Organization. Where do you hide everything?

[6Speed]

This has been something I haven't seen posted about, but it's something I think is very imporant in the overall look of the aquarium.

Recently I visted a friends house who had a very nice 125, with everything hidden. It was so much nicer looking than my poor 65.

Mine has wires going everywhere, and a small maze of plumbing, behind it. I think this could have been avoided had I bought a reef ready tank, well...at least the maze of plumbing could have been lessened. This also would have allowed me to push the tank up against the wall, and hide the wires better. As it stands, anyone can easily see behind the tank (5" off wall), and take a gander at a "science project," as my friend calls it.

The second part of organization that I am thinking about, and wonder how everyone on here has taken care of, is all the "stuff" that goes along with an aquarium. We have all sorts of supplies, from supplements, foods, nets, buckets, salt, etc...the list goes on forever.

Currently I live in a fairly small apt., with a roomate. I don't have a lot of closet space, or a garage. It kind of sucks b/c I have nowhere to store three or four 5 gallon buckets. Right now sitting next to my aquarium are two 2.5 gallon buckets, a 5 gallon bucket, and 2 small kitchen trashcans. It looks so messy, and I want to figure out a way to consolidate so I can start hiding some of this mess.

However, it is hard to know what to get rid of, and what I will for sure need in the future. For instance, I bought a lot of vinyl tubing of different sizes when I was building my sump. I have lots of odd lengths leftover after cutting. I think many people would have trashed the scraps, but I ended up keeping most of them. As luck would have it, I actually need to use several of them from time to time, for everything from draining the tank, to pumping water back in from a trashcan.

So I guess my main question overall is, how do you hide all the extra stuff that comes along with aquariums, and how do you tidy up the wires and ugly plumbing that can be seen between the tank/wall??

If you have pics, I would love to see them. :)

[SeanT]

Originally posted by 6Speed
So I guess my main question overall is, how do you hide all the extra stuff that comes along with aquariums, and how do you tidy up the wires and ugly plumbing that can be seen between the tank/wall??

All the stuff?
I don't and my wife hates it.
Wires and such can be bundled with zip ties or twist ties.
As for the plumbing, either paint your back wall or put some laminate on it.

Sean

[6Speed]

Originally posted by SeanT
All the stuff?
I don't and my wife hates it.
Wires and such can be bundled with zip ties or twist ties.
As for the plumbing, either paint your back wall or put some laminate on it.

Sean

So all the buckets used for water changes, supplements, foods, etc, are all sitting out in the open?

I would zip tie my wires that go to powerheads and such, but I find that I have to move them around from time to time, for various reasons. I wouldn't want them to be tied down to one place. I guess it's pretty simple to cut the ziptie, though.

The back wall of my aquarium is covered in the dark blue poster stuff that you can buy from the LFS. What I was saying is that you can see everything from the side, since the tank is sitting about 5" off the wall.

I am thinking I could build some kind of add-on to my stand that fills the gap between the tank and the wall. That would solve half my problem, but I still have to find a way to consolidate all of the buckets, trashcans, and various other large items that are needed to maintain a SW setup.

Most people keep all that stuff in their garage. I am trying to figure out a way to build some large wooden boxes that are stained to match my stand (same height as stand also). I could sit one on each side of the stand, and that would allow me to hide 1 trashcan on each side. With a top on them, they could look nice, I think, and maybe even blend in fairly well with the stand...

[6Speed]

Nobody else? :)