Hey all,

This is by no means my first saltwater aquarium. I've had many in the past. I got out of it three years ago and just got back in about six months ago. I would really like to share with all of you my 20g build and I will hopefully be updating this thread quite often.

I don't expect a whole lot of comments, but feel free to comment and add your own opinions on things. I do need help here and there on a few decisions.

I set up this tank once and then moved it into a new location. It's still in it's location now, but I'm moving it yet again to a better stand and setup. Please bear with me while I show you all of the pictures that I have on this build.

Let the fun begin!

Well, I see that this forum doesn't have it's own picture uploader, so I'm having to go upload everything to photobucket. It's going to take a while. btw, I love ya'lls emoticons!

This is the day I bought a few things for the new tank.

I built my own sump out of a 10g tank. This is just a pic of me baffling it. This was the original setup, but I changed it when I wanted to build a horizontal turf algae scrubber into it. Unfortunately, that setup didn't work.

This is a pic of the design that I had for the almost horizontal turf algae scrubber. Unfortunately, this design did not work.

This is just me marking out the baffles on the new sump design. Like I said, this didn't work.

In the process of building the verticle algae scrubber

Fully assembled

water testing

Getting the flow right.

Got it installed in the 10g.

Got my rock from reeftopia

I had to move the tank into the living room instead of the bedroom. I couldn't sleep well at night with the water going. I get to enjoy it more throughout the day in the living room too.

As you can see, I don't like a lot of cords on the ground, so I built a wooden box for all the electrical cords to fit into.

Current aquascape. Will change this weekend though!

Here's a few selected pics of the algae scrubber. Keep in mind that it is working so well in this pic when the tank was just set up because I started the tank with half conditioned tap water.

So... This is what happens when you let too much moisture into a POS pre-built stand from Pet Smart. ....
And is the reason for the next adventure... designing and building my own DIY stand with a lot more room.


This was my attempt at designing a stand. lol. as you can tell, my skills as a graphic artist are limited to the Paint program. At first, I thought I could fit in three doors. However, with a 50" wide stand, you're really just limited to two doors. The side cabinets are pretty neat to have as well, and are able to hide additional equipment.


After I flooded my carpet with 8g of saltwater twice... I decided that having a verticle algae scrubber built in a 10g sump was probably not the best way to go. So, in the upgrade, I'm going to use my current 10g sump as a scrubber only tank. I'll post the design of it once I get to that point. :D The general placement of all the equipment is about the same - with some differences.

My wife wants to get a 110g tall aquarium in the future. So, I built the stand with the dimensions of a 110g tall in mind. The top cabinets can be easily lifted off the stand and discarded.

I started out with a simple wooden frame to get things going. Nothing in particular. I wanted it all to be kind of sleek and the top frame pretty small to make room for other stuff. Then I got to thinkin' about it. lol

So, I ended up reinforcing the stand with 2/4s anyway.

Then the finish work started happening. Skinning it was pretty easy - and it's extremely level.

I tested the stain that I was going to put on it - a dark walnut stain, but the cabinet wood that I bought didn't take a stain very well and just looked bad, so my wife and I made a decision to just go ahead and paint it. So, here's the stand being primed, painted, and more finish work: