i now officially have no excuse for avoiding getting my tank up and running.

with some amazing help from my neighbor and some industrious college guys, we hauled the tank up the stairs today and plopped it on the stand.  i cleaned it up as best i could with a wet rag to get it picture ready, and had a bit of a photoshoot. (this is probably the cleanest the tank will ever be)

next on my agenda is to skin the stand.  instead of your standard stand with doors, my plan is to make the stand look like a sealed box when closed, but have the sides not permanently attached so i can remove any side at any time.  i’ve already ordered the magnets to secure the plywood to the stand, but was waiting to get the wood until i had the tank setup so i could measure exactly.  the skin will cover the base of the tank as well as the silicone.  for the back panel i’ll be using some peg board to help with ventilation and attaching stuff.

i’ve ordered my pump as well as the loc-line fittings, so hopefully soon i’ll be able to finalize my plumbing.  i’ve also ordered my profilux plus II ex controller, but mostly b/c i’ve been waiting for weeks in order to start programming against it. :]

now the fun begins.

as with all things, they have to start somewhere.

the beginning of my reef includes a freight truck and crates!

i placed the order with Acrylic & Glass Exhibits on June 26th, delivery was on September 12th, about 11 weeks later.  They said that normally an order takes 6-8 weeks to fulfill, but the starphire glass was back ordered.  once my glass came in the tank was ready in about 2 weeks.  everybody at A.G.E. was great to work with, especially Chris B.  I was able to easily contact him at any time to ask questions and get status updates. i was even able to make a change to my stand’s height just one week before it was scheduled to be built, with no problems.  overall, a fantastic experience.

peaking into the crate, i can tell that this tank was worth every penny.  honestly, this may be the only tank i’ll ever need to own.  the build quality is top notch, including the silicone work and custom overflow with cover.

the tank is still sitting in my garage, waiting on me to find some more guys to help me haul it up 3 flights of stairs.  that will be very tricky, since this thing is heavy.  i figure 4-6 people should be able to handle it, but the real hard part will be turning the tank on its side and fitting all those people in the stairwell!  time will tell…

i’ve updated my wakoopa widget wordpress plugin to account for the new badges that are offered. download the new version

now you can pick between the three image badges for top 10, recent, and new software.  i may add the other types which they offer, but some of them don’t really fit in a blog sidebar so i decided to hold off on that for now.

here is a glimpse at what the widget controls look like.