72 Gal Bowfront Build

[Menace2Sobriety]

Reserving my parking space here for my build. 36 hrs of leak testing went flawlessly so I'm preparing to start. Leak testing is NOT complete but I'm confident enough that I'll start on the stick frame! I can always buy a 100 gal rectangle as mine being a bowfront is 48" long like SO MANY OTHER retangle tanks in the 90-100 gal range.

At the moment I'm scouring farm supply stores for plumbing/bulkheads. Reading... and waiting for AT LEAST 1 nice day when I'm off work so I can hit the lumber yard and start cutting!

My tank is a bowfront. The base of the stand will be rectangular. The tank will sit on a "naturally curved" piece of "live edge lumber" similar to the first pic. The hood will also follow the curvature of the tank.


There'll be lots of practical and "mood" lighting LEDs built into and around the stand (I don't have a fish room and need to be able to mix salt beside the stand in the evenings and such so I'll have some lighting there). etc.

Here's a PHOTOSHOP MOCK-UP of what I'm going for.


This thread will get bumped with each new breakthrough in construction!


*Problems* - Tank has a 1 3/4" hole drilled in bottom and a 1 1/2" hole drilled in bottom (Back corner drilled tank). Do I use BOTH as drains (one as emergency drain with slightly higher pipe) and bring my returns in over the top rear center edge of the tank? Or use the larger as a drain and smaller as return?

Menace