Ashibashi
Community Member
Hey guys! I've spent the last 4 or 5 months completely obsessed with reef tanks and over the last 2 months or so I've been slowly and patiently gathering things for my build. I started a few bits and pieces like hanna testing kits, misc medicines and additives that I managed to snag for really good prices by lurking on the marketplace forums here.
It got real when one day I happened to catch Marine Depot during the first day of their liquidation sale, and I committed to an IM 40 nuvo tank. I got it for only $300! (Squirtle and a shoe for scale)
After that I got started building the stand with help from my SO who is a very practiced carpenter. I originally wanted to have the stand be only as deep as the floor of the tank, so that the overflow box would hang over the back and the plumbing would be exposed. However I ultimately caved to his insistence that the back of the stand be flush with the wall for earthquake safety (socal). I decided this actually works out better for me since it makes more room in the stand for the sump, ATO and so on.
Here's the stand the day we brought it over from his house to mine, unpainted with the tank on it.
Its built of 3/4" plywood and all the joints are "rabbitted", which is a new word i learned in the course of this build. Basically we shaved away grooves along the edges to slot the pieces together.
I decided to paint it matte black. After that grabbed some nice metal handles from home depot which had a flat black metal finish with a coppery/bronze distressed effect on the ends. I really liked the way that looked and decided I was going to try to achieve the same effect on the stand, and found a product called rub n buff in a copper color that looks really nice on furniture refurb youtube videos. Hopefully I'll do the final matte black coat today and finally get to see if I like it.
I took the hardware off and set the doors aside to do separately. Here's the stand after 3 coats of Kilz original interior primer, sanded gently between each coat. The stuff is really easy to work with and leaves a cakey powdery coat behind that is extremely easy to sand down smooth.
The black paint however was another story. Im using Behr flat black paint + primer spray paint. I found it utterly impossible to get a nice even finish, but honestly I attribute the struggle entirely to my inexperience. I wasn't sanding it well enough between layers because the sanded matte paint looked really scratched and ugly which freaked me out so I was too gentle, plus I was doing this in a poorly lit garage with a crappy CFL bulb in a clip-on metal utility shade to try to see which only served to light up the cloud of vapor from behind so I couldn't really see how it was coming out. I've been to home depot again (4 trips, guys. Buy at least double the amount of primer and paint you think you need from the get-go. You can always return the unused ones) and I got the most yoked butt bright CERN photonblaster 9000 lumen miner headlamp I could find. WORTH.
This is how it looked after the 2nd coat. Since this I've sanded its butt off and wiped away the dust with a ramp rag (extremely critical step I had been neglecting. Dry rag doesn't work. Have to use damp and be patient as it dries.)
Also - buy SO many drop cloths. I did and draped them over all the motorcycles and chrome nice things around me. Im very glad I did, it gets everywhere.
Once I'm satisfied with the coverage I'm going to drill holes for the piping to go through and plan the plumbing. Then I'll need to put painters tape down and prime/paint just the inner surface of that freshly exposed wood. Do not be dumb like me. Think of this fact ahead of time. Drill that bad boy first.
Meanwhile the entire time this has been going on, I've been cycling some dry pukani rock I got off of the marketplace forum here. I got a 32 gallon brute trash can and 2 10 gallons. Made ~10 gallons of saltwater, enough to cover the rocks, and threw in a Marineland maxi-jet 1200 submersible pump, some turbostart and some ammonia solution. I had to try to get to 2 ppm but without knowing exactly what volume of water I had it was a bit tricky. Luckily I had weighed each portion of salt I added and knew how much it had taken to get me to 1.024 sg salinity, so I backed out the approximate volume based on that. Luckily I nailed it; the next day I brought an ammonia test back from petco and measured it and it was dead on.
I kept testing ammonia and salinity every day. On day 2 it was still 2 ppm and on day 3 it had clearly dropped, so I added 20 more drops. On day 5 it was down to nearly 0.25 ppm so I dosed the same volume of ammonia solution I had on day 1, which got me to between 5 and 8 ppm. This was about 7 AM yesterday morning. I was worried that this might stall the cycle as the Dr Tim's instructions says it might. But I tested it again before I went to bed, only around 14 hours later, and it was all the way down to 2 ppm again! Its working!
