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The
Making of a Plywood Tank.
After
reading the idea of a plywood marine aquarium on
www.garf.org
I wanted to take the idea just a little further, and make a
whole reef set up from plywood. That's Tank, Stand, Hood and
Sump tanks.
Here is my story so far.
Obviously the main stand supports required something
a little stronger than plywood but this has been my only change
from the idea of all plywood.
I decided to make this tank just a little lower in height
than my current 300 gal system. The requirements for me was
to make the whole thing as small as possible while keeping the
tank at around 300 gal. I wanted to be able to feed without
having to stand on a chair and also be able to reach almost
anywhere in the tank without removing any water.
Another requirement was in the hood. I wanted to have
a covered hood but with as much air flow as possible to help
with cooling without the need for fans.
I went with a double skin ply construction for the tank.
That's two separate sheets of plywood glued and fastened together.
The inside of the tank is first coated with fiberglass and then
painted with 4 or more coats of food grade epoxy paint. The
paint I used is made here in Australia by Wattle and is called
Sigma Guard EHB. The front glass was going to be 10 mm as the
tank is only 24 inch high, but I obtained a piece of 12 mm for
a good price so that was used instead.
Overall finish is a marble type paint job done by hand
and coated with a two part clear varnish.
Still to do. Side box to cover chiller.
View of sump
View of one of the lights in hood |
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