My new DIY tank design

I am a bartender at the Bellagio in Las Vegas and I think your idea is absolutely brilliant! I would not be surprised to see your bar in one of these casinos. Heck... I might even use your idea when I open my bar! I say you go with your plan. I am sure you could come up with any combination of remedies to combat spilt alcohol and such. Besides, my experience with bars in houses is that they are merely used for a location to store and pour concotions.. rather than a spot to sit and congregate. Any stools at your bar would only damper the view of your beautiful tank and rarely be used anyway. My 100 gal is not under a bar, yet we are always posted up on pillows trying to closely view all of the life.

 

Great idea indeed, I wish I had the room to do something like that in my house. I personaly like the arched entrance and I would definitely not place any bar stools in front of it either. I wouldnt want to block the view of it or have some idiot hit the tank accidently. Keep us posted, with pics of course. Good luck.



Luna

 

Thanks for all the great comments. And yes I have a few ideas to keep the alcohol out of the tank because that is a big concern. Defenetly wouldnt want my fish to become drunks. Lol. For the back panel I will be using a 1/4" sheet of wood that will be held on by magnets. It will be a little long and the top will be slotted so it slides up into the top. I will also install a small rubber gasket in the slot to make it practicly air tight. The top will be hinged to fold forward for easier access. I will install and seal a large gasket along the entire inner edge so when I lift the hood the gasket will have enough play to keep the seal when the edges are seperated. So any stray drops could be stopped before it reaches the tank. Also I will be using a crown molding border around the top. The border will go slightly higher than the top of the bar so it could also keep the booze from running down the front or the back of the tank. This bar will mostly be for asthetics since my garage is the main party room. My garage is carpeted with a 6' oak bar, 6x 4' black lights, strobe light, beer pong table, kegerator, and jager machine. lol Now that I am older we don't really party much just have a few friends over every once in awhile for some beer pong and whiskey. lol I wouldnt dare put bar stools in front of it. Thats just asking for trouble and block the view of my reef. I also know that since this tank is going to be sealed up pretty tight I am going to haft to make plans for a chiller as well. I would like to find a low profile one that I could fit directly under the tank.

Surfnthreef- We will defenetly haft to meet up the next time I am in Vegas, I will give you the blue prints for my tank. The only problem with having the aquarium bar in a commercial bar is that it isnt supper funtional. No place for the sink and the counter top will probably get pretty warm. Plus you won't have the room to waste on a decent sump/refugium. Unless you have a bacement and could run all the plumbing to the sump down there. But I wouldn't use glass then. I would probably use like 1/2" plexyglass. Other wise I see a bar fight breaking out, someone throwing a chair and good by tank. The untimate fish bar would have a clear top so you could see the fish from above. But then you wouldnt have any way to install the lights.

 

looks like it would be a neat project, can't wait to see what you do with the tank once all of the building is done

 

Hmm, slotting the wood that will be holding the glass??

If I am following you correctly, I would probably not slot the wood that will hold the glass. Unless you are going to try like what acrosteve did on fingerlakes (his thread is on RC as well) I would just silicone it onto the flat inside of the tank front.

 

i will haft to check that thread out. thanks. but i get what you are thinking. if i slot the wood say in the center of the 2x4 then i only get that one inch of support to hold all the water in. the slots could defenetly weeken the integrity of the tank. thanks for the heads up. i will check out that thread when i get home and see what i can come up with

 

You are always invited to my place. . . . . .besides, I could always use someone as bright as you to help design my custom sump >>L O L >>

I work with many of the best bartenders in the nation and they all agree with me - - - - jealous to not have the same bar set up in our house!

 

i gotta say that this is a very lovely idea! cant wait to see some progress on it

 

Hahaha, thanks surfn. I will hit you up when i roll to vegas. If you need a design for a sump, post the dimentions of your tank and your stand. Including the opening to your stand. The hard part about adding a sump is makeing one as big as possible and still being able to fit it into the door way to your stand.

I did some new drawings and planned out the size of every piece of wood. I was goiing to post them now but of course photobucket is under going maintenance. So I will post the new drawings tomarro.

 

Stand is a bit over kill but I dont want this bad boy to be sturdy