well, the paint job didnt come out as desireable as i wanted it to. i put down a white primer coat on everything. then put down a black coat of latex paint on the outside.
after letting it dry for several weeks, i decided to put the 30g cube on the stand to see how it looked. when i went to take the tank off the stand, one corner stuck to the paint (actually peeled the paint off a little bit), which surprised me and i lost my grip and dropped the tank on the stand, which broke the glass in one corner. DOH!
after that, i was pretty ticked with going to a glass tank that wasn't that big, yet not being able to move it cuz its so freakin heavy.
since i built my stand 24"x24", i decided to take advantage of that and have an acrylic tank built to fit those demensions.
the tanks final size ended up being 24"x24"x20", about 50g. i even encorporated an external overflow return. it took a while to get the plans drawn up and finalized, and i had my LFS guy build it.
i just brought it home today, and i'm very impressed. its still a little dirty, and a little bit of glue residue left in the corners.....but no big deal IMO.
i figure the reason why the paint still felt sticky (even to this day), and peals somewhat, is that it must have been too humid outside when i painted it. so i put down a layer of polyurathane over the black paint which looks awesome.
if i had it to do over again, i think i would have just stained the entire stand in a black stain, used several coats, then used polyurathane in several coats. i'm not too wild about this latex paint, goes on way too thick.
here is the external overflow in the back of the tank. its exactly what i wanted. i wanted it clear on the sides so i could see in.
