Well, the cabinet is finished and the tank is now installed with gravel,
plants and water - no fish yet....

For those not aware (new readers) I recently purchased a 72" long, 18"
deep and 24" high tank to replace one of my 4 foot tanks (replace she
says...hmmm we will see).

Hubby built the cabinet himself over a few weekends. The only thing
remaining is to decide on lighting(apart from lights which really depend
on whether we build a hood and go florescent or decide to suspend lights
above). The room that the tank is in has excessive natural light (it is
a Conservatory with a glass roof) so I'm not too concerned short term
although it would be nice to see the fish after dark (when they get in
there).

I bought a Fluval FX5 for filtration and must say I am very pleased with
it to date. A few niggles like the hose not being long enough for a tank
this size but otherwise working pretty much as described. Noise wise it
is a lot quieter than the other Fluval canisters that I have. The
startup went like a dream - it was so good not to have to do the manual
priming...it also automatically expels any air in there as part of the
start up process. So, yep, a nice piece of kit I think - time will tell.
We chickened out of using the "water change" capability on the basis
that it was just as quick to stuff the hosepipe in the tank rather than
mess with the attachments for it's first fill...I will probably look
into this feature in more depth once I start having to do the water
changes with a bucket (lol)

The next stage is to equalize the water between the two tanks (the old
one is a 47.5gall). So right now I'm on daily water changes on the old
tank and topping it up with a combination of water from the new one and
tap water. I plan to do this for most of the week and then move the fish
next weekend....hmmm, it will be fun trying to catch them....

Once the fish move the contents of the old 404 filter will go into the
FX5. I might possibly leave the internal Fluval 4 Plus in the old tank
and use it as a QT tank for any new purchases short-term. The old 404 is
earmarked for my Malawi tank...

Lots of shopping to do but looking OK so far...

Gill