I was in the hobby 13 years ago with a 55 gallon tank. I had it for about a year and just as it started to mature I moved and took it down. I loved the hobby while I was in it and always wanted to return. Well I’m back with a 120. For all intents and purposes, I’m very much a newbie.
First off I just want to thank all of you here for the amazing support answering a lot of my newbie questions. If not for you guys this hobby would be impossible. Secondly this build is a budget build. There are so many amazing tanks on here that the attention to detail is truly beyond a professional product. The equipment put into them is state of the art and top of the line. It’s a true masterpiece. This is not going to be one of those builds. I want to do things right and buy good equipment the first time, but my budget isn’t going to allow bells and whistles like an Apex. I saved some equipment from my 55 from years ago and I am reusing as much of it as I can. For example a Current Nova Extreme Pro 6 bulb T5 fixture.
It’s been a bit of a ride over the past year. In January of 2019 I started to gather equipment over the next 12 months. I started with a used 120 Aqueon Mega Flow I found on Craigslist which was my first newbie mistake. I did not inspect the tank very well at all, bought it for $250 and brought it home. It sat in my basement until December at which point I had gathered enough equipment to start building my stand.
I have 3 kids ages 1, 5 and 8. Finding time to do anything is difficult. I had 2 vacation days to use before the end of the year or otherwise I would lose them. I decided to take off the Thursday and Friday off before Christmas to build my stand. I was super excited that this was the commencement of my build. I go to bed that Wednesday with plans running through my head and putting together a material list and then boom, baby is sick and guess who’s already staying home from work? Plans cancelled. At any rate, it took a two full months to complete my stand and canopy build, and put everything together.
After I had my stand done next step was to get the tank cleaned up. As I was working on this I really got a good look at it for the first time. I realized the top brace was cracked in two places and epoxied back together. Red flag #1. The. I had a few deep fingernail catching scratches in the front panel. Red flag #2. And finally I saw the sides had been resealed albeit with a shoddy caulk job. The base looked to be original silicon. Red flag #3. Knowing that silicone can’t bond to silicone, I questioned the seal job, especially long term. I wasn’t even going to waste my time leak testing this hunk of junk. It was time to look for a new tank. I got a quote for a new Aqueon at nearly $1000. I hadn’t budgeted for this expense. After looking around a bit I found a Marineland 120 cornerflow tank, on sale out the door with an additional coupon for $425. Done deal.
Here’s a few pics of what I’ve got going on now.
First off I just want to thank all of you here for the amazing support answering a lot of my newbie questions. If not for you guys this hobby would be impossible. Secondly this build is a budget build. There are so many amazing tanks on here that the attention to detail is truly beyond a professional product. The equipment put into them is state of the art and top of the line. It’s a true masterpiece. This is not going to be one of those builds. I want to do things right and buy good equipment the first time, but my budget isn’t going to allow bells and whistles like an Apex. I saved some equipment from my 55 from years ago and I am reusing as much of it as I can. For example a Current Nova Extreme Pro 6 bulb T5 fixture.
It’s been a bit of a ride over the past year. In January of 2019 I started to gather equipment over the next 12 months. I started with a used 120 Aqueon Mega Flow I found on Craigslist which was my first newbie mistake. I did not inspect the tank very well at all, bought it for $250 and brought it home. It sat in my basement until December at which point I had gathered enough equipment to start building my stand.
I have 3 kids ages 1, 5 and 8. Finding time to do anything is difficult. I had 2 vacation days to use before the end of the year or otherwise I would lose them. I decided to take off the Thursday and Friday off before Christmas to build my stand. I was super excited that this was the commencement of my build. I go to bed that Wednesday with plans running through my head and putting together a material list and then boom, baby is sick and guess who’s already staying home from work? Plans cancelled. At any rate, it took a two full months to complete my stand and canopy build, and put everything together.
After I had my stand done next step was to get the tank cleaned up. As I was working on this I really got a good look at it for the first time. I realized the top brace was cracked in two places and epoxied back together. Red flag #1. The. I had a few deep fingernail catching scratches in the front panel. Red flag #2. And finally I saw the sides had been resealed albeit with a shoddy caulk job. The base looked to be original silicon. Red flag #3. Knowing that silicone can’t bond to silicone, I questioned the seal job, especially long term. I wasn’t even going to waste my time leak testing this hunk of junk. It was time to look for a new tank. I got a quote for a new Aqueon at nearly $1000. I hadn’t budgeted for this expense. After looking around a bit I found a Marineland 120 cornerflow tank, on sale out the door with an additional coupon for $425. Done deal.
Here’s a few pics of what I’ve got going on now.
