Work in Progress: 30g bow front w/ 3d background

So, as I posted in another thread, I just picked up a 30 gallon bow front aquarium for 30$, and found an entertainment center at goodwill for 20$ that fits it perfectly. After spending about 60$ at the hardware store today, I was all set to start building. Here's the aquarium and stand first:

 

First step was reinforcing the tank platform so it could hold the weight, I wouldnt trust this particle board on its own (and its all held together with those stupid little joint screws). A couple 2x4x8's and some cutting later, and I'm confident it can hold the weight of 30 gallons of water:

 

Next step was building my new DIY canister filter out of PVC pipe. This was where most of the 60$ at the store went, those fittings add up quick: Here's the water return, I'm hoping this works out but I didnt glue this section in case I need to change it. I used a T fitting with two endcaps and drilled holes along one side, hopefully this will create good water flow across the top of the aquarium: Then I started cutting and fitting styrofoam sheets to make the DIY 3d background: The styrofoam sheets are all glued together with silicone. It's in four different sections, since the center support on the top of the tank makes it difficult to put larger pieces in. Obviously a bunch of squares don't look very natural, so here's the result after carving everything down: Next I hardened the surface of the styrofoam by heating it, and then whipped up some hydraulic water stop cement to start painting it. I've only got one coat on at the moment, and this first coat was pretty thin, but there will probably be 3-4 more coats by the time I'm done: Also painted the canister filter black. I'm still waiting on the Taam Rio+ 1100 pump to arrive, it should be here tuesday:

 

Things are coming along very nicely now, here's a setup of the background outside of the tank from earlier today. I added a final coat of cement and then sprinkled sand over it to add some color and texture: Then it was time to put everything inside the aquarium and start sealing it in place with silicone. The silicone on the back of each piece refused to stick to the aquarium glass (the pieces don't sit perfectly flush with it, despite my efforts), so I sealed around the top, edges, and parts of the bottom. I also ran an air line behind the 3d background with a length sticking out of the top and a few inches out of the bottom so that I can hook up my air stone with everything being hidden: After that silicone was relatively hardened/cured, I added more cement between each piece to seal the various gaps: Also, in an effort to keep my airstone completely hidden and make it a natural part of the aquarium, I had this idea to make a geothermal vent or 'volcano' using leftover lava rock from my filter. I formed several pieces of the rock around a spare piece of 2" pvc pipe and glued them together with silicone: After it had cured, I wasn't pleased with how flimsy it was, so I added some cement to the inside of the structure and to the bottom. This way the cement isn't really visible as much on the surface, but it holds the volcano together a little better: This will be going over the top of a 3" round bubble column airstone, so hopefully it will look like a natural volcanic vent underwater leaking gasses up from the center.

 

Looks good so far!

 

Water is in, pump and filter are working, time to aquascape! Added sand substrate and more lava rocks around the volcanic vent formation for now, going to look into getting some marimo mossballs and other green plants soon.

 

made a DIY water clarifier by hooking up my water pump to a bottle filled with polyfill, the water clarity is so much better this morning:

 

Brillant keep us updated

 

PH was up to like 8.6-9.0 or something super high like that, so I did the first big water change, about 75%, and poured vinegar in over the background. Current PH is super low now, showing yellow on the ph graph with a liquid test kit. Going to let it sit for a day and then do another big water change and see where I'm at then. Also went ahead and added a dose of smartstart bacteria to start cycling the filter, hopefully within another week or two I can have this thing ready to put the first fishies in.

 

Worked on the aquascaping a little more and added a temporary battery powered led strip

 

My wife says the beam of light on the center structure makes it look like some kind of holy shrine. Shrine to cthulu maybe? Lol

 

Cut out the lid today from a sheet of acrylic, had a few mistakes as this was my first time working with this type of material but it came out ok I think:

 

Well, despite the money and time I put into it, I think once I get my next paycheck I'm going to scrap the canister filter I made for this tank and re-design it. with the power head attached it vibrates like crazy against the aquarium frame and glass, and because of how I have the pvc pipes coming into the tank it makes the lid a mess to fit on. I'm going to rework the filter using a larger pipe, bulkheads, and flexible vinyl tubing. Hopefully the result will be a much cleaner looking filter that's easier to work on.