Charlie

Forrest, In all seriousness, save up, get lessons and buy a gun. Seriously. There are way too many weirdos out there. That said, I'm glad that you got a new bulkhead. For less than $20, you avoided what could have been a major problem.

Those are pretty insightful questions from 5 and 6 year olds. I think that it shows that they are thinking about new surroundings.

Rob, I read your comment and agreed with it. Unfortunately, we can't get voice inflection by typing in a forum. It seems that ArmyMedic is getting frustrated. Many times the LFS isn't clear on how long the initial cycle is going to take and if a person has been into FW, 4 weeks of watching an empty tank can seem like an eternity. I think that I ended up waiting a little longer than that, but I'm patient (with some things). many of us have bee in the hobby long enough that we either accept that the initial cycle can take a long time (and that length of time is NOT written in stone) or we have forgotten what it's like to hear for a month, "Where are the fish?" or even worse, "Where's Nemo?". But I digress... ArmyMedic, from what you've described, I have to agree with many of the other posts. What you're doing seems to be on schedule (if there is such a thing). For the next couple of weeks, watch TV, rent some movies, go to the bar, enjoy time with friends, etc. Setting up a SW tank is a little like baking. Once the cake is in the oven, don't mess with it! Just let it do its thing and it'll be fine.

Isn't that why God invented beer?

When I worked in HVAC, we would just spit on our finger and run it along where we caulked. It left a nice professional concave finish. I had a helper that asked what you do when your finger has too much on it (after wiping it off with a rag), I don't think that he wanted to put Silicone in his mouth. I told him that he had nine more fingers.

You can countersink metal with a hand-held drill, it's just easier with a drill press.

Chad, I'm sure that you had an erector set when you were a kid. If you're going to use all mechanical fasteners, you may want to drop the extra coin and go stainless (with stainless fasteners). You can find most of the strengths of materials on the 'net and from there fall back on your freshman physics class (or trig) for the appropriate angles. BowieReefer makes an excellent point, though, make sure that it'll fit through your door.

Usually in a heap in my living room.

I've used a table saw to cut acrylic, but I used a plywood blade just high enough for the material and ran the material through backward (keeps chipping from happening).

I'm not absolutely sure if these are reef safe (I can't get to the MSDS Sheets from work), but they definitely think that it fits your quantity requirements http://woodworker.com/epoxy-resin-quart-mssu-119-423.asp

Mark, just about any paint stripper will do the trick, although, the "non-toxic" stuff takes longer to work, then just scrape it with a putty knife. After you have everything stripped off, take it outside, and squirt it down with your hose. Let it dry. At this point, you can use ordinary Clorox to clean up streaking (just spray it on straight, then squirt it off with the hose after a few minutes). Let it dry again. Sand it. Now you can stain it. I would use Valspar's shellac based stuff or their marine grade stuff for finishing.

The "pajama" Cardinals that I have school (so what) and they're very hardy and reasonably cheap. They were the first fish I put in my tank and I wanted something screw-up proof (or at least resistant), cheap (I think that I paid $15 each) and non-aggressive. What I didn't want was to put something like damsels in then have to worry about them beating on everything to follow. The only problem that I experienced was convincing them to eat pellets rather than demanding mysis shrimp.

Generally, when I paint something, I will put on more primer than the paint because primer is usually just cheap paint anyway. I've had excellent results with this: Zinsser Primer And they should be able to color it for you, close to the color that you need. Then cover with a Gloss or Semi-gloss. I doubt that you'll need to use sanding sealer when you're done though.

Steve, one of the mistakes that people make when they're painting is not getting enough paint on their bush. If you feel your bush drag (even a little), time to get more paint on it. If you have enough paint on your bush, the paint will fill in the brush strokes. The easiest way to ensure that is to tap your brush on the side (inside!!!) of the can rather than scrape it. Remember that you shouldn't be exhausted after painting something as small as your stand and you'll be alright.

Forrest, you're half right on the crushed coral. MOST FW tanks require low pH, but for Cichlids, they need pH at around 8 (and change). You really don't need to cycle a FW tank like you do SW. One of the things about FW is most of the fish are a lot smaller, so your bio-load is less. I would go with gravel (and put the crushed coral in my sump), a small heater, an Aqua Clear HOB filter (I've never liked the air pump method for a tank and the only time that I use it is for minnows when I'm fishing). One thing that is nice about a tank that small is that your 10% change is only going to be a quart . That said, you should be able to put in a couple of tetras or some of Roni's swards and they would be happy with a few plants (real ones if you want something really cool). I think that you'll find FW much easier than SW, but it does come with it's own challenges and you use platies for algae control.