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Seriously, last time I rode was the CX race on Dec 11th!! This is just a busy time of year for us. Neither my wife or I have family locally, so we travel a lot this time of year to see everyone. Between that, work, rain, and my latest project, I just haven’t had time to ride.
And the Snake Creek Gap TT is this weekend! It’ll likely take me 5hrs to do….it’s gonna hurt 😆
Riding the canaltomorrow though! (hopefully anyways, if I can find someone to ride with)
Anyhow, this is what’s been keeping me busy (besides work and travel and holiday stuff). We’re getting ready to set up a 75 gallon aquarium in the living room, I’ve been building the stand the last few weekends. I couldn’t find any all wood (not particle board) stands I liked, so I decided this was a good excuse to finally buy some saws and build my own. pretty happy with how it turned out. We’re getting the big tank in another week or two, for now a little 20G is sitting on the big stand. We’ve had the 20G for a few years now, it’s inhabitants and plants will get transfered to the new tank.
Here’s some pics! The stand started as a plan…
…and took a little figuring…
…then there were pieces…
…which were put together…
…and eventually started looking like a stand…
…got primered…
…and painted and had an antique glaze fuax finish applied…
…and finally moved into the house. It’s pretty big lol, that’s a 50” TV for reference.
Overall I’m happy with how it turned out considering it was my first wood working project that wasn’t a ramp and had to look nice. I learned a lot for sure. It’s seriously overbuilt – I’m not about to risk it collapsing and dumping 800lbs of water and gravel and fish in our living room!
The new tank will be a bigger version (with more fish) of our current set up. All live plants, lots of real driftwood, some angel fish, a group of schooling fish of some sort, a catfish, and a small army of algae eaters.
This is the current set up (can’t see any fish except one little algae eater)
We have a few of the angel fish already, but the big tank will have 6. We’re getting them all as babies and watching ‘em grown. Their bodies are about the size of a nickel or quarter right now.
And here’s Ed, our catfish (a Striped Raphael/Chocolate Doradid). He’s had the tank to himself for over a year until just recently. He’ll grow to about 7”-9” eventually, he’s about 3” now, about twice the size as when I bought him.
He’s covered in spines/spikes. Can’t catch him with a regular net, he’ll get tangled up. Catching him isn’t hard though, he’ll eat out of your hand.
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Look at the bright side, at least the jabberwocky was been hitting the trail. Sounds like Ted likes ss koolaid.
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"brianW" wrote
Look at the bright side, at least the jabberwocky was been hitting the trail. Sounds like Ted likes ss koolaid.
I think he’s put something like 150+ miles on it! And he’s only been borrowing it for a little over a week!! Not sure if he likes it or not, hard to tell. Don’t think he likes the rigid-ness 😼
He did refer to it as the ‘archaic bone rattler’ 😆
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I’ve seen his posts on FB. I have a bit over 135 during the last 2 weeks or so. I would say 2/3 of it on the Antelope. May do a few loops at FATS tomorrow. Depends on the wind and cold.
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That’s looking pretty awesome man! Nice job! Can definitely tell you’re an engineer…
I’ve been off the bike for the past two weeks as well while up visiting family, but I’ve gotten a couple days of downhill skiing in, which has been nice!
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Damn, and I thought I was busy… Mr. cabinet maker…lol
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"mtbgreg1" wrote
That’s looking pretty awesome man! Nice job! Can definitely tell you’re an engineer…
lol…yeah. I almost didn’t sketch it up in AutoCAD, but I’m glad I did. When it was time to build I had a bill of material with everything I needed, so instead of figuring out what length/sizes everything should be in the garage I just measured, checked it, marked, and cut. Repeat as needed.
Here’s a few more pics of the fishes, my dad shot these during Christmas with his nice camera.
All three angels in this pic.
Some of the algae eaters doing their thing, constantly hurrying about the tank, a nibble here and nibble there, never staying anywhere more than a second or two.
