fish lives

JonPhillips · May 26, 2016

Too soon, or no? (you laughed) But seriously, this is for all you reefers out there rushing your tanks. Keep your water right and make those fish happy!

Also, blue tap represents what my tank will look like when I turn it into a 120g looooooooong.
What do you think? An unusual size is what I am going for. Also, I think a shallow reef will be neat (16 inches deep) Lot's of length in there. Get some sticks and let 'em rip!

P.S. the 220g the tank is at right now was just too much water for my house. Was going to plop this dude in the living room but figured out I wasn't going to enjoy it as much as I wanted. So, going to sneak the 120 into the bedroom (she said it's cool) as that's where my home office is as well. ahhhhhhhh no stress!

KorL · May 26, 2016

you're going to cut the tank in half? you'll most likely to need to add bracing at the top

JonPhillips · May 26, 2016

pretty much in half I believe. local glass shop said they'd cut it for 10 bucks. Can't beat that. It already has a euro brace top piece so I will just bring that down onto the shortened height. Yeah BUDDY!!!!!!!

cmcoker · May 26, 2016

I'd do a lot of research into acrylic fabrication before having the glass shop cut it down. Does this glass shop do a lot of acrylic work?
The quality of the the edge they cut will have an effect on the seam to brace it..

That's a lot of water if the bracing fails

JonPhillips · May 26, 2016

cmcoker said:
I'd do a lot of research into acrylic fabrication before having the glass shop cut it down. Does this glass shop do a lot of acrylic work?
The quality of the the edge they cut will have an effect on the seam to brace it..

That's a lot of water if the bracing fails

Here's what the top looks like now. The length of the tank isn't changing, so I plan on just bring this down on top again. Should be just a standard cut shouldn't it? Thanks!

cmcoker · May 26, 2016

Most the acrylic guys use cnc routers I believe... That top is bonded with the rest of the tank, not sure how they could get it off cleanly enough for it to be bonded back together...
What type of bonding material are you planning to use?
Are you planning to pin it?
Ever done any acrylic work?

Research, research, then practice by building yourself an ATO container before you try and tackle hacking up a tank and reassembling..

monkiboy · May 29, 2016

this will surely involve a lot of very careful work. bonding old material like that which has been exposed to salt water (I presume) has a tendency to spider and crack. i'm very interested to here if anyone thinks this a good idea. let us know what you learn and ultimately decide to do. thank you for sharing.

JonPhillips · May 31, 2016

monkiboy said:
this will surely involve a lot of very careful work. bonding old material like that which has been exposed to salt water (I presume) has a tendency to spider and crack. i'm very interested to here if anyone thinks this a good idea. let us know what you learn and ultimately decide to do. thank you for sharing.

not doing it. no one will cut it. selling it. too big to get in the house.

ludnix · May 31, 2016

JonPhillips said:
not doing it. no one will cut it. selling it. too big to get in the house.

This is going to be better for the tank and for you, getting that tank cut evenly would be really difficult. Maybe you can use the funds from selling the tank to build your self a custom glass tank or have one built? I think the original idea would have been an awesome tank just perhaps not the easiest route to it. Love the long shallow reefs and hope to build one myself someday.

Scottsquatch · May 31, 2016

That's why I'm currently building a 33 long. I love the long shallow reefs. It has the same footprint as a 55, but it is not as tall. It's gonna be a sweet looking reef when it is finished.