"Kudzu" wrote in message
...
Expensive stuff. Glass thickness is your driving cost.

Just found a used 125 driving distance from me. Has some lighting, a
sump
and some other useful items for a really good price.

snipped for bandwidth

Way ahead of you on this. I didn't go into all the details but I was
planning on using many of you ideas. I am going to install a hot and
cold
water line in the cabinet. I am making my own cabinet and I plan on
fiberglassing the bottom and installing a drain pipe into the water
water
lines in the house. Dividing the cabinet physically with a wet and dry
side.
Dedicated electrical curciut GFI protected. I guess Great Minds do
think
alike! :-)

Or at least, common problems have common solutions. Experience is a
great teacher.

snipped a bit, I'm glad you liked the UGF plate intake idea

I am not to crazy about cannister filters. I use them but I really like
a
sump with a fluidized bed filter better.. I can hide pumps and heaters
and
anything else in the sump. I also like the extra water capacity but
with a
125 that won't make much difference. Either way I can still use your
idea. I
think I have some filter plates for this 65G somewhere and they would
fit
perfectly in the 125.

I maintain a well stocked 800g indoor pond with one fluidized filter (a
swimming pool sand filter) and backwash it every day. It's a great
system, especially as I cannot have any plants in there (Koi & poor
lighting). Howerver, the advantages of a fluidized bed (and wet/dry
filters) dimishes IMO as you move towards heavily planted tanks, so it
becomes a choice of personal preferance and familiarity. Large display
tanks so easily become huge gardens, that it's a point of consideration.

At the wall-end, install a 90 degree elbow and run a pipe up the
middle
of the wall-end glass to a U fitting to run canister hose down inside
the
wall to your filter compartment below. You can run this right
through
the wall, but I recommend running them inside some DWV pipes (3"
black
ABS). This makes it easy to route hoses, wires etc up and down
through
the wood framing around your wall-end.

I spent some time this morning at the house looking and thinking.
Running a
water line in the wall is not a problem since they have not started
plumbing
yet. They are still framing at this point. As I sat in the framed up
window
looking where the tank is going and thinking a couple of things occured
to
me. One is anything that runs out of the wall will be visable betweent
the
wall the hood. Only slightly but it will be visable. On a large tank I
like
to make my hood in two pieces. I make a box that will sit on top of the
tank
then split it in half and hinge it. Then you can lift the front of the
hood
up and over and it will rest on top of the back half of the hood. I
have to
have a slight gap between it and wall so it doesn't rub the wall and
skin it
up. Thats where the gap is.

I could change my hood design but this one works very well. It allows
excellent access to the tank. Important with a planted tank. Plus I can
open
either front or back. This is nice for servicing hang-on filters. And
if you
mount lights in each half the tank is always is lite when your working
in
it. I even put switches so I turn off either half so I am not blinded
by it.

After studying a while I decided the best idea is to make the stand 6"
wider than the tank. Then on the wall-end of the stand let it extend up
to
the top of the hood. I can fit this end flush with wall. The 6" space
leaves
me a plumbing chase to run anything up to the tank completely out of
site. I
could also encase the electics in conduit for safety in the chase.
While I
am not crazy aobut the look it makes changes much simpler! If I add
something down the road it would not be hard to do.

The wire chase will definitely save some effort, but introduce an offset
(positive offset, away from wall). Regarding the final appearance, will
it look like an aquarium butted up against a wall, or will it look like
the wall incorporated the aquarium? Do you plan to be able to move &
take the aquarium (so surface patching should be minimized), or is the
tank a feature of the house (ie: final flooring goes around the stand
instead of under), and it would be sold with the house. Built-in
aquariums are like swimming pools, they increase the house value but
reduce the number of potential buyers. In a buyer's market, might be
neutral, but in a seller's market, nice capital return ;o) IMHO.

With built-in's, I like to form the hood/stand into the architecture as
much as possible. An example of this would be a kitchen/dining room
divider tank. The stand was 2x4 framing around kitchen cabinetry. The
kitchen side facing matched the kitchen walls colour/texture and the
kitchen-side cabinet doors were identical to those in the kitchen. The
dining room side stand was faced as the dining room walls. At a glance,
the tank blended in harmoniously.

