DIY - Projects & Ideas • My 55g Mbuna tank project

[Steve C]

Started on the finial piece of the background last night so once I get this piece done I can silicone it all in to the tank and start on the stand then.

Pieces all attached to side stryo board and started to be shaped....



Shaping finished in this pic....

[The King Crabb]

Looking good! What's that you're using to shave it down, some sort of cheese grater?

[Steve C]

It's actually a small drywall scraper. Works great for shaping.

[The King Crabb]

Good to know!

[adam858585]

Looks awesome Steve, especially for your first attempt. Something like this is the UK would probobly cost about £200. Im definately going to follow your thread and design and create my own. When i saw the picture you were trying to re create i thought "how the #%$& is he going to do that". anyway, i take my hat of to you, very good job. You can make me one now

[FishyOne]

Your background looks great! Thanks for sharing the pics and build process.

[stevenp]

jeez wat a neat idea il b followjn this closely make sure you keep uploadin pics as the project progresses

[Steve C]

Just bumping this back up. Because I got a lot of good Aquarium things for Christmas, so I started back working on this again tonight.

Will have some new pics tomorrow.

[Steve C]

Finally some updated pics.....

The last side panel is all done so now the background itself is pretty much finished and ready to install into the tank in the next day or two after a good cleaning and some painting of the bottom of the tank is done.


Side panel...



Filling the tank fully to double check there are no leaks as well as to test out the new water changer...




Some equipment that is ready for the tank....


50ft Vaccum&hose water changer
Blue Cold Cathode lighting (pair of 20" bars and pair of 12" bars) for the cave openings
Dual T5 HO lights
Hydor inline heater
Lifegaurd digital temp gaude with alarm
Normal in tank thermometer
LED Moonlight strips
Timer power strip
Water test kit
Cleaning tools & nets

[Steve C]

First coat of white paint on the bottom (outside of tank). I painted the bottom white because I plan on using white sand so I figure this will help to keep them digging fish from exposing the bottom of the tank a bit.



And after 2nd coat is dry, tank flipped over and glass all cleaned. Will be siliconing in the background tomorrow.

[18fisher]

i love this link great info,cool idea to paint botom,gonna be doing something like this soon keep updates comeing thanks 18fisher

[DanniGirl]

Looks great so far! Very creative...

[CITADELGRAD87]

Looks good, Steve. I like how this is coming together. Great idea painting the bottom to counter the diggers. Interested to see how that looks in action.

[tim_s]

Wow not a single reply? is my idea that bad?? like I said open to suggestion, if there's no reply because you don't like the concept please let me know, I don;t take things personal

Sorry buddy!~ I haven't come across your post yet! - looks very good so far.

[Steve C]

Some big steps forward today. Did the final test fit of the background to see if any other small pieces need to be made (a couple small ones do). Also got the new light in position (dual T5 HO bulbs 1 white 1 Actinic Blue). And also tested out all four of the "Open water" cold cathode lighting for the cave openings on both sides. Still have to monkey around with where the spacing & distance of those to get the exact effect I'm looking for but I think I'm pretty close right now.

Lit up with just the dual T5 light







With the Open water cold cathode lighting on...






Steve