Back in the Water

RoudyRick · Dec 29, 2023

Hello all. I'll try to make my story short. I've been with tropical fish for 45+ years now. Not always deep in but always had a tank except when I was in Nam. Probably fresh water for the first 10 years then on to salt. I built my first tank sometime in the 70's using plywood and glass, work very well. Then I bought an all glass tank about 120 gals in the 80's but built the stand. We were planning to move in 2005 to Oregon and and emptied the tank and prepared it for moving, it was VERY heavy. I left it standing on its end in the yard overnight, big mistake. It got windy and knocked it over, glass everywhere! The glass filled my curbside recycle bin to the top. Come trash pickup day they couldn't lift it with the trucks levers LOL! After they looked inside they couldn't believe what was in it. They had to send a special truck to pick it up. After a couple years here in Oregon I decided I need to get another tank but NOT glass (another mistake) had one built by a local shop out of plexiglass with a wood stand. Had it built to fit a bedroom closet that was now the library. 198 gallons with a 30 gal sump in the base. I did all the plumbing and electrical. Lots of changes in the last 15 years but it's fun to watch. My biggest problem has been the plexiglass, soooo easy to scratch and it gets worse all the time. After the first 5 years I took down the tank and had everything living in two 30 gal trash cans while I cleaned and polished the plexiglass. Put everything back together and used all the special item for cleaning plexiglass without scratching it, didn't work for long

\ That's the first thing I'll be researching here to find a solution. Worse comes to worse I may tear the tank down again and insert a glass panel in the front. I'll post some pictures of the setup as soon as I learn how to do things here.