Above is yesterday after dosing at 7 AM
And this is 14 hours later at 9 PM. BACTERIA!!
It got real when one day I happened to catch Marine Depot during the first day of their liquidation sale, and I committed to an IM 40 nuvo tank. I got it for only $300! (Squirtle and a shoe for scale)
After that I got started building the stand with help from my SO who is a very practiced carpenter. I originally wanted to have the stand be only as deep as the floor of the tank, so that the overflow box would hang over the back and the plumbing would be exposed. However I ultimately caved to his insistence that the back of the stand be flush with the wall for earthquake safety (socal). I decided this actually works out better for me since it makes more room in the stand for the sump, ATO and so on.
Here's the stand the day we brought it over from his house to mine, unpainted with the tank on it.
Its built of 3/4" plywood and all the joints are "rabbitted", which is a new word i learned in the course of this build. Basically we shaved away grooves along the edges to slot the pieces together.
I decided to paint it matte black. After that grabbed some nice metal handles from home depot which had a flat black metal finish with a coppery/bronze distressed effect on the ends. I really liked the way that looked and decided I was going to try to achieve the same effect on the stand, and found a product called rub n buff in a copper color that looks really nice on furniture refurb youtube videos. Hopefully I'll do the final matte black coat today and finally get to see if I like it.
I took the hardware off and set the doors aside to do separately. Here's the stand after 3 coats of Kilz original interior primer, sanded gently between each coat. The stuff is really easy to work with and leaves a cakey powdery coat behind that is extremely easy to sand down smooth.
The black paint however was another story. Im using Behr flat black paint + primer spray paint. I found it utterly impossible to get a nice even finish, but honestly I attribute the struggle entirely to my inexperience. I wasn't sanding it well enough between layers because the sanded matte paint looked really scratched and ugly which freaked me out so I was too gentle, plus I was doing this in a poorly lit garage with a crappy CFL bulb in a clip-on metal utility shade to try to see which only served to light up the cloud of vapor from behind so I couldn't really see how it was coming out. I've been to home depot again (4 trips, guys. Buy at least double the amount of primer and paint you think you need from the get-go. You can always return the unused ones) and I got the most yoked butt bright CERN photonblaster 9000 lumen miner headlamp I could find. WORTH.
This is how it looked after the 2nd coat. Since this I've sanded its butt off and wiped away the dust with a ramp rag (extremely critical step I had been neglecting. Dry rag doesn't work. Have to use damp and be patient as it dries.)
Also - buy SO many drop cloths. I did and draped them over all the motorcycles and chrome nice things around me. Im very glad I did, it gets everywhere.
Once I'm satisfied with the coverage I'm going to drill holes for the piping to go through and plan the plumbing. Then I'll need to put painters tape down and prime/paint just the inner surface of that freshly exposed wood. Do not be dumb like me. Think of this fact ahead of time. Drill that bad boy first.
Meanwhile the entire time this has been going on, I've been cycling some dry pukani rock I got off of the marketplace forum here. I got a 32 gallon brute trash can and 2 10 gallons. Made ~10 gallons of saltwater, enough to cover the rocks, and threw in a Marineland maxi-jet 1200 submersible pump, some turbostart and some ammonia solution. I had to try to get to 2 ppm but without knowing exactly what volume of water I had it was a bit tricky. Luckily I had weighed each portion of salt I added and knew how much it had taken to get me to 1.024 sg salinity, so I backed out the approximate volume based on that. Luckily I nailed it; the next day I brought an ammonia test back from petco and measured it and it was dead on.
I kept testing ammonia and salinity every day. On day 2 it was still 2 ppm and on day 3 it had clearly dropped, so I added 20 more drops. On day 5 it was down to nearly 0.25 ppm so I dosed the same volume of ammonia solution I had on day 1, which got me to between 5 and 8 ppm. This was about 7 AM yesterday morning. I was worried that this might stall the cycle as the Dr Tim's instructions says it might. But I tested it again before I went to bed, only around 14 hours later, and it was all the way down to 2 ppm again! Its working!
Above is yesterday after dosing at 7 AM
And this is 14 hours later at 9 PM. BACTERIA!!
Last edited:
