Our weekend project.

Got a 38 gallon fish tank from a friend who didn't want it because it was really dirty and had tons of hard water stains.  Of course, I took it without hesitation.  My husband put in some elbow grease and did a spectacular job cleaning it up.  Took him about an hour.  It has a few scratch marks, but for the most part, it looks good.  The main reason I wanted it was because I have an 8 gallon round tank with one goldfish that really got too big for it.  I've really felt bad and hated seeing him swin in circles all day. Well, after cleaning it and testing for leaks, we put him in, and he is in fishy heaven.

We spend the day looking for tank covers and found them to be really quite expensive.  So we headed over to good ol' Menards.  "Save big money at Menards"....yes we did.  The price of most of the covers that we found, without a light, were around $50, plus add another $40 or so for the light.  Well, we decided to make the cover out of window screen.  We purchased an aluminum screen fabric and the metal base, and cut it to size.  Less than $10 there.  Then we went over to the light fixtures and got some bulb sockets which we connected to....what else....a plastic gutter splash guide.  I personally think this was genius.  My husband is a master at creating gadgets.  He's my MacGyver.  This only cost us about $8.  After that we went over to the gravel and found some river pebbles.   Purchasing those at a pet store would have been about $20+...at Menards, we bought the bag of river pebbles for $2.89 for a bag that covers 3 square feet.  We had more than enough for the tank and I have plenty for my plants.  Woohoo.  It sure does pay to shop around.  Now that left me with money to buy fishy companions for my lonely fish.  I might even be able to buy my birdy a friend too. Lol.

Putting the sreen together.

Here's Dad doing his thing. 

Here's our gutter light fixture.  It works great!

I'm loving my tank.  Water therapy.  It is so relaxing to watch the fish swim around and listen to the sound of the water. <3

Tada!! Finished product.