Another small update.

I rigged this up last night to be a small sponge filter for this new tank.




Today I water tested the tank. I over filled the tank (filled it higher than the tank will be designed to hold, just in case). No leaks were found. I let the water sit in the tank for a couple hours. Mostly because I was lazy and didn't feel like siphoning nearly 10 gallons of water lol. The sponge filet pictured above is to tall for this tank, but I will use it somewhere else I am sure. I ordered a smaller sponge filter today. It will be here Tuesday.

I drained the tank. I decided last night I wanted to put live plants in the pond area. To avoid having to put soil across the whole bottom of the tank I decided to create a short wall that will be under water to help contain the soil and keep it in the pond area. I made the wall short because I want the shrimp and Picos to have access to the whole tank underneath and I am not worried about the frogs that will be in this tank. They have proven time and time again they are very good swimmers.

First I measured and cut the pieces for the wall. I realized I hadn't shown how I cut the egg crate so I took some demo pictures of the process this time using some scrap pieces.

First I measure to find out how big I want it to be. Then a move up to the next square and cut the vertical supports on the far end away from size I want it (cut it one square to big basically).



It will look like this once it is cut (This is a scrap piece and not the same piece as in the last picture). It will have the little legs sticking off down the length of the cut.



I then just break those off with my fingers. The break really easy and will snap off pretty cleanly (about as clean as if you took the time to snip them all off - I actually can get them closer to clean with my finer than I can with my cutters).



Moving on

I measured and cut the pieces for the underwater brim/wall. I measured them to be 2" tall so the water will be 2.5 inches above them.



Once I have them both cut and I am happy with how they are fitting together I secure them together with zip ties.



I then took it out and wrapped it in fiberglass screening. This was to help prevent the soil from falling through. To secure the screen I used a few zip ties. I cut the end of them to a point, this makes feeding them through the screen 1000% easier.



Here it is with both sides wrapped and zip tied.



And lastly here it is in place. I also set it up so it is underneath the top of the false bottom.



More updates to follow in the next few days.