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My 55g Mbuna tank project

109K views 225 replies 72 participants last post by  ilm121209 
#1 ·
Figured I would start this post so I can keep track/show progress each step along the way on this project.

First off it's funny how things can snowball so much. Because I have been out of Aquariums/keeping fish for over 15 yrs and just a few weeks ago decided to get back into it. I planned on getting just a 10g tank with some community fish to sit on top of the entertainment center. And some how that turned into a 55g mbuna tank that I am building the stand, canopy, 3D background as well as other things for myself. Guess you can tell I am the type of person that can get hooked on/obsessed with something pretty quickly :lol: Anyway on to the project....

Started out with a 55g tank I found on Craigslist. I paid $60 for the 55G and a 20g "long" tank both from the same seller. I plan to use the 20g long tank as a temp/hospital tank. The only problem with the 55g was that for whatever reason the previous owner decided to remove the center support brace. He obviously was not a very handy type of person because it looked like he removed the brace with an axe :eek:

Starting out...


So I had to remove the factory top trim and order a new trim for it. Removing it wasn't all that hard, just more of a pain in the rear because it takes awhile to cut all the silicone that holds it on the tank. I used a 4.5" paint scraper and worked it all along the outside & inside of the trim to finally get it to come off. Then I had the LFS order me a new top trim which only cost $15. They could only get me the black trim but that's not a problem because I will be building an all wood canopy so the trim will not even be visible...



Now I have started on my 3D background for the tank. After spending some time trying to decide what shape of rocks I want to make it look like and what design I wanted, I came up with something a bit different than I have seen so far. Since the tank is 13" wide I didn't want to do a background that sticks out too far into the tank where I would lose 1/3 the water volume for the fish to swim in. So what I decided on was this. I bought 6 sheets of 3/4" styrofoam and have siliconed together 3 sheets to make the thickness 2.250" at the thickest part as seen here......



Then for the design I am doing it so there are two (maybe even three) "openings" in the background. The reason for this is it will leave more room for the fish to swim, pluse it will actually give the illusion of depth in the tank to make it seem bigger. Because in the two/three openings that I leave between the "rocks" of the background I plan to airbrush the back of the tank where the glass shows with a shaded light to dark blue and then mount two 20" Cold Cathode light bars behind the tank. What that will do is give the inside of the tank the appearance of being in an underwater cave, and the two/three openings with the airbrushed blue shades and the blue Cold Cathode lights reflecting behind the opening will make it look like you can see out of the cave out into deeper "open water" of the lake.

This is a picture I was looking at online which gave me the idea to try it this way. So this will give you a basic idea of what I'm going for...



My background will be about 6 pieces on the back, then I will have some small pieces on the side to hide the intake and return tubes for the Rena xP3 filter and powerhead.

So I started out tonight shaping the first of the pieces. I found a single hand hacksaw, a small drywall scraper, and a round reamer made from a section of a fishing rod with some sanding grit epoxied to it made for the perfect tools for shaping my rocks.

The start of roughing in the edges of the first two pieces that will form the first "cave opening"....





And the first three pieces roughed in and mocked up in the tank so I can see what more shaping I need to do on this half of the background....



As you can see from this picture doing it this way I think will still give me a nice 3D look and will not take up all that much room inside the tank which was one of my main goals with this.

That's as far as I got this weekend, will post more updates as I get farther along. Hope you all enjoy and feel free to comment or make any suggestions, I am always open to suggestions and ideas I may not have thought of yet.

 
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#28 ·
Thanks everyone. This is my first real foray into making a "nice" tank so I'm pretty happy with how it's coming along so far.

Something else I am thinking about doing is rather than doing just blue tinted "moon lighting" I'm thinking about using some LED's in a bit of a fan formation in the upper right hand corner and angle them so they sweep across the tank from right upper to left lower. Basically to make it look like moon light is shining through a opening in the top of the cave. Also thinking about putting the Cold Cathode lights on a dimmer switch so I can lower the brightness of the "open water" lights to match the moon lights.

Not sure about that one right now either because I don't want to get ahead of myself, still have a lot left to to on just the background still. Really enjoying it though so far, glad I got back into the hobby after so many years away from it.
 
#30 ·
Well things are moving along well on this now. The complete back is done as well as the left side panel. All that is left now is the right side panel and then the whole background unit will be done and I can then start on building the wood stand, canopy, and lighting system for it.

I went back over the whole thing today with some flat drab olive green and dry brushed that on to many of the areas to give it the look of algae growing on the rock walls. Because I like the look of algae on the rocks but once the tank is up I don;t want to have it anywhere else, so I figured since I made my own background..why not make my own algae :lol: So now it has light grey for the main color, then dark grey in the creases, earth tone brown in some spots, olive drab in others. Then I went back over all the raised portions with white paint and dry brushed all those raised high spots to give it the look of being worn and lighter on the tips of the rocks.

Once I get the right panel done (which I started tonight) then I'll be finished with the background. In the meantime I cleaned the tank today and placed it all in there to snap a picture...







 
#31 ·
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....
 
#35 ·
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 :)
 
#38 ·
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.
 
#39 ·
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
 
#40 ·
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.

 
#45 ·
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
 
#47 ·
:eek: :drooling: :dancing: :fish: =D> :thumb:
 
#48 ·
This is coming along amazingly - it makes me want to try it myself.

Perhaps for those of us who wish to duplicate - or attempt to duplicate - you could do a writeup or even just list out the materials you used as well as techniques/things you did that you thought worked or didn't work out well. (For instance, I noticed you had mentioned potentially airbrushing a light blue for the cave cutout but chose to go with lightblue christmas paper instead... things like that)

Regardless, this is a sweet idea and I am definitely inspired. What are you stocking the tank with?
 
#49 ·
Perhaps for those of us who wish to duplicate - or attempt to duplicate - you could do a writeup or even just list out the materials you used as well as techniques/things you did that you thought worked or didn't work out well. (For instance, I noticed you had mentioned potentially airbrushing a light blue for the cave cutout but chose to go with lightblue christmas paper instead... things like that)
Sure I can do that once I get it all finished. I'm actually trying a few different papers right now to see what the different effects are and which I like best. Just picked up some blue tinted transparent foil which I'm gonna give a try and see what that looks like.
 
#50 ·
:drooling: That tank is amazing! Great job Steve C :thumb:

bwestgsx06 said:
Perhaps for those of us who wish to duplicate - or attempt to duplicate - you could do a writeup or even just list out the materials you used as well as techniques/things you did that you thought worked or didn't work out well. (For instance, I noticed you had mentioned potentially airbrushing a light blue for the cave cutout but chose to go with lightblue christmas paper instead... things like that)

+1
 
#51 ·
Thanks guys..and sorry bwestgsx06 I forgot you asked what I was stocking it with. Original plan was to do around 14-16 Mbunas, but since this project started I have completely fallen in love with Peacocks so now I plan to do about 8 peacocks of different variety in it. Haven't set it in stone as to exactly which ones yet, still thumbing through books & this site looking at different ones.
 
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