Chord Hide and Canopy of Turtle Tank Project

If you are keeping track of the Turtle Tank Project on Twitter, you will know that after the last weekend, when I fell through the ceiling, I broke a wire between the thermostat and the external air conditioning unit.  We went about two and half days without cold air.  In Miami, that means the house was up to 85 degrees and the attic was at 105 degrees.  Needless to say, the lack of refreshing air was a problem.  Even more so than the air, ,the cost to fix the air was even bigger.  It was a $700.00 mistake.  Unfortunately, this cost will have to go into the project costs.  If you are planning to attempt the same type of project, I would skip this part.  It is definitely a cost you should avoid.  So, no more attic for me at least until we forget about this last setback.  I did however work on the ground floor this past Memorial Day weekend and am making good progress on the stand and canopy.

No Wires Showing Please on My Turtle Tank

One of the problems that I had with the existing Turtle Tank is that the wires from the lights and the devices in the sump are all out on display.  Mountains of wires overflowing and hanging out the back of the stand are just coiled up in a massive mess plugged into two surge protectors.  Not providing enough space in the cabinet of the stand forced me to have the wires from the sump exit the stand as well.  When designing this stand, I wanted to have a covered gap on the left side of the aquarium that would allow wires to hang down from the canopy and plug into surge protectors mounted inside the canopy.  I started adding the extension to the stand base to provide this channel to provide cord management.  I refer to it as my cord hide.

Do You Want the Background Blue, Blue or Blue on The Turtle Tank

I mentioned in the last entry, that I thought we were going to change the color of the background.  We did change the background.  It is a darker tone of blue now.  I am still not sure what is the best color to use.  The color will always look different based on lighting in the aquarium.  I am optimistic that we will have enough lighting in the turtle tank aquarium to make this blue background stand out.

Not Can of Peas, Canopy!

I have decided to take this build slow and methodical, but it doesn’t change the fact that I would like to still have everything done in one swoop.  I chose to use glue this time vs. the last build.  While I think this is going to work fine, you need to add in drying time before you can even think about touching the project.  The canopy is going to be problematic on space.  The turtle tank has a specific lighting requirement.  I need to be able to fit two turtle specific lights over the basking center.  For now, I have the frame.  I will have to keep planning and thinking about how to fit it all in the space I have.  Leti asked that the complete stand, aquarium and canopy be the same height as the entertainment center that is just to the left of the tank.  With the taller base and the extra high aquarium, there was less room for the canopy than I originally wanted.

As The Fabulous Thunderbirds Said, “Wrap it up I’ll take it”

I got a little impatient this weekend and did a little more than I planned.  I wanted to get an idea of how I was going to wrap the turtle tank stand and canopy.  The chord hide adds a little extra degree of difficulty.  I played with some wood I got from Lowe’s, that is specifically for making furniture.  It is pretty to look at and stain-able.  Because, I wasn’t sure that this was how I need to wrap the stand, I used clamps to hold the boards in place.  So far, I think this is the way I am going to go.  Here is a sneak peek…

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