Similarly, the hood can be an offshoot of the closest wall. Another
example, in a dining room/living room divider, the aquarium is a low
divider and the entire canopy drops from the ceiling (either a fully
closed box, or hung by chains, or chains inside painted pipes to give
cleaner look). The decision to fully close the hood to the ceiling or to
leave open depends on factors such as sight-lines, sunlight directions &
ventilation control (in open concept kitchens).

An offset is a very good idea. Even flush fit installations have a trim
piece to hide the view of the glass edge. A negative offset (into the
wall) is IMO a bit trickier to do, and not really worth it unless there
is enough offset to be able to use it for plumbing concealment. A
positive offset would IMO work best if the wall formed around the tank.
The positive offset adds to the look that the tank emerged from the
house's walls ).

Functional canopy design is hindered by drywall framing, so bringing the
cabinet door look upwards is a common solution. Also using cabinetry to
close the last 8-10 inches above the tank allows you to swing-away for
better access. The last canopy I built opened in 3 stages. There was a
simple hinged door for occasional feeding (auto-feeder took care of the
twice daily flake/pellet mix). Swing-up for serious aquascaping changes
(once or twice a year). Removal for tank tear-downs (half my lighting
was attached to the canopy and the other half was attached to the wall
framing, so I still had some lights for working). For occasional
aquascaping maintainance, design for about 7-8" clearance between tank
edge and closest flourescent tube. Also keep in mind that your reach is
about 24", and more than that and you need to get your shoulder above the
tank.

snipped for bandwidth, I'm glad you liked the backwash idea

Still thinking on lighting but I normally just use a simple timer. On
and
off. Haven't really given any consideration to anything else. But
watching
the lights dim at the end of the cycle would be neat. I never liked the
all
of sudden dark tank when it turned off. But I am used to it too.

On lighting, all my kitchen diningroom and livingroom circuits are on
dimmers, powering halogen lights. I find this gives me the most
flexibility. Depending on tank location, you might find that you would
like to dim the tank lights but still be able to watch the fish if you
wanted to. Wine by the fireplace, sunsets, home theatre movies etc.
This is where you will appreciate the additional lighting control. The
gradual night-time dimming doesn't do anything for me (from a
cost-benefit perspective). I do use 2 stage lighting so tanks do not
plunge into total darkness. This is easily achieved by a small 20W
incandescent bulb on a 2nd timer. You will watch the fish go into their
wind-down routine, postponing quarrels and settling into their preferred
night-time sleeping spots.

I also use a dim wake-up light as I think that it's cruel to push that
many watts of light into a creature which does not have eyelids, but
ideally indirect sunlight wakes them up, so the wake-up light's effect is
only on very dark days (I have my main fluorescents programmed for 11AM
start).

Got to go look at some countertops. Great ideas! Keep them coming!

Ah yes, granite, SSV, laminates... have fun. If using SSV or laminates,
keep the tank away from pressed corners (ie: corner pieces) as water
ingress will cause material expansion (otherwise you need to put a tiny
bead of clear silicone in the gap once a year).

Here is another idea for you (completely untested by me). If you put a
plastic drain pan in the top of an open canopy, and pumped water up to
it, you could fill the canopy 'shelf' with a variety of terrestrial
plants feeding off of your water's nitrates (especially useful if your
nitrate production exceeds your internal nitrate removal rate). The
water could return down in a waterfall effect (for your acoustic
enjoyment), or silently down an angled hose. The terrestrial garden
above would never need water, and if left to overhang down the sides
towards the aquarium, would made a very pleasing center piece. Also
useful to hide any chains holding the far-end of the canopy. If
considering something like this though, you would probably only want to
plan it into the design, and do it later on (I know how much detail
multi-plexing there is in house design _without_ starting new things ;~)

NetMax (not just another pretty fish-face ;~)

--
Kudzu *\\
The man that always tells the truth never has to remember what he said