Houston we have a tank...and a problem *with updates!*

On Saturday I suggested to John that we go buy the 150 gallon fish tank, we had the money in the savings account for it but weren't planning on buying it that day since we were already up to our eye balls in tasks. I wasn’t interested in doing tasks and wanted to go look at fishes and buy our tank, which sounded a lot more fun!
It didn’t take a lot of convincing to get John to do it because I knew he wasn’t too keen on doing tasks either so off we went to The Aquarium.

I always have to meander the store in search of fish that we’re going to own so we did that for at least 45 minutes, this also involves staring at their HUGE salt water reef tank while I drool on the glass. While doing so we stumbled upon some cool, unusual pets that John said I could have some day. I’m not going to tell you what it is because I want it to be a surprise, but you’ll never guess!
After my window shopping, we finally went to the sales clerk to get the tank and pay for it, they loaded it into the truck and we were on our merry way home.

Once home and downstairs I was worried that the space we have provided for the tank was too small and told John that he should probably measure the tank before carrying it down.
That’s where the problems started. When we got the measurements for the tank 9 months ago the black banding on the top and bottom weren’t included so John didn’t figure them into the design and now we’re ¼ inch short on space. Somehow we’ll get it to work but it’ll probably involve cutting sheetrock to get it to fit. Oh well, our projects always start to worry me if they go too smoothly for too long.

Last night John and I edgebanded the black banding in cherry so that it would look more like it belonged in the cabinet and painted the back and one side of the tank black. I guess this is mostly a salt water thing, but I’m sure you could do it for fresh too. It’s just so that you don’t have to deal with the cheesy, crappy plastic backgrounds that you usually tape on and then they fall off in two weeks.

This is really similar to our tank minus all the stuff inside. The side overflow is really nice since it hides the plumbing to the sump and means we don't have to have anything hanging off the back. The black banding parts are what we edgebanded so they didn't stick out like sore thumbs.

Tonight John will build and install the upper cabinet and then his brother will help lift it into its final resting home (once we figure out how to make it fit). Too bad we still need about $1,500.00 more in parts and equipment before we can even start thinking about stocking it with fish, but hopefully we can get it all ready to go in a year (John says probably not, but I’m going to push). Hopefully I can post pictures of the tank in it's home soon.

*updates*

Like I said before, the fish tank was 1/4 inch too big because of the black banding that they didn't include in the measurement. Since the counter top is already in place we had no choice but to cut away sheetrock. That really wasn't a big deal, it was the getting it up and in that was a big deal. John had his brother come over to help lift it and once it was on the cabinet John climbed underneath the tank the help push it into the wall. I pushed the front to get it past the lip of the sheetrock and Ben pushed the side to slide it into the hole. After a few pushes and a little worry that it wasn't going to work we got it in.

More pictures to come once the upper cabinet is installed.