thinking about messing around with flow

I've started experimenting with the flow setup so I get laminar flow across the entire tank. I'm aiming for a nominal flowrate of 0.5in/sec.

To aid in the experiment I planted ~100 stems across the tank so I can see how the water is moving. I'm giving them a little while to grow and establish a foothold.

I'm going to make 10 or so little acrylic panels that will be drilled and slotted in various ways. They'll act as supply/return baffles and will be removable. This will give me flexibility to experiment until I find the baffle combination I like the most.

some plants from these 20L's

Plants will be coming from these tanks. It won't be a true African tank in plant terms - I'll have a mix of anubias, some crypts, etc... in there so it looks cool.

80g tank pics

I havent made any progress since washing and filling the new tank with the flourite black. So I decided to post pictures of the last tank I made. It's 4'x2'x17". It is sitting out in front of my house after I had wetsanded and micromeshed the seams and cutouts. The seams on this tank turned out perfect. One TINY bubble in 32' of seams using 1/2" acrylic. The new tank didn't turn out as well. I expected it to be easier since it was lighter, but I spent a great deal of time with this 80g getting the glue-up work surface flat and used lots of shims under the tank. The new tank has some bubbles but that's OK. I am happy with the new tank's appearance given the time invested. This tank mattered more visually so I spent a great deal of time (and beer) sanding and polishing.

dimensions + flourite black

Overall dimensions of the tank are 49.75" long, 6" deep, and 8" tall. I didn't have any luck taking good pictures tonight so you'll have to wait.
I filled up the tank with Flourite Black substrate. I wanted black substrate against the black background to make the plants and fish really pop. I've used flourite for a long time and 'm liking this stuff a little better because of the grain size. It beats crushing bags of flourite down with a hammer.
Next up will be getting the filtration ready then I can do water and plants.

fabrication complete photo

I invested a little time during fabrication to make a template for the top cutouts. That template had the small and large cutouts for one side, I simply flipped it to the other side of the panel to complete the operation. It made the routing job very quick and easy. I made a large tank a few years ago and opted for routing against a straight edge and radius templates carefully positioned on the tank. That worked well too - but was far more time consuming.
Next up I am going to put in the substrate and plant the tank. Once that's set up then I'm going to start construction on the hood.

mid-fabrication picture

After glue-up the tank sat for 2 weeks to cure. This tank was constructed from 3/8" GP I had leftover from another project. At this thickness and vertical dimension deflection should be non-existent so I was free to really open up the top. It's almost euro-braced, but I do have the small center brace as insurance. The two small braces at the end do almost nothing structurally, but are designed to serve as attachment points for other items once setup.

solidworks tank model

Solidworks rendering of the tank design.