Adventures in Aquaria - The KevinVA Story

[Slaphppy7]

My lips are sealed...

[RiversGirl]

Hi Kevin, regarding your "A Series of Bad Decisions", you are a good writer and I'm glad you took the time to share your past experiences here. It was both interesting and entertaining although predictably quite sad. Plus hopefully you can save someone else the heartache of trying the same thing, if they happen to read through your experience before they try it in their own tank.

I'm glad you and your kids are so entertained by - and interested in- King now though. Neat that he knows what bottle is his food and that he follows you. I'll stick to 'peaceful' I think. :)

Your new, huge wall tank sounds dreamy. I look forward to following along.

[steeler58]

Thanks for your story, I guess you must have some "feelings" for the Red Devil, as I take you've never considered re-homing him, or giving him a long time-out in the freezer, LOL. Just seems like a lot of good space going to waste as I remember what a great community tank you had ;-)

[Slaphppy7]

Yep, it was awesome, indeed

[KevinVA]

Hi Kevin, regarding your "A Series of Bad Decisions", you are a good writer and I'm glad you took the time to share your past experiences here. It was both interesting and entertaining although predictably quite sad. Plus hopefully you can save someone else the heartache of trying the same thing, if they happen to read through your experience before they try it in their own tank.

I'm glad you and your kids are so entertained by - and interested in- King now though. Neat that he knows what bottle is his food and that he follows you. I'll stick to 'peaceful' I think. :)

Your new, huge wall tank sounds dreamy. I look forward to following along.

Thank you RG, appreciate that! =] I don't blame you. lol

I'm getting closer to being ready w/ the new tank. It's filled, I have soil/sand and two pieces of drift wood in. The wood is being water-logged as we speak. I just installed a light over the sump (it will have a refugium) and I just received the lights for the main tank today, so I'll be installing that tonight. =] Of course I forgot to share pics/videos, earlier, but hopefully I'll remember to do that soon.

Thanks again and I can't wait to share my new tank with you all.

[KevinVA]

Thanks for your story, I guess you must have some "feelings" for the Red Devil, as I take you've never considered re-homing him, or giving him a long time-out in the freezer, LOL. Just seems like a lot of good space going to waste as I remember what a great community tank you had ;-)

No prob! lol, I've thought about it. I even thought about releasing him into our neighborhood pond (which has bass and snapping turtles). He'd probably be food in there. BUT he's grown on me. He's got a lot of character, plus now we have an aquatic turtle. Man, that video brings back some awesome memories. It's been a while since I've had a beautiful tank like that. My goal is to accomplish that with the 125gal (I think I said 120gal before, but that was off - it's about 18 x 23 x 72). Hopefully I can do it.

[steeler58]

"Go big or go home" Looking forward to the completion of your new tank

[RiversGirl]

Man, that video brings back some awesome memories. It's been a while since I've had a beautiful tank like that. My goal is to accomplish that with the 125gal (I think I said 120gal before, but that was off - it's about 18 x 23 x 72). Hopefully I can do it.

I am certain that you will accomplish your goal.

[KevinVA]

Thanks guys, appreciate it!

Sorry it's taken me so long to post images. I forgot how I did it the last time I was here, and just remembered that I used my own site to host them. So, here... we... go!

I purchased my new 125gal tank before we moved to the house. We moved it with us and I think it took me about 3yrs to finally make a move. lol

I purchased probably about 12 pressure treated 2"x4"x8's last June to build my stand.


It was my first build, so this was new to me. It took a few hours and about 100 #8 2.5" screws to finish. I think it came out pretty well, especially for a first time. After this, I actually built a firewood holder with the same frame build (without the weight bearing legs), which took about 45min, so after knowing how to do it and what sizes of wood you'll need, this will take no time at all, if I need to build a new one. It's the easiest thing, once you know how to do it, and it's a fast build, so it's perfect for our needs.


After some thought, I actually did replace the top frame with 2x6s. I was worried that the weight of the filled tank might risk the integrity of the 2x4s, since they're a narrower board. Everything else would be fine. When this was done, I added plywood to the top (with cutouts for the sump connections) and bottom for the sump.

I literally let the tank stand sit for about 9 months, before doing anything else. My first idea was to place the 125gal where the 75gal was in the basement, but after mulling it over for about 3 minutes (and knowing this was something I've always wanted to do), I decided on making it an in-wall/windowed tank. I already discovered that the wall I had in mind was not a load bearing wall, but I was still a little worried, because once you start, you can't go back... Well, you can go back, but if you do, you'll have to replace studs, replace the drywall, repaint, etc. Not fun, especially if you get scared and change your mind, etc. So in March of this year, I said "to hell with it" and cut out my window with the Sawzall.

I didn't take a picture of the demo, but here it is framed out and getting patched on the outside.


Here it is from the inside.


This will be the fish's point of view. You can see the 75gal on the other side of the room. It's gross. ;P


Here's the front painted. You can also see the framing board I purchased. I got about 3 8ft boards which were plenty, but I made a bad cut and had to purchase a 4th. Not a bad loss, though. Thankfully this stuff isn't very expensive.


I used 2x4s to frame out the window. I used screws to keep the beams stabilized, so that it won't dip. I then used finishing wood to frame that out with finishing nails and wood glue, just so I had nicer wood to paint. After that, I cut my trimming and created the outside frame of the window.


Once I was finished the stand and the window, I also wanted to make my life a little easier on the back end. As you all know, aquariums require electrical sockets for lights/heaters/pumps/filters/etc, so I decided to run a few more sockets in the tank room. I added one up top (for lights) and two on the bottom (for everything else). The one in the middle is facing the viewing area, the other two are facing in, so I can use them.







This all took about 4-5 weeks to complete (in between working/eating/kid stuff/tv/etc). Multiple trips to Lowes, hours of sawing, building, patching, sanding and painting. It was a little intimidating at first, but once you get started, things start to come together and you know exactly what to do (or you hope you do) next. This seems like a somewhat hefty post, so I'll continue this later. More to come and hopefully the images resize once I post this, because I forgot how big they actually are. If they don't resize, then I guess I'll have to fix it later. lol

[Slaphppy7]

Nice adventure, thanks for sharing, bud.