I'm starting my tank building thread. I am going to fill with FW today and then add my salt and get my heater and pumps going. Hopefully by sunday I'll add my LR! I will for sure get some pictures up this afternoon. I enjoyed the process of using the eggcrate to make my reef structure. I am using a combined aquafuge/bakpak forskimmer and fuge. I have a 96W powerquad for light, and I have two MJ 1200's for circulation (one with a hydor flo...may be getting another one of those). What have you guys kept under a PowerQuad light? I am thinking of doing lots of soft corals (zoos, polyps, xenia, and maybe a leather or two) in the lower level, and some frogspawn, candy cane, and maybe a few other LPS, and SPS frags in the higher level. I think I can work it out with the two hydor flo's that there won't be too much flow for the softies lower. I'll see how it works out.
I'll get the pictures later,
Jeepjon
Here's the tank started up with water added. I am adding my heater tonight, and going to make it SW too...and then I'll be getting my couple small pieces of LR on sunday to add. And THEN! ! !...I WAIT! ! ! OH BOY! ! !
Sorry the picture is a little foggy...the sand apparently wasn't rinsed as well as I thought. Basically the left and right aquascaping is done...as is the "tower" in the center. My eggcrate tables are going to be where my actual LR will be, with those smaller pieces hiding everyhing. Hope you enjoy!
Usually I don't clean my sides...I try to get the Corraline to grow there...or corals...or something! ! ! I won't be able to clean the actual glass behind the rocks, though. I'm going to have a cover over three sides of the outside...so the glass cleaning won't be a problem.
Thanks for sharing...I'd be interested in a "check in" in a couple months. I've wanted to 'scape my sides but every time I try, I reduce flow and get cyano and such there. Let me know if the egg crate helps with that.
Well guys...I'll keep updating, but I'm not a 15 gallon anymore. I'm now a 10 gallon. The aquascape really didn't look good in person, so I decided to go with the typical tank shape. I really had a hard time making it look right. I think tall tanks are left to the cube shape!
So...the tank looks better now, I think. Water still cloudy from the sand mixing up. I'll take some pictures as soon as the tank is clear.
I also found a hitchiker! A little crab (looks like a shame-faced, maybe box crab). Hopefully he'll come out of the whelk shell he's in (I have him in a measuring cup). I would love to put him back in, because frankly I hate killing things...but I figure it might be trouble in the future.
Great job Jeepjon! Look forward to the update pictures!
Yeah, plastic ties are great! For awhile, I had a pvc tubing stand in my tank with holes along the length of it. I was able to tie rocks to the tubing and create a pillar in the middle of the tank. It was kind of cool. I ended up taking it down though, because I felt that I wasn't leaving enough room for corals to grow...got too into the design of rockscape! :-)
Yeah, that was another problem with the original aquascape (after i added seeding rock)...there was just a bunch of rocks in the tank with no room for corals...and especially not once they grew out!
-Jeepjon
Alright...running into some problems with the 10 gallon. The back glass was bowing about a quarter of an inch with the weight of the skimmer/fuge combo. Hopefully I can figure out a solution. I have the skimfuge (new word!) supported from the wall right now to take the stress off of the tank. Here's an image of my "problem" filter.
crab looks like it might be a decorator crab, but im not an expert on these. i would look up some images and see if that looks right. if it is, they are not bad guys.
as far as the fuge, try building a stand with some wood, to support its weight from the bottom, nothing fancy, just something to hold it up
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Yeah...I have about 3.5" on the back of the stand that I could build up from...just put some spacer 4*4 pieces cut to length maybe. I just don't want to crack my tank...not when I have the aquascape done so nicely!
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