another week have gone by so we get
another week of updates to do in the
aquarium gallery it's going to take me a
lot longer than I thought to take care
of all those gravel and put the planters
in so in the meantime I installed some
temporary stairs so it's easier to get
in and out of the building without
having to jump up
the 375 gallon aquarium stand has been basically
completed all I did was wrap this in
plywood and painted black the same color
as the 2000 gallon aquarium I've shown
you guys how to build these stands time
and time again nothing has changed the
only thing that I haven't done yet
is figure out what I want to do for
doors you see I left these panels here
just kind of sitting here until I figure
out what I want to do I want to do doors
or do I want to do panels that can come
completely off I'm not sure yet but I
got plenty of time to decide the office
area is complete we have the platform
with its flooring installed my desk is
out here my little chair we have some
shelving the monitors installed as well
as a little bit of storage up top which
is going to be really important out here
to keep everything nice and tidy so it's
always clean looking what I really like
about this platform is that it's
connected to the 375 gallon tank making
it look like one unit and for those that
have been following along I painted the
2000 gallon aquarium all black which I
think looks really good and it's going
to serve as a temporary cover until we
figure out what we want to do it to do
with this long term the inside of the
aquarium isn't completed yet but
something did arrive the epoxy again you
guys know I love using pond shield by
pond armor it's easy to mix up easy to
apply and offers a really nice epoxy
coating there's a bit of a few things I
have to do first you see it hasn't been
a full month for the 2,000 gallon
concrete to cure yet but next week late
next week it will be 28 or 30 days and
at that point what I'm going to do is
mix some muriatic acid with some water
in this tiny little handheld pump I pump
this up it builds up pressure in the
bottle and then it can spray I'll mix it
to a ratio of 1 to 3 what this is going
to do is dissolve all of the calcium
build up that's been pushed through the
concrete and this is fairly important
not just to remove it but simply because
it gives the the epoxy
little bit better surface to adhere to
but more importantly if I don't remove
it and I epoxy it too soon all of those
calcium pushing through the concrete
will potentially push up that epoxy
ruining the coating so it's definitely
an important step to this build and we
can't avoid it
the downside is is that we simply have
to wait until the cement is cured or the
concrete is cured apply that muriatic
acid and rinse it off most likely wait a
day for it to completely dry and then we
can move on to the epoxy I also ended up
building the platform behind the two
thousand gallon aquarium we all thought
that was a good idea so I went ahead and
did it
also had to add my details to above the
aquariums above the two thousand as well
as above the 375 this one is the DIY or
king of DIY decal that a lot of you guys
might be familiar with
once the 375 is in place it will stand
about two feet tall it'll still be
visible but it's that one that I know a
lot of you guys are going to like this
is the DIY fish keeper logo the one I
wear on my shirt also when I'm up on
this platform here you can see it's a
little bit about thigh level and gives
me a really good perspective of below
and I can work in and around the tank
clearly I can step on it but or sit on
it or you know walk around it to get to
the other side as I'm scrubbing it or
cleaning it or you know whatever I need
to do personally I'll probably use this
to just kind of admire the fish from
above because at the end of the day as
one of the perks to building a a tall
tank that sits on the floor I also want
to cover a quick question a lot of
people or at least a few people are
saying I want to see the step-by-step
tutorial of some of these builds and I
can tell you those things are coming but
for example on the cement tank
I mean it's being done in probably
twelve steps I'm not going to make 12
individual videos for one tank what I am
doing is waiting till it's completely
finished so I can give you a video from
start to finish and a complete
step-by-step now I know a lot of you
probably would never build something
like this but it would definitely be
interesting to see you also might notice
that there's now a runner that runs the
length of the entire gallery and I
thought this adds a cut or a little bit
of comfort to the room and sort of
finishes it all
instead of you know giving it just a
cement base now you might be wondering
carpets a bad idea in a place like this
but this is like an outdoor mat or has
rubber on the underneath and it's
completely waterproof I can clean it
wash it whenever I want and I think
that's it for now no you guys want to
see the final scaping to the $2,000 tank
if you guys watched my live stream on
here on YouTube the other day I did a
live scaping and you know figuring out
all of the wood and I showed you each
individual piece okay I'm not going to
show that today but if you want to see
each individual piece that I got it's in
that live stream one of the plans was to
take that wood and line the entire
