women at the new mall being built yelling at the construction workers to get her done.

Get a plane ticket bring some girls and let them yell at me in bikinis. This tank will get build very fast!!! lol. Thanks for the comment though. I'm sure that my patience will pay off. Things have been really frustrating, but I'm more determined than ever to get this thing finished, and filled with catfish.

What is the reason exactly for only holding the tank at half full?... More volume will help not hinder the situation for filtration. Think of it this way... if you had a Guppy in a 1 Gallon bowl... how long would it take to change the water quality? Put the same Guppy in a 50 Gallon and it would take FAR longer for it to change the quality.

Add a filter into the mix and you could be allowing the filter enough of a head start that it would actually be able to Cycle itself by time you needed to change the water ... My first 300 Gallon was cycled like that with the water tested every day... by time I had a reading it was already the nitrates

I'll be dropping the internal filter from the 300 gal pond into the tank so that I can move the oscars, rtc, and rtc x marble hybrid into this thing immediately. The big boy will go back into the 350 for the time being until the big filter is up and running. It will be more room than he has now, and will work fine until the big tank is ready for him. After he goes into there the jau will move into the 300 gal trough which will be my sump for this tank. I'll have to do a sketchup of my filter plan so that you will see why it will take me a while to get it up and running. I understand what you're saying bass, but I'll need the top half of the tank for plumbing the filter. Rather have it half full for the time being so that when I have to get into the tank I don't have to drain it or hold my breath lol.

 

[Kcameron]

It's a big undertaking but I'm really intrigued--Keep it up! And Definitely show me the finished project.

 

[nolapete]

Just be sure to remember 2 weeks before you can put the first drop of water into it on the Blue Max. It doesn't cure like epoxy does. It dries.

 

[cvermeulen]

Also I dunno whether it is a concern at all in your relatively low-light setup, but it does say that it's UV sensitive, and requires top coating in exterior applications to protect it from the sun.

 

[nolapete]

That's only for outdoor use. Indoors it does NOT require topcoat. Read the information all the way through.

 

[necrocanis]

The only uv that should hit the inside of the tank will be very minimal indeed. This tank is completely enclosed even on top. There will be the windows on top, but with the angle of the light and the trees blocking it outside I'm not super worried about it. I will be trying to find a suitable uv light to hook up inline though. So my plans are to finish this tank and then start gathering supplies to do an ozone reactor, and put a uv inline somewhere. I'm gonna work on the sketch right now. See what you guys think. lol, I think I've spent more time on the planning of this tank than the construction.