BeccaBits
New Member
This build starts with a disaster.
For about three years I nursed a JBJ 45 Rimless reef tank. I had customized the heck out of the filtration / lighting / dosing and had it dialed in perfectly. Placed along our second floor hallway outside the kids rooms in our new home, it was a frequent gathering spot to plop down on the floor and watch the corals and fish. "I LOVE this tank," local reefers would hear me say frequently. Say what you want about AIO... but when they're done right they work beautifully with minimal fuss.
(Not the best picture or the most representative of what was in there at the time but wanted to give an idea of location and this was the best I had on hand)
I was never happy with the stand though. The JBJ stand was particle board, held together with those turn locks... it looked fine from a distance but up close it was just another cheaply made stand and after three years I started to get concerned about its stability.
Locally, we have an amazing woodworker that also builds aquarium stands in his spare time. I reached out to him and contracted to have a new, furniture grade stand built. No hurry, I said.
About 4-6 weeks later my husband and I picked up the stand on Sunday morning. I elected to not have him finish out the stand as I wanted to do that myself. We loaded it up, brought it home and carried it to the basement for painting. That'll be a good project for next weekend I said.
The next morning, I was pouring my morning coffee and heard a gun shot! BAMN! ...I turned quickly and saw a flood pouring over the balcony into our newly refinished family room & kitchen, and from there down the basement steps. Rushing upstairs I saw what happened. The "gun shot" was a sudden failure of the glass... a gash up the side of it. SCREAMING for my husband we moved fast... but 45 gallons pouring rapidly down two levels of your home is pretty much impossible to contain.
We worked rapidly to transfer the fish, corals, and inverts to three buckets I had on hand (and from there to the LFS) and vacuum up what we could with a shop vac. We called the insurance company and Servpro (who came out immediately) and our home was torn to bits to dry it out. Walls, ceilings, moldings (including the GORGEOUS new crown in part of the kitchen), floorings.. they followed the water and tore out everything.
Ten days of industrial fans later Servpro left our home. Dry, but considerably damaged. Thankfully, we have insurance... but the emotional hit of losing that well-cared for tank so abruptly and seeing our beautiful home destroyed hit me hard.
I learned some valuable lessons through this experience though.
1) Placing 45 gallons of water on the second floor of a home is probably not wise
2) Rimless/Trimless aquariums are inherently more prone to disaster (that's just simple physics).
3) Aquariums with curved edges are inherently more prone to disaster (again, simple physics as that curvature is simply a purposeful weakening of the glass)
4) A cheap stand will almost certainly lead to disaster. DO NOT compromise a level, secure base for your tank
5) Test regularly for warning signs. I don't know but suspect if I was testing the levelness of this tank routinely I probably would have observed a problem in advance of failure.
BUT... where there is disaster, there is always opportunity. This all happened back in May, and in the interim repairs have been made, dreams have turned into plans and many, many orders have been placed (BRSTV is an expensive influencer).
I'm building my dream tank... this time in my home office (my boudoir) which hovers over unfinished space in the basement. I'll be making use of the stand I had built but with a much nicer (and larger volume) custom built tank tank. No compromises, built to be my "forever" tank (or at least my first one).
Part 2: Down, but not out.
For about three years I nursed a JBJ 45 Rimless reef tank. I had customized the heck out of the filtration / lighting / dosing and had it dialed in perfectly. Placed along our second floor hallway outside the kids rooms in our new home, it was a frequent gathering spot to plop down on the floor and watch the corals and fish. "I LOVE this tank," local reefers would hear me say frequently. Say what you want about AIO... but when they're done right they work beautifully with minimal fuss.
(Not the best picture or the most representative of what was in there at the time but wanted to give an idea of location and this was the best I had on hand)
I was never happy with the stand though. The JBJ stand was particle board, held together with those turn locks... it looked fine from a distance but up close it was just another cheaply made stand and after three years I started to get concerned about its stability.
Locally, we have an amazing woodworker that also builds aquarium stands in his spare time. I reached out to him and contracted to have a new, furniture grade stand built. No hurry, I said.
About 4-6 weeks later my husband and I picked up the stand on Sunday morning. I elected to not have him finish out the stand as I wanted to do that myself. We loaded it up, brought it home and carried it to the basement for painting. That'll be a good project for next weekend I said.
The next morning, I was pouring my morning coffee and heard a gun shot! BAMN! ...I turned quickly and saw a flood pouring over the balcony into our newly refinished family room & kitchen, and from there down the basement steps. Rushing upstairs I saw what happened. The "gun shot" was a sudden failure of the glass... a gash up the side of it. SCREAMING for my husband we moved fast... but 45 gallons pouring rapidly down two levels of your home is pretty much impossible to contain.
We worked rapidly to transfer the fish, corals, and inverts to three buckets I had on hand (and from there to the LFS) and vacuum up what we could with a shop vac. We called the insurance company and Servpro (who came out immediately) and our home was torn to bits to dry it out. Walls, ceilings, moldings (including the GORGEOUS new crown in part of the kitchen), floorings.. they followed the water and tore out everything.
Ten days of industrial fans later Servpro left our home. Dry, but considerably damaged. Thankfully, we have insurance... but the emotional hit of losing that well-cared for tank so abruptly and seeing our beautiful home destroyed hit me hard.
I learned some valuable lessons through this experience though.
1) Placing 45 gallons of water on the second floor of a home is probably not wise
2) Rimless/Trimless aquariums are inherently more prone to disaster (that's just simple physics).
3) Aquariums with curved edges are inherently more prone to disaster (again, simple physics as that curvature is simply a purposeful weakening of the glass)
4) A cheap stand will almost certainly lead to disaster. DO NOT compromise a level, secure base for your tank
5) Test regularly for warning signs. I don't know but suspect if I was testing the levelness of this tank routinely I probably would have observed a problem in advance of failure.
BUT... where there is disaster, there is always opportunity. This all happened back in May, and in the interim repairs have been made, dreams have turned into plans and many, many orders have been placed (BRSTV is an expensive influencer).
I'm building my dream tank... this time in my home office (my boudoir) which hovers over unfinished space in the basement. I'll be making use of the stand I had built but with a much nicer (and larger volume) custom built tank tank. No compromises, built to be my "forever" tank (or at least my first one).
Part 2: Down, but not out.
Last edited:
