Well, some progress is better than none right?
Lately I've pretty much been working full time night shifts, often leading to me sleeping during the day, or most of it. This results in lazy me having not done much. BUT, last week, manager was nice enough to let me have a couple of days off - something about my pay blowing the budget - which was nice, and started the build, or more accurately, did some shopping - and was driving over Melbourne for the various supplies!
I have a 'stand'. If you can call it that, its mostly a sheet of wood with a couple of offcuts to prop it off the ground. I haven't put it together, but its a 5 min job - put the offcuts on the floor, put the wood on top. Done. So that is pretty much done.
Also have a couple pieces of malaysian driftwood going into the tank. One is fairly big, and will be used as a ramp of sorts going across most of the levels. The other two are mostly decoration, and have no idea where I'm putting them as of yet.
Have also put together my eggcrate background. I don't really like to use UTH - primarily for the reason that selection is terrible in Aus, and that I don't find them to work in larger tanks unless I get multiple.... - so I'm content with the back being covered. Originally I was going to have an internal 'duct work' (
like in this link) but was thinking of it being such a waste of space, and decided to turn it into a cool hiding tower instead...
You can see the original platform where the fan was going to sit, but oh well... I think they will prefer this a lot more IMO.
I decided not to extend the background all the way to the top of the vivarium, rather it stops a good couple of inches from the top since I'm not doing the 'ductwork' fan system. This is to create a ledge across the entire back - which I think they will like to use - and also for future expansion, since I plan on connecting another tank to this one which provides a good entry/exit from this tank to the other, without worrying about future placement of the tunnel being impacted by the background...
Still needing to put together the final pieces - mostly zip tie some egg crate to create further platforms - before siliconing the eggcrate to the back of the tank. After that, I'm waiting for various supplies of ebay to come in the mail - mostly 'flower pots' and glass - and you could also say a running wheel (will be tied into the 'scape'), but can always be included later... - before I being the fun adventure of foaming in the background. Both should of arrived by now, but expecting them to arrive sometime next week. In the meantime, been actively searching for inspo and tips and tricks to getting it to be perfect!
Oh yeah! a very nice LED light came in the mail for the marine pool. It's used to grow corals and such, and while I may not grow corals in this application - even though its tempting to try! haha I'm bad - it will certainly grow algae and such. Which I think would be nice for the crabs to snack on.... The marine pool is going to be around 2 - 3g in size - and roughly take up a 1/4 ish of the floor space - so hopefully will be large enough to accommodate the straws, since they noted to enjoy swimming... And I don't feel my current takeaway containers are cutting it TBH.
So to summarise:
- progress has been made - surprisingly I know
- waiting for glass and pots before I go to town with expanding foam
- ebay is fantastic but the wait for supplies comming in the mail - or getting my glass peices cut - is painful!
Great minds think alike! 