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I must say, great job with the carpentry dgaddis, especially being your first wood project. I would recommend that you build using joints and wood glue next time around. Like dove joints, mitre joints, or lap joints instead of the butt joint you used building this cabinet. These other joints along with the wood glue build a very strong and durable cabinet, and also make very smooth joints compared to butt joints once sanded.
Anyways, excellent job brother! Hope ya get back on your steed soon, as I know how ya feel. Been off my steeds for two months to date, and at least half of 2011. BUMMER! 😕
On-On!
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Last update to this thread. Finally got the big tank set up and stocked. I’m digging it.
We did have to take Ed back to the fish store though. He started picking off our algae eaters at night. In three days he ate three of the five! And he’ll only keep getting bigger and able to eat bigger fish, so, we took him back.
And here’s big the tank. It’s offcenter on the wall so as to not block the TV when sitting in the green chair. Wife says the picture above it will change.
Close up. Nothing fake in the tank. Real wood, real plants.
End view. You can see all 6 of the angel fish in this pic.
One of the columbians. These guys are hard to get pics of because they never, EVER, sit still.
It’s got:
6 angel fish
8 Columbian tetras
2 Siamese Algae Eaters
3 Panda Cory Catfish
3 Albino Cory CatfishWe’ll add more algae eaters as the tank gets established. Other than that, it’s done. Now we just enjoy it and watch the fishes grow. 😃
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Super job, man!
I’d like to say the projects keep us young, but many times, biking keeps us young, the projects keep the wife happy, which allows us to ride…. like sanding drywall for her new kitchen:
That doesn’t keep anyone young.
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Nice job man. That cabinet looks pro.
As far as riding, I feel ya. I’ve had one ride since January 24th, which was the day I got my new bike. I was hoping to get out Saturday, which was absolutely beautiful, but got sick instead. It’s killing me. Can’t wait to get back to a two ride per week schedule, which is about all I can squeeze in these days even when everything works out as planned.
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Update on the tank.
Fish are well, great colors and growing well. Most of the plants are well, but the Jungle Vals. grass has pretty much all died off. Not enough light/nutrients I guess…didn’t totally expect them to thrive in the low light low tech setup to be honest.
Here’s an updated 3/4 tank shot.
One of my java ferns had several babies I’ve spread out to more driftwood.
The plant on the far left is an offspring, I’m hoping to have this log totall covered eventually.
Stuck another baby on top of the ‘root’
And the smallest into a small hole on the root
The blushing koi angel is the slowest grower of the bunch, it’s half the size of the others now. It’s healthy, good colors, just slow growing. Doesn’t eat as much…when the other fish are gobbling food off the surface as soon as I drop it in the koi chases the little pieces floating mid water. Hopefully it’ll stay healthy and grow up, it’s pretty.
Goldie is a beauty and looks better and better as he/she ages.
The zebra looks chrome sometimes. Bling bling!
The big silver veil, with his/her stripes about half faded. Finnage is great on this one!
Siamese twins 😃
The columbians are great little fish…they’re constanly on the move, adding lots of movement and color to the tank, and they’re like little piranah’s at feeding time, they go nuts and splash water all over the place, yet they don’t bother the angels at all.
To give you an idea of just how much they’ve grown, here’s the silver veil when we got it, body about the size of a nickel:
And here it is now, body about 2” in diameter.
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Nice tank! I’ll post some pics of my set up. Not as nice as yours. We have some of the same fish and plants though (pandas & siamese)!
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Oh I forgot, nice work on the stand!
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We actually lost all the panda cory’s not too long after setting up the tank. They just aren’t aggressive/fast enough at feeding time I think. The tetra’s and angels do a good job of catching most stuff before it makes it to the ground, and what little does get to the gravel is found quickly by the albino cory’s who are much faster than the panda’s were.
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I’m good at making saw dust. Does that count? Just asking. 😄 Later,
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