RestlessCrow

Ok.... so I haven't gotten to this point yet... The Nuts and bolts of it all.

What I've got now:

(Now, mind you, all of this came with the tank except for the background I made)

One 85 gal tank with new background in the garage filled with water to leach the lime out.
One Fluval 205 Cannister filter
One FLuval 405 Cannister filter.
One "Stealth" heater that upon first testing, released a stream of bubbles for a minute and then crapped out.
Two aquarium hoods with 18" fluorescent lights. The tank has a brace in the middle that is a plate of glass approx. 12"x18", and the hoods sit in the two openings on either side of it. The hoods do not reach all the way from front to back.
One unknown ballast screwed into the inside of the pine cabinet.
One EXTREMELY patient and supporting girlfriend.

So here's where my questions start:

I was considering wiring the inside of the cabinet and possibly building shelves in there. My thoughts were to run one wire out to the outlet, and then run it in, and to two switches controlling different outlets. One would be for the lighting, and timers and all stuff like that (heater, etc...) and the other circuit if you will would be for the filtration so I could just flip a switch and shut it down for maintenance. Has anyone done something like this? Do you think I would be better off using a few power strips to accomplish this instead?

Now from all the reading I have done.... I can assume that these lights are going to be totally inadequate for plants. SO..... The tank is five foot long. In all my reading I've heard about T5, T8... Now instead of paying through the nose at LFS for an "aquarium" light fixture... can I go to the local Lowes or Dome Heapo and get a 4' Fluorescent light fixture and then build it into a custom cabinet? I don't know what to look for if I go that route. (I'm assuming the specs will be on the box somewhere.) I just recently purchased a 4' twin fluorescent fixture to use over my workbench, and I think I paid under twelve bucks for it.

With some sort of light fixture over it.... I'm assuming that I'll need to cover the two openings in the tank with glass to prevent splashing on the lights and escapees. I'm comfortable with cutting (controlled breaking) of glass, drilling glass, and acutally cutting (with a diamond saw blade), so I was envisioning a hood that has the front flip up, and then having a hinged piece of glass lift up for feeding, maintenance, etc... I could drill the glass and bolt in Stainless steel hinges or something like that. (would only take me five minutes...)

My thoughts..... are to do a Walstead style setup. 3/8" Pea gravel around the outside to contain substrate, topsoil, and the washed sand topping that seems to be working so well in my little temporary tank. The sand is very coarse, due to the base rock it was weathered from, containing a lot of quartz and silica. My area of North Jersey was a huge iron mining area during the revolutionary war and I have a minimum of five iron mines within three miles of my house, so I know there's a good amount of iron in it. The way I wash it leaves me with almost pebbles, much coarser than "sand"...

I am going to use that piece of wood, but boiling it is totally out of the question. It just barely fits in a rubbermaid 100gal stock tank.

I've got plenty of time on my hands because of two things:

I have to leach the concrete out yet and I know that that is going to take some time.

We've painted the room in varying shades of brown, and the carped is this awful pastel yellow kind of color. I am NOT going to set the tank up until we get the new carpet in for obvious reasons. It's going to be a while before we save up for the carpet too.... giving me even MORE time to DO THIS RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.

So.... I'm throwing it all out there.... I'm not looking for a fancy CO2 setup or anything like that... and that's what I have to work with, along with a willingness to make/build anything that I need to. Not quite a "Hillbilly, knock the supporting wall out and bring in an I beam" project, but big enough to keep me busy for quite some time....

Looking forward to your comments. Crow.