Rick's 58g In-Wall African Cichlid Tank
This tank was also
made for me by Midwest Custom Aquariums.
Their workmanship is superb and the
tank was delivered exactly as designed. I had it custom made since no
production tank offered the dimensions I needed (40"x14"x24")
nor the flexibility of an acrylic design. The
tank was built as wide as the wall would allow. Although more depth was
available, I stopped at 14" so
the whole thing would only protrude 9.5"
into the closet. This was important since not
only do I still need the closet for storage, but I had to be able to access the
additional storage underneath the stairs behind it as well.
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So as not
to add any additional depth and waste space inside the tank,
I had the overflow built outside the tank in dead space between the tank and the
end of the wall. The left side of the tank (looking at it from behind) is
actually the wall for the overflow. 
Fingers were placed at top of the left side of the tank, just like a normal
overflow and the box was installed outside. Mid and lower level draw holes were
also included as part of the overflow design.
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3D rock background was installed
along the back and sides of the tank. Having the rock on all 3 sides not only
looks great, but makes maintenance easier since the only surface
I
have to really worry about keeping cleaning now is the front. Fingers and holes
were carved into the background to line up with the overflow, making the drains
invisible. The overflow box was kept tall, not only due to the design of the
mid and lower level draw, but for placement of my heater and various other
probes.
Gaps
in the corners of the background were filled with Nursery Pro Waterfall Foam by
Aquascape Designs. You can see some of it in the picture before it dried. Once
it did, I was able to trim it and texture it to match the background with my
dremel.
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The
sump is a slim-line model that I purchased from a builder on ebay. It's
only 8" wide which was important since I wanted nothing to protrude beyon
d
the 9.5" depth of the tank/stand. It has a simple, slide out tray with
guides...replacing a pad takes seconds. The tray is deep enough to hold
standard white/blue bond filter padding and a second pad underneath such as
a PURA filtration pad or 50/100 micron polishing pad.
The sump area has an (optional) lid and was made more accessible by mounting
the MagDrive pump externally. It's a great spot for just about anything
else, including additional chemical filtration or even floating a fish. The
bio-tower is loaded with chunks off cellpore bio-media that I chopped up and
drilled little holes into. They kind of look like mini lava rocks and are
capable of supporting a large bio-load. Underneath that is a cellpore
Bio-Slab that I trimmed down a bit to fit the sump.
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Lighting is a 30" twin-tube All-Glass fixture with upgraded a Coralife 10k
bulb and a Coralife Actinic,
both with built-in reflectors. This fixture had plenty of extra space on the
sides for CurrentUSA white lunar led modules and with a little work, a third
in the middle.
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The
small airpump/stone is for purely aesthetic reasons. The stone is mounted
so that the bubbles flow through all the holes of the holey rock located in
the middle
of the tank.
It's
right underneath a moonlight as well, creating a column of white bubbles at
night. The bubbles flowing past the moonlights creates interesting effects
on the rocks too.
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monitored
with a digital meter that also displays temperature. It has an LED
display so it can be easily read without having to put a light on in the
closet.