Background Story (of my 3D background 
):
I had just gotten my 125 gallon tank set up and running smoothly (http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=347633), so naturally I had the urge to tear it down completely and install a 3D background in it!
MFK member JK47 is a friend of mine in real life outside of teh interwebs, and he was nice enough (with some finagling on my part
) to donate a background from his build (http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=358278) that he decided not to use for his 125 gallon for MY 125 gallon.
The background is from Designs By Nature (http://www.designsbynature.net/) and I am really happy with it... While I did not purchase this particular background from them directly, I did purchase my 20 gallon background from them (thread on that one to come!), and they have awesome customer service, and I would recommend them to anyone 100%.
Here it is, the River Stump:
And this is what's it's going in...
This is a standard 125 gallon glass tank, you can view the separate setup thread on it in the aforementioned link.
The Build Begins:
My tank was 100% up and running with fish in it. I was battling some pretty major disease in the tank, and was planning on buying another tank anyway for my pike project, so I bought a 90 gallon from a fellow MFKer (thanks again Dan!) and moved them all over to that as a temporary hospital/holding tank... happy to report that all signs of disease have cleared.
Now with the fish moved, I still had a 125 gallon tank running that needed to be broken down, with close to 1000 pounds of water, on top of 100 pounds of sand and tank decor. Draining the tank was easy enough, which left me with this:
100 pounds (when it was dry mind you, this stuff is wet so quite a bit heavier) of our favorite local Portland sand, Lapis Lustre (the best aquarium sand on earth). Having had a recent stint in the industry working for a wholesale supplier of tropical fish, I went old school on it like I had many times at work when I switched out all our UGF systems to mattenfilters... scooped it out with a big ghetto net one scoop at a time and put it aside.
At this point I had JK47 come over and help me out with this build. We moved the tank on to its back
and began the measuring...
So, first issue, of course, is the background measures 79" long and 24" tall. My tank is a bit under 72" long and a bit under 22" tall, with a large brace in the center.
After some calm and peaceful discussion, we decided it would be best to take the 2" off the bottom of the whole background for the height, take the 7" off the right side for the length, and cut the background in to three pieces to fit it in with the brace. And then we immediately decided to cut before our nerve got the best of us.
We also drilled some holes for the intake of my FX5 to draw water from, making them big enough for decent flow, but small enough that my juvenile Denisoni couldn't wiggle through them and get behind the background. We will see how this works later...
We then went about putting what would be the left side of the background (two pieces) in the tank which included the stump of the tree. We ended up having to shave down about a 1/2" around the part where the center brace of my tank came down.
We put the two pieces together in the tank and tied them together with truck tie downs (JK47's idea), after squirting some silicone between the two pieces. We are using black GEII silicone from home depot.
You can barely see the seam of the two pieces of background pushed together if you look...
And that's where we ended tonight folks. JK47 is coming over tomorrow and we expect to have the rest of the install done by tomorrow night. Then it will just take time to let the silicone cure, and set the tank back up.
):I had just gotten my 125 gallon tank set up and running smoothly (http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=347633), so naturally I had the urge to tear it down completely and install a 3D background in it!
MFK member JK47 is a friend of mine in real life outside of teh interwebs, and he was nice enough (with some finagling on my part
) to donate a background from his build (http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=358278) that he decided not to use for his 125 gallon for MY 125 gallon. The background is from Designs By Nature (http://www.designsbynature.net/) and I am really happy with it... While I did not purchase this particular background from them directly, I did purchase my 20 gallon background from them (thread on that one to come!), and they have awesome customer service, and I would recommend them to anyone 100%.
Here it is, the River Stump:
And this is what's it's going in...
This is a standard 125 gallon glass tank, you can view the separate setup thread on it in the aforementioned link.
The Build Begins:
My tank was 100% up and running with fish in it. I was battling some pretty major disease in the tank, and was planning on buying another tank anyway for my pike project, so I bought a 90 gallon from a fellow MFKer (thanks again Dan!) and moved them all over to that as a temporary hospital/holding tank... happy to report that all signs of disease have cleared.
Now with the fish moved, I still had a 125 gallon tank running that needed to be broken down, with close to 1000 pounds of water, on top of 100 pounds of sand and tank decor. Draining the tank was easy enough, which left me with this:
100 pounds (when it was dry mind you, this stuff is wet so quite a bit heavier) of our favorite local Portland sand, Lapis Lustre (the best aquarium sand on earth
). Having had a recent stint in the industry working for a wholesale supplier of tropical fish, I went old school on it like I had many times at work when I switched out all our UGF systems to mattenfilters... scooped it out with a big ghetto net one scoop at a time and put it aside. At this point I had JK47 come over and help me out with this build. We moved the tank on to its back
and began the measuring...
So, first issue, of course, is the background measures 79" long and 24" tall. My tank is a bit under 72" long and a bit under 22" tall, with a large brace in the center.
After some calm and peaceful discussion, we decided it would be best to take the 2" off the bottom of the whole background for the height, take the 7" off the right side for the length, and cut the background in to three pieces to fit it in with the brace. And then we immediately decided to cut before our nerve got the best of us.
We also drilled some holes for the intake of my FX5 to draw water from, making them big enough for decent flow, but small enough that my juvenile Denisoni couldn't wiggle through them and get behind the background. We will see how this works later...
We then went about putting what would be the left side of the background (two pieces) in the tank which included the stump of the tree. We ended up having to shave down about a 1/2" around the part where the center brace of my tank came down.
We put the two pieces together in the tank and tied them together with truck tie downs (JK47's idea), after squirting some silicone between the two pieces. We are using black GEII silicone from home depot.
You can barely see the seam of the two pieces of background pushed together if you look...
And that's where we ended tonight folks. JK47 is coming over tomorrow and we expect to have the rest of the install done by tomorrow night. Then it will just take time to let the silicone cure, and set the tank back up.
It's looking good bro! The holes in the buttom of that stump makes me jealous. I didn't do that on any of mine. I like Dan's idea of packing that thing full of media! 3D sump'ground!!!
