Nice Stand

The stand that I got with the tank was actually not in too bad of shape!  That said, I wanted it to look better and the light colored wood stain didn't match any of my other furniture in my home.  Here is a before picture.

 I used a power hand sander to take off the previous stain after removing the doors.  I spent a few bucks at Home Depot and got a nice can of semi gloss back paint.  I didn't want too much of a shine but I wanted a nice looking piece of furniture as well as something that would hold up better to getting wet from time to time.  Here is the finished stand.

I was pretty pleased with how it turned out!  I do think I am going to give it some new hardware including new hinges and possibly some nice modern handles.  Here is the tank on top of it.  

Sorry about the glare on the tank.  Overall A great clean up from what it was when I got it.  I plan to most likely build a canopy for the top to hide the lighting system and the top rim of the tank.  

The Clean Up

As you may have noticed from my last post that the tank I found was in really bad shape.  It had the worst Calcium Buildup (often called Limescale) that I have ever seen on an aquarium!  That is not to say that it is not an issue that plagues aquarists.   More than likely if you live on the plant earth, you have hard water in the tap.  In fact, even if your home has a water softener it does not guarantee that the water coming out is in fact soft.  In most cases the water softener is only attached to the HOT water which means your regular Cold water is just as hard as your neighbors water.  Anyways, I am not writing about all the details about what hard water is.  Instead I wanted to show you how I got rid of the scale on my tank!

Here is a picture just to remind you of what I was dealing with!

There are several things I used to clean the glass.  Keep in mind that obviously I don't have a full tank with fish in it so I could use some materials/chemicals that you may not want to put into your tank once it is full.  I have found that distilled white vinegar works very well for most scale issues so that is where I started.

Using a rough side of a sponge I worked at the scale with the vinegar and I made some good headway.  For the tougher scale I used a putty knife (generally ok as long as the knife is relatively new with no dents or imperfections on the blade) to scrape off the tougher stuff.  Many people choose to use a new razor blade to do the same thing.  As I said this is generally ok and "shouldn't" scratch the glass but is to be used with caution.  Never use this method for removing scale on acrylic tanks as they will scratch/cut/mutilate your tank!

I also had some decorative water fountain scale remover known as "Protec" around from a previous job that I used to work that I used to finish up the process.  Protec is good stuff normally added directly to the water in decorative water fountains to breakdown and/or prevent the scale buildup and it works pretty good though I don't think it is safe for fish so I don't recommend adding it to your aquarium.  A bottle of this costs about $15 though I got mine for less for being a dealer at the time.

Here is the finished product!  I would say it is about 95% at this point and I may do a little more before I start it up.  I filled it up with the hose outside to make sure that it holds water and I think it does just fine though I think I am going to do some work resealing it just to be sure.  I don't want 55 Gallons of water inside my house!  :-)

Finding a Tank

There are a few main components of a setting up a tank that are what I call the "big hitters."  These are the components that in and of themselves most often are the most expensive or are the largest portions of a tank set up.  In my opinion this includes the actual tank, the stand, the filtration and lighting.  As I am collecting all of these over a period of time I felt that the first step was to find a tank.

There are all kinds of tank shapes and sizes as well as glass tanks and acrylic tanks.  I feel like most people start small for their first tank and end up with a 10 Gallon aquarium.  I feel like that size is so limited especially when it comes to stocking the tank with fish!  Many people consider that you should have at least 1 gallon of water per inch of fish (though hobbyists will argue this "number").  That leaves room for between 5 and 8 very small fish.  I wanted to start bigger!  Honestly I wanted a 40 gallon breeder tank because it seemed like a good size but it also has more depth (front to back) than most tanks.  

Because I am on a budget I knew that it may be more cost efficient to buy a used tank instead of a new one from the store so I started my search for  40 gallon breeders on my local craigslist.  There were quite a few tanks out there but mostly not what I was looking for.  Lots of failed 10 gallons tanks, and some other larger tanks that people have had sitting around since the dawn of the dinosaurs!  Most people were trying to sell the whole setup with filters and lights, which for some might be good but not for me as I am looking to get specific equipment and it mostly drove up the price of the tanks that I was looking at.

Finally I spent an afternoon with my dad and I told him of my plans to set up an aquarium (at the time I was still planning on salt water).  I told him of my research and what I was "dreaming" about and a few days to a week later he sends me these pictures that he took next to a dumpster at his apartment complex.

It wasn't the exact tank size and shape I was looking for but it definitely WAS the price I was looking for!  I went that night and picked up this 50 gallon tank and stuffed it into my Prius!

 The Stand is slightly old fasioned but I plan to update it a little but hey a free tank and stand cannot be beat!

As you can see the tank needs a lot of work!  I have had to help several people deal with a limescale build-up on their tanks but this was the worst case I have ever seen. I'm sure that process will end up on another post though.

I am stoked to have the first part of my project out of the way and it didn't cost me anything!  If I was to buy a brand new 50 gallon tank with a stand it would probably cost between $250-350.  Now to clean it up...  :-)

The Beginning

Three years ago I began working at a pet store and was trained in the the care and maintenance of all kinds of animals including dogs, cats, reptiles, small furries, and fish (mainly freshwater).  I had never previously considered owning an aquarium and even though I have now worked around them for several years now I have not yet set one up myself.  I started to find that any time I would visit someone or some place that had an aquarium I would "HAVE" to spend several minutes viewing and admireing each tank for what it had.  I found that every tank was very different from the decorations, to the pumps, to the cleanliness, to the fish and so on and I found what I liked and what I didn't.  Because of my work experience in the aquatics department I have learned all the basics of what it takes to start and maintain aquariums as well as give advice and solutions to customers with questions and I would consider myself an intermediate aquariest from maintaining work tanks, though I have never had my own.

My interest in the hobby has compounded in the last 2 years to the point where I have decided to get one going and begin my own fish tank adventure!  Now to decide what kind of tank I want.  Though I have worked mainly with fresh water, I do have several close friends with salt water aquariums.  I found that I liked the color, personalities, and variety of salt water fish much more than the tiny twitchy tetra's found in most fresh water tanks these days as well as I liked the idea of small corals and the mini ecosystem that you create in a salt tank.  After doing a fair amount of research I knew that I could do it and be successful, but I also learned that my with my current budget and the extra time it would take to maintain (plus my lack of experience in the field) I was only dreaming!!!

But that didn't completely stop me.  I was slightly turned off to fresh water tanks for a while because I didn't think they could ever be as "COOL" as a salt water tank (though many will argue this topic).  The fish just weren't as personable, the decorations not as cool, etc.  But what I needed was to find the right fish and the right decorations in the right way to make a tank that I would not only love designing and creating but one that I would continue to grow in knowledge, experience, and deeper into the hobby.  There are way more interesting freshwater fish than what you will find in a larger corporate chain pet store and much more than "pea" gravel, ugly plastic plants, and pirate sculls to decorate a tank with.

In addition to friends with salt tanks, I also have friends with live planted fresh water tanks.  It was sort of an accident but also semi directed when I started looking online at planted tanks.  I found that "Aquascaping" is a growing hobby amoung aquariests and I found the artistic inspiration I needed for my own fresh water tank!  I wanted to have an entire living ecosystem and not just fish swimming around objects.  This was the perfect solution to my dilemma and I felt that my budget would be "more" allowing towards this direction though it would still be more challenging and expensive than simply keeping fish. 

I felt that this blog would be a perfect way for me dive deeper into the hobby as I learn and share my successes and failiers (hopfully more successes ;-) ) but mostly as a journal to keep record of the entire process as I expect to take my time on each step so that I do it right!

Always open to comments and advice!