How to Build an Aquarium

Something's happened to me. Recently I've started to enjoy looking at plants swaying in the current and little colorful fish swimming around blissfully. My kids love this too. I think we caught the bug when we visited the aquariums at Sea World in San Antonio, TX. I especially like to watch plants and fish with an adult beverage in my hand in my favorite chair.

So I decided to build an aquarium that would grow live plants and set it as a semi-centerpiece for our living room. Being cheap, I didn't want to spend more than $300. Would this even be possible?

Being me, I research this like crazy before starting. Here's the steps I went through in case you want to try this yourself.

1. STEP 1: Buy aquarium
2. STEP 2: Get a stand
3. STEP 3: Get lights
4. STEP 4: Install soil
5. STEP 5: Install decorations and plumbing
6. STEP 6: Install plants
7. Cycle (in progress)
8. Project Cost

STEP 1: Buy an aquarium. You can buy fancy-schmancy aquariums made from all kinds of fancy materials and nifty shapes. I bought a glass rectangular one from a local pet store, Amazonia. It was overpriced by about $30 (that's about 30%). I should have gone to Petco and bought one of theirs.

For me, I wanted to stick to something pretty standard. So I got a 55 gallon tank that is 1 foot x 4 feet. I figured getting something with such standard dimensions would help. I was right, especially when I went to build a light fixure for it.

I cleaned it with a strong bleach mixture and got rid of all the extra silicon on the glass panes.

STEP 2: Get a stand. At the local petstore, they wanted $150 for an ugly stand that was the wrong height, not well finished, and made of 2x4s. I wanted my stand to position the tank so that my kids could stand at the aquarium and gaze straight into the center (so they can get lost looking into it). I decided to make my own.

My friend Tim loaned my his Dewalt Biscuit Joiner and life was good. I sketched the base and hood on paper and went to work. Here's the finished product drying.

I was going for the rustic furniture/unfinished look to match our other pieces in the living room. To achieve this, I used standard 2x4s from Lowes, squared them up, knocked off the sharp corners with rough sandpaper, and tried not to be a perfectionist (rustic stuff is beautifully imperfect). I did not sand it when the piece was done.

For the hood, I took a similar approach. But it is made of 5/8" pine.

I finished it with Minwax Cherry 235, an oil-based stain. Then I hand rubbed it with Minwax Finishing Wax. This gave it a nice look and feel (I pet my wood furniture...).

Here is the finished unit with the dry tank on it.

This stand cost me: $67.19

STEP 3: Get lights. I decided that I needed 160 Watts of light based upon the 2-3 Watts per gallon rule. So I went to Amazonia and they wanted $150 for a plastic hood that would supply 80 Watts. They said to get 160 Watts it would set me back about $250. "No way!" I thought. This is just a simple florescent bulb. So I went to Home Depot, but 2 fixtures for $8.99 (each) and put them into the hood.

Florescent lights don't normally give off any heat because they are so efficient. But aquarium bulbs do give off a lot of heat. And the ballasts with the $8.99 cheapies wouldn't support two 40W bulbs (it would only handle two 20W bulbs). So I bought two new ballasts and mounted them outside the hood in the back. This way, they stay nice and cool.

For bulbs, I saw the price at Amazonia was about $20 per bulb. And I need four. So I went back to Lowes and got their $9.00 40W aquarium bulbs. I prefer a more natural sunshine look but the slight orange glow is not too bad.

The whole hood cost was part of the stand cost. The bulbs cost $36.

STEP 4: Install soil. I decided to put sand-blasted gravel (#3) as the main covering. So I started with the part around the edges of the tank.

Then I bought some aquarium soil called Flourite (not the mineral) at a local pet store. I put it in the tank around the gravel.

Next I covered over the soil with the decorative gravel.

STEP 5: Install decorations. I bought some nice-looking rock near work and decided to boil it.

I did this to kill any extra critters. Plus I thought it would be fun to try to convince Alex (now 3-1/2 years old) that we were having rocks for dinner and I was boiling them to soften them up.

Then I placed them in the tank.

Here's how it looked with the decorations in.

next I put some water in. I added the water slowly using a syphon so as to not disturb the gravel.

The water was a little cloudy for a few days. But I planned to let the water stand for 3 days before planting so that it would have a chance to clear.

Now the tank had about six inches of water in it.

Next came the plumbing. I decided on the Eheim 2313 Classic filter. I chose this one because

1. it fits in the cabinet under the tank
2. it is completely silent - forever
3. it needs changing about every six months
4. I could hide all tubes from curious little fingers
5. it will change a 55 gal tank in about 1 hour. This is good for the plants.
6. it is considered the premier filter for beginners and is said to run for 20 years

Now, this pretty-boy filter cost me $80 on Amazon.com. It goes for about $120 in local stores.

I also purchased a CO2 system. The idea behind this is that plants need CO2 and light to carry on photosynthesis. So adding CO2 to the water seems like a good idea. But unfortunately, too much CO2 is poisonous for fish. But I decided I'd rather the plants live than the fish, so there you go. I got a yeast/fermentation plant (recall that fermentation gives off CO2 as a by-product). Since CO2 doesn't easily disolve in water (without cafeine), I got a little reactor. This little job works by keeping the CO2 bubble in contact with the water for as long as possible by making it travel a long path.

I installed all this plumbing and hid it conventiently in the corner. Here's the layout.

Here's the tank with the plumbing on the right side. I hid it pretty well behind that big-ol' rock.

STEP 6: Install plants. Now it was time to plant. I bought the "Descriptive Plant Package(40-75 Gallons!)" kit from www.freshwateraquariumplants.com. The owner made a mistake and misquoted the send day of the order and I was pretty disappointed (was looking forward to a weekend planting without the kids). But he talked with me and made good on the mistake. Plus the plants were great. I highly recommend buying from him. His package includes a description of how to plant each plant, how to care for each, and a layout suggestion. I had a great time planting. It was almost as fun as planting outside. See my tutorial on landscaping.

Here's the final aquarium, with a few starter fish in it.

Here's how it looks in my living room. Notice how there are no wires or things for little people to mess with. Only things for big people to mess with.

Here are some of the plants and my arrangements.

Project Cost

So how much did this thing cost me?

wood	$57.71
light diffuser	$4.48
light bulbs	$39.15
ballasts	$49.75
glass tank	$100.00
Eheim filter	$75.76
CO2 plant and reactor	$30.00
Soil (flourite)	$43.30
Water test kit	$32.46
Silicon sealer for light hood	$3.56
Rock decorations	$13.53
Submersible heater	$35.71
Decorative wallpaper background	$12.99
Plants	$79.93
Total	$578.34

So I guess I couldn't do it with $300 after all.