aquarium I ended up not liking it it was
just too much it didn't look very good
so I thought what are some things that I
do want out of this well I want a state
that doesn't touch much of the floor
only a few key points to hold the
structure up reason being is the
freshwater stingrays that are going to
come in here I want them to be able to
swim everywhere without taking up a lot
of the real estate on the bottom it
looks like this is taking up a lot of
room but again it's only touching in
about four different spaces maybe four
square inches of space taken up in total
second thing I was concerned about was
what about the arowana I want to leave
lots of large open swimming spaces and
allow him to swim around the entire
structure you know so that's basically
what I was aiming for was to move the
structure to the center of the tank
almost allowing lots of room to swim
above and around it now the Asian
Arowana spend about 90% of its life at
the top twenty five twenty percent of
the water column so I have all of this
open room everywhere and the only places
that's kind of going to get in his way
it's just this spot here this will be
submerged in water and some of this will
be above water so I'm not taking up a
lot of his real estate either now I've
mentioned time and time again about
having decorations with Asian Arowana
and the dangers that are presented with
doing so meaning that the Arowana could
get spooked and bang into the
decorations injuring itself potentially
causing some secondary effects
in the end it's just not good for big
fish however that's in aquariums that
are a lot smaller you see in my 375
gallon tank in the house that tank is
too small to have the fish and
decorations and decorations in a narrow
water tank aren't actually needed they
don't hide they don't need it for
security they don't do they're an open
water fish for the most part but in a
much larger aquarium like this one with
much more room to move around and if you
get scared or you know jumps or dashes
into something chances of that happening
are much much much less okay let's take
a closer look at the structure here so
I'm using three individual pieces you
might even be able to tell them
distinctly this here is a piece and it
kind of goes to the back there this is
another piece here and then the smaller
piece they are kind of rounding it off I
gave it a kind of an angled look where
it's not flat in the back it's also able
to there's not going to be any dead
spots or places where any detritus or
anything can collect the fish can get in
behind it and do whatever they want back
there ultimately though what we have to
remember and what I'm showing you right
now is just a basic structure but what
we have to remember is the fact that I
want to cover this entire structure of
wood with lush plants I want this to
truly be a beautiful centerpiece so
that's the plan so if you can imagine
that now for those that don't know what
type of wood this is this is actually
called Malaysian bog wood it's a bog
wood from Malaysia clearly as its name
suggests meaning that it's been
submerged for many many many years
making it an extremely dense material
but because it's been submerged for so
long it soaked up so many tannins and it
releases a lot of tannins once it gets
in the water but not forever the biggest
benefit is that it sinks
immediately unlike if I go and collect
it locally on weight zero five to twenty
five years if ever
four pieces this big to actually sink
now as is is just set up to see what
it's going to look like I'll have to
remember what
is that all set up with like because I
really like it and I'm going to make
sure that I do exactly this when it's
time to put it in the tank
however I do have to take it out of
course to treat the tank and epoxy it
and install the window panels but it
needs to be pressure washed because it's
quite dirty and I want to remove a lot
of a debris as well as soften up some of
the sharp edges that might be too sharp
for the fish to injure themselves on but
one of the things that I really like
about this would come here is that it
has so much character if you look really
closely at it you can see so many little
nooks and crannies for me to be able to
install plants on and and have them root
very really nicely but again if we look
under it the Rays will be able to swim
under this no problem again there's no
real contact points that's you know
taking up much real estate and in my
opinion this is probably one of the best
setups that I've done in comparison to
what I did on the live stream live
stream was really difficult cuz I I
wanted to put all the wood in here all
seven pieces but I'm only using three
again I think this looks pretty good
I'd love to know what you guys think
perhaps it doesn't look as good on
camera as it does in person but I'm
absolutely loving it again let me know
what you guys think or what you think I
should do so that's pretty much it for
today guys I know that though it's a lot
of little things happening but it's
truly everything out here is really
coming together and I'm really excited
and I'd love to thank you guys for
sticking around and coming along with me
every step of the way I do plan to do
more live videos here on YouTube so make
sure you stay tuned for that as well
until then thanks for watching guys and
I will see you next Sunday